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VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs Zabbix comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

VMware Aria Operations for ...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
17th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
17th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Container Monitoring (6th)
Zabbix
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
9th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
1st
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (1st), Server Monitoring (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 1.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 2.1%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zabbix2.1%
VMware Aria Operations for Applications1.3%
Other96.6%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

AS
Consultant at HCLTech
Automation and insightful diagnostics elevate operations while improvements are welcome
The new version 8.18 has brought significant improvements. The main purpose of using this tool is having a single console to manage all entities. The cloud integration capabilities, including private, public, and hybrid, are already well-implemented. The ability to manage multiple vCenters across different geographical locations is very effective. The new Skyline health feature and certificate and licensing management are particularly useful improvements. The dashboard's overview tab provides comprehensive information about current vCenter status, resizable amounts, reclamation opportunities, anomalies, diagnostics, licensing, and certificates. However, there is room for improvement in application analysis. The current functionality lacks detailed monitoring at the kernel level, focusing mainly on CPU, memory, and storage matrices. Enhanced application monitoring capabilities, including tracking downtime for specific types of applications such as transactional or e-commerce applications, would be beneficial.
KamranBhatti - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Helps reduce response time but has room to improve customization complexity
We are not working on simple standalone solutions like Kaspersky DDoS Protection or Hybrid Cloud Security. Once you understand Zabbix, then it is easy to customize those web pages and graphs for our customer use. It is fully automated to your requirements. Zabbix is working fine with no issues, and I am satisfied with it. We have combined Zabbix and SolarWinds. The integration works fine, and it is easy to integrate Zabbix with the IT environment. We were trying to purchase MDR (Managed Detection and Response), but we are not working on that. I don't have real experience with MDR. We are using Falcon software for that. We are working with Falcon Complete, not with Sandbox. We are not using Kaspersky for business or cloud protection. For that, we are using Zabbix CrowdStrike Falcon Complete solution. I have given this review an overall rating of 8.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Wavefront's monitoring tools and visibility into public cloud platforms are competing with the best out there."
"The stability of Aria Operations for Applications has improved significantly over the years."
"I find VMware Aria Operations for Applications to be very stable, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"Scalability for VMware Aria Operations for Applications is easy to implement and manage."
"Using Wavefront, we have been able to reduce the complexity of our pipeline."
"Tanzu itself, integrated with multiple solutions, bestows support and security upon a container platform, especially when it comes to managing open-source container platforms such as Kubernetes."
"I gladly recommend VMware Aria Operations for Applications because it is cost effective and has commendable AI response capabilities."
"This solution will give you a single pane of glass for everything, and centralized monitoring."
"We are able to do problem determination on runaway processes."
"Zabbix is good for discovery."
"It's very easy to use and manage."
"We are using this solution for monitoring our internal network and infrastructure in the company, and also for monitoring a couple of our customers' installations, not only their network but also their services, and to reduce consumption."
"The most valuable aspect is it's very robust; it has a lot of features and it also integrates with a lot of the Cisco hardware around it, such as Smartboards and video conferencing units, making it a really robust and complete solution."
"I'm supervising all the IT departments, and Zabbix seems quite good for them. It provides graphics and information in real time. We get alerts about crashes on the system, enabling us to quickly repair issues. We can easily find devices with problems."
"During my testing, the features that I like the most are that it can be integrated with my system, and it provides me with reports of all of my servers."
"There is a problems page that shows us every warning or problem that occurs on our VMs globally, and the map screen is also really useful because this is something that was missing."
 

Cons

"I would like to see integration with Kubernetes cluster and APIs so that you can manage the entire stack."
"The documentation and integration with Kubernetes could be improved."
"Its billing model is consumption-based. I understand the consumption-based model, but it is not necessarily easy to estimate and guess how many points or how much we are going to consume on a specific application up until we get to that point."
"The return on investment is best suited for organizations that do not have the resources for a dedicated VM environment team. However, the cost of the product doesn't show significant benefits."
"The solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."
"So far, the solution's learning curve has been pretty high."
"They just need more capability. A few areas still need more enhancements in the technology capability space."
"They could make it more easy to plug-in data so that a nontechnical person will be able to use it, like accountants or finance people."
"They should open an SSH session from the web interface."
"Performance is very important to our clients, and this solution doesn't perform very well."
"Even though it’s such a powerful monitoring system, it would be more helpful if it had a flexible UI."
"The user web interface is a little bit too basic, we need to link Zabbix to Grafana to have more options, such as graphs and charts."
"The System Center Operations Manager can be improved."
"The product could be more secure and more stable."
"The APM monitoring has room for improvement, although I hear that the new 5.2 version has some improvements in that area, and I'd like to give that a go. I would like to see a few more templates out there for different styles of monitoring. I use the Grafana interface for reporting. I would also like it to have an out-of-the-box ability to email reports. You can create reports, but to be able to email those reports would be really helpful. I've got users who are not interested in logging in and generating a report. They want it all pre-canned and sent to an email address. It would also be really handy if we could pin certain reports up onto platforms such as Teams or SharePoint. A GUI for the proxy server would be cool to have for debugging purposes and for the support teams to have a look at, but I don't know whether that's really feasible to do. I get enough from the log files themselves."
"I think ZABBIX needs improved report functions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing costs are very high, particularly when you consider that we have to purchase a level 1 license for every integration, such as the load balancer, HAProxy, and the MSSP. And if you want to use vSAN, that's another license. Then, of course, Tanzu Observability has its own separate license."
"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."
"I would rate the pricing as three out of five."
"I don't have the details. In our case, there is a mixture in place. We have production usage, and we are also doing training for VMware. So, we also have a training instance. It is worth the money you would spend on it. That's because if you were to build all of this yourself by using some of the open source tools, then you would need a lot of time."
"Zabbix is free but if you use it in production then you have to pay for it."
"This solution is completely open-source, so it is quite affordable."
"It is free, which allows us to reduce costs."
"Zabbix is an open-source tool, and it's free to use."
"There are no licenses."
"There is a license required for this solution and we pay annually for our license."
"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
"This solution is open-source and free to use."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business56
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
The solution includes cost drivers that can be configured according to your environment. You can input server-wise, CPU-wise, storage, and memory costs per hour or day. Once cost drivers are provid...
What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
The new version 8.18 has brought significant improvements. The main purpose of using this tool is having a single console to manage all entities. The cloud integration capabilities, including priva...
What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
I have been involved in several projects where I had to implement automation and monitoring alerting. I performed automation using VMware Aria Operations for Applications. There is an automation ta...
What do you like most about Zabbix?
The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?
I think Zabbix is economical, whereas SolarWinds is expensive. SolarWinds has a lot of secure features, but Zabbix is providing everything free of cost. Zabbix is economical, and you can install it...
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
The potential and customization is a little difficult because you have to learn scripts. I think Zabbix needs to improve the customization better. At present, I am satisfied with the functionality ...
 

Also Known As

Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Atlassian 2. Cisco 3. Databricks 4. DigitalOcean 5. Equinix 6. Fidelity Investments 7. Google 8. Hewlett Packard Enterprise 9. Honeywell 10. IBM 11. Intel 12. JetBlue Airways 13. LinkedIn 14. Lyft 15. Mastercard 16. Microsoft 17. MongoDB 18. Netflix 19. Nvidia 20. Oracle 21. PayPal 22. Pinterest 23. Qualcomm 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. SAP 27. Spotify 28. Square 29. TMobile 30. Twitter 31. Uber 32. VMware
1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba
Find out what your peers are saying about VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs. Zabbix and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
889,855 professionals have used our research since 2012.