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CloudSphere vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 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

CloudSphere
Ranking in Cloud Management
33rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (14th)
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Cloud Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
172
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (8th), Network Automation (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (20th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of CloudSphere is 1.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 5.8%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Aria Automation5.8%
CloudSphere1.6%
Other92.6%
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

Isaac Ogbonnaya - PeerSpot reviewer
Cybersecurity Consultant at Nnamdi Azikiwe University
Attack paths have become visible and cost control is strong but application monitoring still needs work
In my opinion, the best feature of CloudSphere is the attack path analysis, which really helps me to understand how the path works, the misconfigurations, the vulnerabilities, and how they chain together to demonstrate the attack path system. The cost management feature in CloudSphere really helps me so much; it helps me to know the cost visibility, identify the unused resources, eliminate waste, and also helps me in my spending by service across my team and in my overall environment. Using CloudSphere for three years has really helped me tighten my CI/CD pipelines and also my risk-based analytics, understand my attack pathways, the vulnerabilities, and the misconfigurations in my system. CloudSphere's predictive insight really helps me to dictate attack pathway analysis, assisting in mitigating any infrastructure challenges. CloudSphere really helps me with cloud visibility, risk identification, asset discovery, and attack path analysis; they are doing very well in the market right now compared to other software.
VasilisGiannitsiotis - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT at ITSolutions
Automation has streamlined complex financial workflows but still needs more intuitive orchestration
Something to improve in VMware Aria Automation would be related to VCF 9, as I do not know what it is trying to bring because they exposed it as the solution of everything. So VCF 9 will bring VCF Automation and VCF Operations, the new product line of VMware. I have not seen what this brings or what else it includes. Maybe in the area of vRealize Orchestrator, this would be beneficial because VRO can do everything. Perhaps a more user-friendly way to use that tool would be helpful because the possibilities there are endless. I am looking for more user-friendly navigation in VMware Aria Automation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is helpful for the management, optimization, and utilization of resources."
"CloudSphere is very mature and very effective."
"We do not need to install any appliances or any agents."
"Provides multiple kinds of services for managing the clouds of multiple customers."
"CloudSphere really helps me with cloud visibility, risk identification, asset discovery, and attack path analysis; they are doing very well in the market right now compared to other software."
"When I started using CloudSphere, it wasn't mature, and it had multiple issues. For example, my team experienced server issues while using the solution, but recently, I noticed how much CloudSphere has improved. There used to be some latency issues with CloudSphere. It even gave error messages in the past when you select an option such as "the web server is not responding", but it has improved a lot, and now I don't get any errors from CloudSphere. What I like best about CloudSphere is that it has a lot of beneficial features, and it has a single pane for managing multi-cloud environments, which I find very helpful, and it's the main benefit you can get from CloudSphere."
"The scalability of the solution is a godsend."
"What I like best about CloudSphere is that it has a lot of beneficial features, and it has a single pane for managing multi-cloud environments, which I find very helpful, and it's the main benefit you can get from CloudSphere."
"Other than that, if you put the time learning SaltStack, it is a pretty easy and very powerful tool."
"We are able to provide self-service to all of our IT/development teams to expand and decrease their environments at will."
"It allows us to be more agile and provide services to our company more rapidly."
"Overall, VMware is very good, it's very stable, very extensible, but it does have a relatively high learning curve."
"The most valuable feature is the way that it plugs into our monitoring systems, and Infoblox and Puppet."
"We have integrated our CICD pipeline into an automatic catalog request through some API calls. It can request and provision new virtual machines behind the NSX load balancer, straight out of the CIDC pipeline and add those nodes to the load balancer, request SSL certs, do SSL termination at the load balancer so that it's not encrypted behind the scenes, all of which has really been helpful."
"Even with the virtualization, it would take us at least three or four days to create a VM; with vRA we have brought that down to seven minutes, helping increase infrastructure agility, speed of provisioning, time to market, and application agility so everything got super fast."
"It's scalable; as the needs of the university grow, it's growing with us."
 

Cons

"The solution must have a single management console for the resources and VMs."
"The main issue I experienced from CloudSphere was recently resolved, but an area for improvement in the solution is that it lacks the functionality of migrating resources from one public cloud to another. If CloudSphere could provide that functionality, that would be very beneficial to users and companies."
"In terms of areas with room for improvement, I find the management area, the application-focused management area, the end-to-end application visibility, the integration of a direct CI/CD pipeline for developers, and the real-time monitoring and fast response have room for enhancement."
"One of the cons of this product is that it will not discover all the applications running."
"Their customer support leaves a lot to be desired. The standards are not that great."
"When we start the scanning of, for example, 500 servers, it will not handle the scan. We need to differentiate the jobs - for example, one job for 100 servers, a second job for another 100 servers, et cetera."
"The main issue I experienced from CloudSphere was recently resolved, but an area for improvement in the solution is that it lacks the functionality of migrating resources from one public cloud to another."
"CloudSphere is not keeping up with the pace of the cloud and there are a number of services that can't be deployed using CloudSphere."
"The initial setup was complex because we have a high availability cluster. Especially when it comes to upgrades, we have a lot of downtimes and problems. The upgrade experience has been painful."
"They need to help in managing the change of corporate culture involved in establishing the solution."
"For the administrator, it can be a little challenging. For the administrator, there are a lot of moving parts."
"Overall, VMware is very good, it's very stable, very extensible, but it does have a relatively high learning curve."
"Every time it was failing with different errors. This used to be a one day job, and it has been a one week job."
"I will say the VRA has its problems. We have had issues with stability."
"Licensing's expensive."
"Stability has gotten a lot better. However, the vRO aspect, when you have a multi vRA head, is a little bit finicky still. vRO still needs to stay on one appliance and be one application, because, when you have two, you can't see runs on the other one that are happening when you're not logged into that one."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It depends on how that model will be used. It might be anywhere between $4 and $15 per license per month. It’s less expensive than other options."
"The product is very expensive."
"VMware Aria Automation is expensive."
"The solution is free of cost."
"It is pricey for what you get."
"The solution is pretty expensive but provides good workload management."
"I would rate it high because, compared to other solutions, VMware’s pricing is quite expensive. VMware products have become significantly more costly in recent years, leading to higher costs."
"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."
"It is an expensive product. After VMware's acquisition by Broadcom, there was a rise in the price of VMware Aria Automation."
"We do plan to see ROI with any new implementation of new technologies being implemented within our environment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
12%
Healthcare Company
9%
Logistics Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise130
 

Questions from the Community

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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 there any way to try VMware Aria Automation for free?
When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs: Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...
Which sectors can benefit the most from VMware Aria Automation?
I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...
 

Also Known As

HyperCloud
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Affymetrix, Bell Helicopter, Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe, Porterville Unified School District, Interact for Health, VirtueCom, Warren Memorial Hospital, Front Porch, RMH Group, Meyers Nave, Intraworks, Information Technology, ETTE, Clackamas Community College
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about CloudSphere vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.