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VMware Aria Operations vs VMware vSphere comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
VMware Aria Operations enhances VM efficiency, reduces costs, optimizes performance, and improves infrastructure with initial investment and substantial returns.
Sentiment score
6.9
VMware vSphere reduces costs and boosts efficiency by minimizing physical servers, speeding deployment, and saving electricity and hardware.
We can say 10% is the approximate amount of savings because most of the things are automated and streamlined, so the manual work is eliminated in most cases.
Sr. Technical Architect at StarOne IT Solutions
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
VMware Aria Operations is praised for customer service but faces mixed reviews on technical support efficiency and responsiveness.
Sentiment score
6.7
VMware vSphere's customer service is friendly and available, though response times and escalation for complex issues vary.
They remain in the top 25% of vendors.
IT Solution Architect at DCS
I rate the customer service and support for VMware very highly, at nine out of ten.
Team Lead Virtualization at Hybrid Tech
I would rate technical support around eight or nine.
Owner at Micronet Systems
Priority one issues are usually addressed by engineers within one to two hours.
Server Support Engineer at CIPL - Corporate Infotech Pvt Ltd
Recently, support has been less friendly and slower, especially after the company was acquired by Broadcom.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
If we have issues, the support tends to be unreliable
Technical Assistant at EOCD
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
VMware Aria Operations is praised for its scalability, efficient resource management, and seamless integration with various VMware solutions.
Sentiment score
7.3
VMware vSphere offers exceptional scalability, flexibility, and performance, making it ideal for diverse enterprise needs and large-scale environments.
I consider VMware Aria Operations to be very scalable, earning a high rating of nine out of ten.
Team Lead Virtualization at Hybrid Tech
I find VMware Aria Operations to be quite scalable for my needs.
IT Solution Architect at DCS
Scaling is easy, whether it is hyperconverged or a three-tier architecture.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
VMware vSphere is highly scalable in terms of the number of users and the number of servers it can handle.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
It is a highly scalable solution.
Technical Assistant at EOCD
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
VMware Aria Operations is reliable and stable, with minor issues occasionally arising, often linked to improper setup.
Sentiment score
7.9
VMware vSphere is stable and reliable, with minimal crashes, responsive support, and effectively manages updates with improved stability.
The solution is not very stable.
IT Solution Architect at DCS
I have never experienced any downtime or lost connectivity.
Senior System Network Analyst at Net spa
I find the stability of VMware Aria Operations to be impressive, rated as a stable nine out of ten.
Team Lead Virtualization at Hybrid Tech
It is a very stable hypervisor solution.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
While they are generally stable, if outages occur, they tend to be due to brands like HP or Dell, not VMware vSphere itself.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
Mostly we don't have issues, but sometimes we have faced some stability issues because of some bugs and some CPU compatibility issues with Intel CPUs.
IT Director at Def Industry
 

Room For Improvement

VMware Aria Operations faces user interface complexity, integration issues, high costs, steep learning curve, and needs better documentation.
VMware vSphere's costly, complex interface faces stability and integration issues, with inadequate documentation and reliance on Flash problematic.
Stability is a significant area that needs improvement as I experience frequent disconnections and interruptions in data collection.
IT Solution Architect at DCS
Customers have commented on the pricing issues, noting that doubling the price is not normal.
Founder and CEO at Zed
The primary issue is the pricing, which is very expensive for my company's budget.
Senior System Network Analyst at Net spa
The cost changed from perpetual to subscription, and there is a need for alternative solutions.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Another area is the stability during upgrades from older versions to newer versions, where we face issues.
Manager of Systems at Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology
Sometimes, it is difficult to find documentation for specific tools and solutions.
Server Support Engineer at CIPL - Corporate Infotech Pvt Ltd
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise reviewers find VMware Aria Operations costly, exceeding budgets, prompting some to consider alternatives for better value.
VMware vSphere is seen as costly, with complex licensing, although valued for stability and features compared to competitors.
The pricing is very expensive for my company's budget.
Senior System Network Analyst at Net spa
The pricing and cost of VMware Aria Operations increased significantly after Broadcom acquired VMware.
IT Solution Architect at DCS
This makes the cost complex to determine individually.
Team Lead Virtualization at Hybrid Tech
Many customers are trying to avoid it due to its high cost.
Technical Assistant at EOCD
Costs significantly increased from perpetual to subscription, with prices rising by two to three times over three to five years.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
The solution is too expensive.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
 

Valuable Features

VMware Aria Operations offers comprehensive monitoring, management, and scalability with predictive analytics, real-time visibility, and vCenter integration.
VMware vSphere excels in availability, scalability, and management with features like vMotion, DRS, and robust security.
It allows me to perform deep monitoring and logging of the entire environment, providing a quick alarm and warning system through email.
Team Lead Virtualization at Hybrid Tech
The valuable features of VMware Aria Operations include the single pane of glass for all my environments, which allows a deep dive into the metrics.
IT Solution Architect at DCS
The most valuable features of VMware Aria Operations are its stability, ease of use, and extensive range of features.
Founder and CEO at Zed
The vMotion feature is beneficial for online migration of virtual machines from one host to another without downtime.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
The tool is highly available, which is crucial for implementing critical applications requiring 24/7 availability.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
I always use VMware vSphere vMotion; we work with this feature all the time. vMotion is very useful; that's why we use the virtualization.
IT Director at Def Industry
 

Categories and Ranking

VMware Aria Operations
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
376
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (2nd), Virtualization Management Tools (1st)
VMware vSphere
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
457
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Virtualization solutions, they serve different purposes. VMware Aria Operations is designed for Virtualization Management Tools and holds a mindshare of 27.1%, down 34.1% compared to last year.
VMware vSphere, on the other hand, focuses on Server Virtualization Software, holds 18.1% mindshare, up 18.3% since last year.
Virtualization Management Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Aria Operations27.1%
IBM Turbonomic11.9%
Nutanix Prism10.7%
Other50.3%
Virtualization Management Tools
Server Virtualization Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware vSphere18.1%
Hyper-V17.2%
Proxmox VE13.9%
Other50.800000000000004%
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

AldoDomini - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Network Analyst at Net spa
Have faced limitations due to high costs but have maintained reliability over time
The primary issue is the pricing, which is very expensive for my company's budget. We cannot afford to pay such a large fee. We are not Microsoft or BMW; we are a small company. As a small company, I have no power to negotiate directly with VMware. Perhaps larger companies have more opportunity to contract directly with VMware, but I do not have that leverage. The only path I can follow is to change solutions. Net.spA is a company working in the field of waste management. We are not a technological company, so we do not have a large margin to justify purchasing and maintaining the VMware infrastructure at current costs.
IA
IT Director at Def Industry
Has improved infrastructure monitoring and resource management but requires better support and cost efficiency
The high availability feature's resilience is not bad, but it could be better. For example, whenever you lose any hardware, you will have interruptions on the services, and it reboots again on the other hardware host which is available at the crash time. That's good, but we would prefer to have zero downtime instead of the rebooting on the other server. We would prefer to have a zero downtime always-on configuration. VMware vSphere has a built-in feature called Fault Tolerance, but it's very limited for very limited VMs or very limited core count or CPU count, so it's not so useful for all the environment because of the limitations. The Fault Tolerance (FT) feature is very limited to very little core counts or very little VM counts, so you can't run the Fault Tolerance for all the servers or all the VMs, and that's very bad. If VMware vSphere could have any kind of built-in patch management environment with a repository, offline repository option, with test, non-production, and production environment separated, this would be perfect. Management of patch management with operating systems and including third-party applications which are running on the servers would enhance the VMware vSphere environment. VMware vSphere is very expensive. The worst aspect of VMware vSphere is the price. I can't tell you the exact cost at this time because the other team members in my teams are working on it, but I remember that the prices are very high. VMware vSphere is easy to scale, but it could be better, similar to a Kubernetes environment. It should have an automatic scale-out feature when the load gets high; if it gets some scale out automatically, it would be better than this, similar to Kubernetes or OpenShift.
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Consultant, ASEAN at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
May 10, 2015
Hyper-V 2012 R2 vs. VMware vSphere 5.5
I was won with Hyper-V 2012R2 recently and the table below based on customer RFP (edited). This articles all about technical, there is not related with TCO/ROI, licensing cost, “political”, etc. Another to noted is the Windows Server 2012 licenses is based on 2 socket CPU, meanwhile…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise278
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business175
Midsize Enterprise137
Large Enterprise256
 

Questions from the Community

What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?
vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...
Is VMware Aria Operations a user friendly solution?
In terms of user-friendliness, VMware Aria Operations is one of the best solutions out there. It is not overly complex to set up and you can rely on the technical support to provide you with assis...
What is the most useful new feature of VMware Aria Operations?
For me, the alerts features are the most unique part of this product, no matter the current name it uses. When they introduced the new version of VMware Aria Operations, they also introduced more a...
What is IOMMU?
DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platforms. It is used a lot inside virtualization platforms like VMware VSphere. It pr...
Why KVM??? Help please!
We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux and Windows. For us, VMware does not offer any advantage. Moreover, KVM is free.
Proxmox vs ESXi/vSphere: What is your experience?
For me the biggest impact is the cost of licensing in the case of VMware despite its overall intuitiveness and ease of handling and management. However, KVM-based Open Source solutions are becoming...
 

Also Known As

VMware vRealize Operations (vROps), vCenter Operations Manager (VCOPS)
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Science Applications International Corporation, Tribune Media, Heartland Payment Systems, Telkom Indonesia, Columbia Sportswear, iGATE, CSS Corp, Angel Broking, Adira Finance, Hipskind, Beiersdorf Shared Services, Innovate Mas Indonesia, Adobe, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi , Join Experience S.A, Borusan Holdings, Department of Transport - Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
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