No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

VMware vCenter vs Zabbix comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

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
3.5
VMware vCenter provides significant ROI by cutting costs on nodes, management, power, and enhancing scalability, security, and continuity.
Sentiment score
7.2
Large enterprises save over $1 million with Zabbix via reduced costs, improved service availability, and enhanced team efficiency.
Through utilizing automated remediation scripts and catching crucial issues proactively, we have cut our manual troubleshooting and incident response time in half.
Developer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
VMware vCenter customer service is praised for responsiveness but criticized for slow responses and difficulties in technical issue escalation.
Sentiment score
6.9
Zabbix offers excellent paid support, while non-paying users utilize highly praised community forums and documentation for assistance.
VMware vCenter manages high availability effectively.
IT Infrastructure And Architect Specialist at Cmit
The technical support is good.
Manager Tech. & Support (Information Technology) at Texitech
It receives a perfect 10 for guaranteed, dedicated 24/7 technical support with strict SLA only when you purchase one of their premium commercial tiers.
Developer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
It is so straightforward that I have never had to use the support.
CTO at Oic
I changed the config file by adjusting the connector size and cache size.
Consultant at ministry of trade
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
VMware vCenter is highly scalable, supporting enterprises with robust resource allocation and surpassing competitors like Nutanix.
Sentiment score
6.9
Zabbix is highly scalable and efficient for medium to enterprise needs, though requires careful resource management to avoid bottlenecks.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate its scalability as ten.
IT Manager at Synergy Computers
The scalability is good in vCenter.
Manager Tech. & Support (Information Technology) at Texitech
The solution is completely scalable as we can increase any host with great simplicity.
IT Infrastructure And Architect Specialist at Cmit
Zabbix is very scalable and lightweight.
CTO at Oic
Zabbix has high scalability.
CTO at Four Nine Agency
Zabbix scales extremely well both vertically and horizontally.
Developer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
5.8
VMware vCenter is praised for reliability and stability, with excellent support, despite occasional compatibility and log concerns.
Sentiment score
7.5
Zabbix is generally stable and reliable with minimal issues, but improvements are needed for larger deployments and setup challenges.
Nothing has been reported to me about VMware vCenter till now because I have around eighteen members who are operating it, and none of them have reported any issues.
Manager Data Centre at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
We have not faced any issues after upgrading VMware vCenter, whether on the vCenter or any host.
IT Infrastructure And Architect Specialist at Cmit
Zabbix is very scalable and lightweight.
CTO at Oic
Zabbix is quite stable, and we haven't had any problems with Zabbix itself.
CTO at Four Nine Agency
I think the stability of Zabbix is around five to six on a scale of ten, where ten is the best and one is the worst.
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
 

Room For Improvement

VMware vCenter users face high costs and licensing complexity, desiring flexible pricing and technical improvements post-Broadcom acquisition.
Zabbix needs improvement in UI, documentation, integration, licensing, and features like monitoring, automation, and customization for modern use.
The licensing model has shifted, leading to higher costs, particularly for smaller organizations.
IT Manager at Synergy Computers
If they had separate pricing for each module, organizations could purchase only the modules they need, and the price would lower.
Manager Data Centre at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Better redundancy options can be achieved by using multiple vCenter machines.
Manager Tech. & Support (Information Technology) at Texitech
The only issue I can note is that it's Linux-based, and Linux documentation is not the best.
CTO at Oic
Setting up the right templates, pre-shows, and scripts requires a lot of deep Linux and system knowledge compared to more plug-and-play tools.
Developer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
I installed Zabbix for the 300 devices.
Consultant at ministry of trade
 

Setup Cost

VMware vCenter's high costs and licensing changes pose challenges, especially for smaller businesses, amid Broadcom's potential pricing impact.
Zabbix provides a free, open-source monitoring solution with optional support services for enterprises, praised for affordability and no licensing fees.
The licensing model now requires purchasing 96-core solutions, even if fewer cores are needed, adding to the cost burden.
IT Manager at Synergy Computers
Zabbix is providing everything free of cost.
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
It is literally free.
CTO at Oic
 

Valuable Features

VMware vCenter provides centralized management, high availability, seamless migration, scalability, and integration with NSX T and vSAN for operational efficiency.
Zabbix offers ease of use, scalability, robust monitoring, integration, and flexibility, making it ideal for diverse environments.
High availability is employed so if an ESXi server is down, the VM is supported on another ESXi on other servers.
System Engineer at TARGET Integrated Systems
In vCenter, I can easily manage storage and move it from one server to another, which is beneficial for the environment.
Manager Tech. & Support (Information Technology) at Texitech
VMware vCenter is excellent for managing and monitoring hypervisors, specifically with features like live migration, storage vMotion, and host vMotion.
IT Manager at Synergy Computers
If disk usage surpasses a threshold, say 70%, I receive alerts and can take proactive action.
CTO at Oic
Zabbix natively supports monitoring everything from Linux servers and Windows servers to network devices and cloud infrastructure.
Developer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Zabbix has a lot of features, including monitoring, status updates, and collecting information telemetry from storages and servers as well.
CTO at Four Nine Agency
 

Categories and Ranking

VMware vCenter
Ranking in Server Monitoring
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zabbix
Ranking in Server Monitoring
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (11th), Network Monitoring Software (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of VMware vCenter is 2.1%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 10.0%, down from 25.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zabbix10.0%
VMware vCenter2.1%
Other87.9%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

VinayKumar7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Data Centre at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Centralized control has improved data center virtualization and streamlined DC DR replication
The pricing of VMware vCenter is high. What was earlier, before it was acquired by Broadcom, was different. Now, Broadcom has acquired it, and the earlier arrangement was that we used to bundle the license and purchase it according to our choice. Now, they bundle it with vSAN, which many organizations may not use. Although we purchase it along with the bundled license, we pay for something which is of no use to us because we have our own storage. If they had separate pricing for each module, organizations could purchase only the modules they need, and the price would lower. For smaller organizations, this can become a huge cost issue. For larger organizations, there is no issue, but for medium-sized organizations, they have to shell out a lot.
PJ
Developer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Unified monitoring has reduced outages and enables proactive fixes with automated remediation
My favorite best feature is the ability to manage complex hybrid environments from a single dashboard. Zabbix natively supports monitoring everything from Linux servers and Windows servers to network devices and cloud infrastructure. The view I rely on the most on a day-to-day basis is a custom dashboard combining the problem widget and graph widget. The problem widget gives me an immediate filtered snapshot of the active alerts across all our servers. I pair that with the graph widget, which allows me to track performance metrics and compare values over time, such as monitoring storage and capacity trends on our Synology appliance. Having all of this in a single pane of glass saves me from constantly digging through logs. I also rely heavily on custom dashboards that combine the problem widget and the top host widget. The problem widget gives me an immediate filtered list of any active alerts across the entire environment. I pair that with the top host widget, which instantly shows me which servers are consuming the highest resources. Having all of these related metrics side-by-side in a single view allows me to spot the issue and identify the exact server causing it without having to dig through separate tools. Zabbix has built-in machine learning for continuous anomaly detection and proactive trend prediction. It establishes a baseline by analyzing historical data, allowing it to forecast impending issues, such as predicting exactly when a system will run out of resources before critical thresholds are breached. From a governance and security perspective, it delivers enterprise-grade security by supporting full data encryption and integration with external secret vaults to protect sensitive credentials. From a governance perspective, it features detailed configuration change tracking and role-based user permissions, which allows administrators to secure different teams or tenants within a single environment. Regarding accuracy, Zabbix's proactive alerts are highly accurate and trustworthy, provided they are fed enough historical data to establish a solid baseline. Regarding reliability and output, the prediction outputs are extremely reliable because Zabbix relies on transparent statistical mathematics, such as standard deviation and weighted moving averages, rather than a closed black box AI model. The straightforward statistical approach allows administrators to forecast value reliability and predict exactly how much time they have before a system reaches a critical problem threshold.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Server Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
Outsourcing Company
20%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business57
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware vCenter?
The initial package for VMware vCenter is not less than $10,000, which can be prohibitive for smaller organizations. The licensing model now requires purchasing 96-core solutions, even if fewer cor...
What needs improvement with VMware vCenter?
The pricing of VMware vCenter is high. What was earlier, before it was acquired by Broadcom, was different. Now, Broadcom has acquired it, and the earlier arrangement was that we used to bundle the...
What is your primary use case for VMware vCenter?
My main use case for VMware vCenter is mainly for virtualization and what we call DCDR replication. I can say we are not using all the features. Our main aim is only that we are using it for virtua...
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 initial configuration has a steep learning curve because Zabbix is so flexible and customizable. Setting up the right templates, pre-shows, and scripts requires a lot of deep Linux and system k...
What is your primary use case for Zabbix?
On a day-to-day basis, I use Zabbix to monitor our entire infrastructure stack, including our Linux servers, Active Directory, domain controller, and Synology NAS storage array. A specific problem ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Amazon 2. Apple 3. ATT 4. Bank of America 5. Cisco Systems 6. CocaCola 7. Dell 8. ebay 9. Facebook 10. Google 11. HP 12. IBM 13. Intel 14. JPMorgan Chase 15. LinkedIn 16. Microsoft 17. Netflix 18. Oracle 19. PayPal 20. SAP 21. Siemens 22. Tesla 23. Toyota 24. Twitter 25. Visa 26. Walmart 27. WeWork 28. World Bank
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 vCenter vs. Zabbix and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.