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Broadcom DX Application Performance Management vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 2025

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

Broadcom DX Application Per...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
31st
Ranking in Container Monitoring
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
162
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
27th
Ranking in Container Monitoring
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th), Cloud Monitoring Software (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Marco Aurelio - PeerSpot reviewer
Simple setup, light on resources, but lacking compatibility with applications
We are currently in the process of evaluating other options for APM. We are looking at Cisco and Dynatrace. We are also considering replacing our CA solution for server and network monitoring with Zabbix. We have two large licenses but they are old and we are planning to move to the cloud. The new version of Broadcom DX Application Performance Management does not yet have a cloud option, but we did receive an offer for upgrading to a SaaS solution. However, it still does not have support for OpenShift 4 because it uses agents installed within the image. As we are migrating to OpenShift 4, this solution will not work for us. Our purchasing process is public, as a public government bank, and it is published in the journal, and Broadcom probably saw that they did not have a solution for our requirements because of the use of agents inside the image. 10 technicians can handle the maintenance of the solution. This covers the needs of a financial institution that needs support 24 hours a day. I would recommend Broadcom DX Application Performance Management for small to medium infrastructures. It is very scalable and stable. Additionally, the suite has good integration with the CA help desk system, which makes it more efficient for resolving issues. One advantage of Broadcom's solution is that it is fully integrated, unlike other solutions, such as Dynatrace APM which require linking to a separate ticketing software. This solution is a good option to have a fully integrated suite. I do not view the limitation with OpenShift 4 as a problem with Broadcom, as it is specific to our environment. If you use other containerization methods, such as OpenShift 3 or others, this issue would not be present. The cost of training is also relatively low when compared to other solutions like Cisco's support. It is less expensive to certify your personnel with Broadcom. Other solutions that are well-positioned in Gartner's Quadrant, such as Dynatrace, tend to be more expensive in terms of training. Broadcom is not well-positioned in Gartner's Quadrant for APM solutions, as it works as a suite and not as a specialized APM solution. Solutions, such as Dynatrace, on the other hand, are specifically for APM and are well-positioned in Gartner's Quadrant as recommended solutions to buy. Broadcom is ranked relatively low in Gartner's grading. I rate Broadcom DX Application Performance Management a seven out of ten. The version we are currently using of Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is not very recent, and even the newer versions don't have as advanced features as other solutions, particularly in terms of APM and cloud capabilities. However, I still consider it a good grade, not a bad one, because the solution is very stable and has good scalability.
Yves Sandfort - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy, worth the money, and helpful for uptime monitoring and performance insights
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. So, for us, it would be helpful to have more insights or predictability into what we can expect from a cost perspective if we are starting to use specific features. This can potentially also drive our consumption a bit more. The other thing for us is that while it is great that we have all these standard metrics, it would be good if we can also more easily define standard metrics to be consumed for our own application. At the moment, for a lot of applications, we have to reinvent the wheel every time. If there was something so that we can build our own packaging of metrics, it would be helpful. In the future, we might be deploying our software to other customers as well. So, they should make it easier to redeploy that. There should be more customizable dashboards. The Wavefront dashboards are very technical and a more business-oriented dashboard design would definitely help.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Broadcom DX Application Performance Management for me is transaction monitoring. The technical support provided for the solution is also an advantage."
"We use it to create dashboards and executive view dashboards, so our higher up managers can take a look and see where our application status stands."
"It's a very stable product."
"We understand for APM, it has the ability to drill down and do the end-to-end monitoring that we are looking for."
"The CA tools allow to me to get into detailed transactions for custom ranking, and be able to make predictions. It also gathers data. Some other tools may be good at one area, but not good overall, including the mainframe."
"Crash analytics goes down to the level of code you need to check."
"Gives us the ability to know how our application is performing in real-time."
"WAS GC monitoring enhanced our application performance and DB SQL performance."
"No issues with stability."
"VMware comes with a support team, and if you have trouble, you can easily create a ticket, and VMware will help you. Therefore, the best aspect is the support."
"It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started."
"People are very pleased with the implementation."
"I find VMware Aria Operations for Applications to be very stable, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are its ease of use and its ease of implementation."
"VMware Aria Operations for Applications offers significant features such as real-time statistics, the ability to identify possible issues within the VM environment, and helpful heat maps."
"The stability of Aria Operations for Applications has improved significantly over the years."
 

Cons

"As applications move to the cloud, we need more cloud-based solutions from CA APM. This is currently unavailable."
"User interface - CA is moving towards HTML5, but still a lot is Java, old fashioned, non-customizable and not user friendly. It’s look and feel is still too technical."
"​Needs the ability to dynamically create dashboards. Right now, we do custom dashboards. Everything is created manually."
"Broadcom DX Application Performance Management could improve its supportability to the current technologies and the end-to-end correlation feature should be done automatically without custom configurations. Additionally, there should not be any configuration changes to the client-side when deploying the solution."
"Support could be much better."
"The solution still needs the administrator of APM to know a lot more to configure and control everything. So it's a headache for the administrator to do the daily jobs."
"I would like them provide more guidance on specific tuning of monitoring options to avoid unacceptable overhead."
"User Experience is a BIG one. Integration of all of APM components into one swift deployment."
"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. That way they don't have to ask us."
"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."
"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. So, for us, it would be helpful to have more insights or predictability into what we can expect from a cost perspective if we are starting to use specific features. This can potentially also drive our consumption a bit more."
"An area for improvement would be more in-depth reporting, such as analyzing disk IO during business hours compared to after hours."
"In the new version, I would love to see more prediction capabilities. It would be great if one could see the alerts get a little more enriched with information and become more human-friendly instead of the technical stuff that they put in there. I think those would be really awesome outcomes to get."
"The documentation and integration with Kubernetes could be improved."
"The solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."
"The solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Depends on the size of the product you need."
"Negotiate a lot, but do not forget to buy the product because it is worth it."
"On pricing, CA is very competitive. I think that's going to help in the long run."
"Broadcom is a better and cheaper option from the financial perspective. It also depends on the DLP plug."
"There is some research needed to determine licensing costs, based on the number of DataPower instances for the Nastel agent, for example."
"The license for Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is annual. The licensing model could improve because there is not any limit to deploying the agent, there should be some limits on it."
"Dynatrace is the most expensive of these tools followed by AppDynamics which is "medium-expensive." CA APM is a bit lower in price than either Dynatrace or AppDynanics... In my opinion, if you can afford it, go for AppDynamics instead of CA APM."
"Althougth it is a bit expensive, it is really worth it"
"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."
"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."
"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."
"I would rate the pricing as three out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Broadcom DX Application Performance Management?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...there is a very easy way to deal with it by adding more servers to the application.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Broadcom DX Application Performance Management?
The initial pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions. The challenge arises during annual renewals, as the price increase can be significant, around twenty percent or more, ...
What needs improvement with Broadcom DX Application Performance Management?
The first area for improvement is the discovery feature, which should be enhanced to collect comprehensive information from applications and services. This includes using agents or scripts to gathe...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
The cost of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is fair and reasonable compared to what we receive in support and packages from VMware.
What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
I find that there could be improvements in the support service response time, as the urgency varies unless specified as Priority 2 or 1 cases.
What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
Our primary use case for VMware Aria Operations for Applications is to enhance application monitoring tasks, allowing us to set up alerts for different components and send them via SMTP to a team d...
 

Also Known As

DX APM, CA APM, CA NetQoS Performance Center, Wily Introscope, CA Wily APM, CA App Experience Analytics, CA AXA
Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lexmark, Intermountain Healthcare, National Australia Bank, BBVA Compass Bank, Innovapost, Dansk Supermarked Group, U.S. Cellular, Orange, Cetip
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom DX Application Performance Management vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.