Densify vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

Densify and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Densify is ranked #38, while Broadcom is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.9. Densify holds a 2.0% mindshare in CM, compared to Broadcom’s 5.8% mindshare. Additionally, 81% of Densify users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Densify

Read 10 Densify reviews

1,578 Views
978 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Automation

Read 172 VMware Aria Automation reviews

9,092 Views
5,001 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Densify

VMware Aria Automation

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Densify and VMware Aria Automation are direct competitors in cloud management and optimization. While VMware Aria Automation is recognized for its advanced automation capabilities, cost-sensitive customers often prefer Densify due to its favorable pricing and support, impacting the perceived value of each product differently.

Features: Densify is known for precise cloud cost management, offering actionable insights that help optimize resources and achieve cost savings. Additionally, it provides extensive cloud account aggregation and visualization, aiding in comprehensive capacity planning. VMware Aria Automation offers robust automation features, supporting complex workflows and integrations. The platform enables automated deployments, detailed blueprints, and integration with a variety of third-party tools, emphasizing its strength in handling sophisticated environments.

Room for Improvement: Densify could enhance its feature set by offering more extensive automation capabilities and deeper integrations with other cloud services. Its analytics dashboard, while functional, may benefit from more intuitive navigation and customization options. VMware Aria Automation, on the other hand, could reduce the complexity of its initial setup and streamline its user interface. Simplified deployment processes and better documentation could make its features more accessible to a wider range of users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Densify is often favored for its quick deployment times and responsive customer support, which users appreciate for its efficient service. In contrast, VMware Aria Automation may require prolonged setup due to its comprehensive feature set. However, it excels in supporting complex enterprise environments, making it suitable for larger organizations despite potential deployment delays.

Pricing and ROI: Densify generally offers lower initial setup costs with a faster return on investment, particularly valuable for those focusing on direct cost savings. Its emphasis on targeted resource optimization allows for quicker financial returns. VMware Aria Automation, although presenting a higher entry cost, offers substantial long-term benefits through its deeper integration and automation features, which can lead to greater operational efficiency and ROI in complex setups.

To learn more, read our detailed Densify vs. VMware Aria Automation Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Densify vs. VMware Aria Automation

March 2026

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Helped 884,873 peers since 2012

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

Densify

Ranking in Cloud Management

38th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (13th), Virtualization Management Tools (11th), Cloud Analytics (6th), Cloud Cost Management (24th)

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) (19th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Densify is 2.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 5.8%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
VMware Aria Automation	5.8%
Densify	2.0%
Other	92.2%

Cloud Management

Featured Reviews

AbhishekGupta2

Sr PreSales Cloud Architect at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

Optimized cloud costs and automated right‑sizing have reduced spend while reporting needs improvement

The best features Densify offers are actionable optimization recommendations, which tell you how to reduce costs while maintaining performance; the ML-powered predictive analytics feature, which considers historical patterns to provide recommendations; multi-cloud coverage for optimization across AWS, Azure, and GCP; and a solid balance between performance and cost. Out of those features, I find myself relying on actionable optimization recommendations and predictive analytics features the most because Densify goes one step beyond by providing recommendations considering historical patterns, especially for workloads that only spike during certain times of the month. Densify has positively impacted my organization by providing significant cost savings through right-sizing and eliminating inefficient resources, allowing faster decisions based on data, and reducing manual intervention for cloud operations, thus providing automation of basic cloud routines. I usually see a twenty-five to thirty percent cost saving in my customer's environment, and from a time-saving perspective, it has almost halved the time of the operations team.

Read full review

VasilisGiannitsiotis

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From my perspective, this product is really good, and we are not even using each and every feature."

"Using the reports from Densify will provide us with the trusted advisor backing for our own purchase and provisioning decisions."

"This product has provided us with a more comprehensive solution that is now replacing nearly all other tools which were previously used in the different platforms and environments within the account."

"The tool will come back and tell us that we can operate with 1,000 minutes as an example, save 90% on the contractual rate and not run into any issues."

"The ability to increase server density inside of my environment, which has helped me drive reduction in costs."

"The Densify Control Console, and Environment Status."

"I usually see a twenty-five to thirty percent cost saving in my customer's environment, and from a time-saving perspective, it has almost halved the time of the operations team."

"The solution's tech support is excellent."

More Densify pros

"Among the valuable features are the ease and speed of creating the VMs. Originally, we provisioned them manually and it would take us two days to do the provisioning... but with the automation, we are able to provision a VM with the click of a button, within seconds. It cut down on the time as well as cut down on the expense and employee cost in provisioning."

"If you do a deployment for a proof of concept, it is simple."

"The setup was straightforward. We upgraded to a newer version seamlessly. It worked really well."

"He liked the way SaltStack (on the entire cluster) was up and running in a few minutes, and also gave him flexibility to generate traffic, make config changes, etc. on the fly."

"SaltStack being so fast makes it very convenient and practical; allows me to get information about my servers in no time."

"I find the system to be intuitive and user-friendly. In general, I'm quite happy with the entire setup. Once you configure the system, navigating the portal is pretty simple. They use a lot of the vSphere UI interface structure so it's intuitive, especially if you have used anything vSphere-related before."

"It is very stable, especially for high availability features."

"The product’s most valuable feature is its ability to provide environmental security."

More VMware Aria Automation pros

Cons

"Normalization of CPU utilization is required. At present, the data is available based on entitlement level."

"Initially we talked about some custom reporting, wherein our customer expected certain reports on a few areas, like how the storage is allocated, how the network performance is doing, and how the network utilization is happening for a virtual machine."

"It seems that the mechanism for integration is, it goes so far but I think there could be some standard integration to normal remedy service now etc. I think that should be out of the box."

"A closer integration to the service management processes."

"Some parts of the interface are rather complex and require a bit of time to navigate, but this has never stopped us as a Densify advisor is readily available to help with our "how to" queries."

"In terms of integration, the tool has great data. However, it's not always meaningful because the true business attributes of how most Fortune 500 companies operate are not maintaining in one tool, they're in a school of many tools."

More Densify cons

"It was a complex setup. We had to use the consultant from VMware to make the solution work well."

"I would like to see more out-of-the-box blueprints and workflows for the rest of VMware's products and its portfolio."

"It is too broad scale and complicated. It takes too many clicks to do things."

"It would be better if VMware would provide API documentation for developers and customers on the Internet."

"We have seen some issues with upgrades or installations. This means we have to raise a call every time with VMware."

"I'm not aware if a UI exists or not."

"The GUI is clunky and hard to use."

"It is not intuitive or user-friendly. It's complicated as heck. We actually hired VMware Professional Services to come in. I understand the newer version, which we're not quite on yet, is easier and that the interface is better. But the product is really a profession unto itself. The user interface could be improved on."

More VMware Aria Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Densify has licensing setup so you can collect data without licensing. It gives you the ability to collect on everything, then choose later what you would like to license."

"Cost is always involved, but then I feel that this solution is better than other products that we have."

"There was some sticker shock, as this is not just another software product to spit out graphs."

"Setup cost is negligible, as it scales fairly well."

"It is an open-source product."

"They should provide one license for all the sub-products."

"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."

"A simplified version for small businesses would be good."

"SaltStack is an open-source product."

"Customers say this solution is costlier compared to its competitors."

"We have seen significant ROI. We used to have physical servers, it took 90 days to get a server, order it, buy it, and get it in. We have it down to 10 minutes, building a server with virtualization, and now that's too slow. So, we let the customer do it at their speed. Therefore, it is pretty much up in a couple of minutes and they have a server."

"The pricing for this solution is roughly 20% lower than the competitive products in the market."

More VMware Aria Automation pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

14%

Retailer

14%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	10

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	33
Midsize Enterprise	24
Large Enterprise	130

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Densify?

Densify can be improved in a couple of areas: the learning curve for new users, where it feels like an advanced optimization tool that needs time for full leverage; enhancements in reporting and fi...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Densify?

My main use cases for Densify include cloud cost optimization, predictive resource sizing, assistance in multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments, and reducing the manual analysis of the environme...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Densify?

My advice for others looking into using Densify is to focus on setting up governance policy early, integrate optimization results into your usual sprints, and train FinOps and engineering teams tog...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM Turbonomic vs Densify

Compared 22% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs Densify

Compared 7% of the time

CloudSphere vs Densify

Compared 5% of the time

PerfectScale vs Densify

Compared 5% of the time

More Densify Competitors

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 10% of the time

Morpheus vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 6% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 6% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 3% of the time

HashiCorp Terraform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 3% of the time

More VMware Aria Automation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Densify

March 2026

Download Densify product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Automation

February 2026

Download VMware Aria Automation product report

Also Known As

No data available

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

Overview

Densify is a hybrid cloud and container resource management platform that makes workloads self-aware of their precise resource requirements and automates the resource management and selection process. This solution helps you control your cloud spend and also helps your apps perform and scale better. Densify enables you to match your cloud requirements with the optimal cloud supply. Additionally, Densify is the only technology that leverages patented, predictive machine learning-powered analytics to perform advanced modeling of workload patterns, and provide precise optimization directives. It is ideal for cloud engineers, container platform owners, and IT finance.

Densify works by:

Establishing application demand patterns that are based on business cycles, seasonality, peaks, valleys, and other variables.
Building normalized models of cloud supply and ingesting the entire cloud catalog and latest technologies.
Considering numerous factors, such as performance benchmarks, cost, technical rules, tags, and policies. The solution uses business and functional tags, operational realities, and granular policy control.

Densify Features

Densify has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Integration with management and provisioning systems
Machine learning-based analytics
Automated resource optimization
App owner collaboration
Tailored efficiency reports
Observability
Controllability
Capacity optimization
Policy driven, automated governance
VM placement
Predictive analytics

Densify Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Densify. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Automated resource management: Densify provides your organization with automated resource management at scale, with elasticity at an affordable low cost.

Full stack visibility: The Densify solution offers full stack visibility with improved efficiency by determining container size and node resources.

Financial visibility: In addition to full stack visibility, one of Densify’s other advantages is that it offers full financial visibility and cost intelligence for both reporting as well as chargebacks.

Resizing and rebalancing: Densify analyzes your private cloud infrastructure, providing resizing and rebalancing recommendations.

Helps you choose the right host environment: Densify automatically routes workloads to the best hosting environment based on detailed workload requirements. For workloads not requiring immediate placement, it reserves capacity to ensure it is available when required.

A true SaaS implementation: Because Densify is a true SaaS implementation, there is no software to maintain or to learn.

Better for IT finance: The solution is good for IT finance because it collects and analyzes your detailed billing data, giving you visibility into your spending, what services you’re buying, and how to better manage your costs. In addition, it can also generate reports that cover your spending and your utilization of reservations and reserved instances and savings plans.

Reduce risk and costs: Machine learning-based analytics help your organization optimize consumption to eliminate waste and overprovisioning while ensuring performance.

Cost-efficient: The Densify solution is cost-efficient, helping you drastically reduce per-processor software license costs by placing workloads intelligently.

Densify

VMware Aria Automation is a cloud management tool that allows companies to simplify their cloud experience through a modern automation platform. The solution is designed to deliver self-service clouds, multi-cloud automation with governance, and DevOps-based security and infrastructure management. It helps organizations improve IT agility, efficiency, and productivity through its various features.

VMware Aria Automation has multiple use cases that include the following:

Self-service multi-cloud: VMware Aria Automation can be used to deliver consistent self-service consumption. Another use case in this area is for delivering infrastructure across VMware Clouds as well as public clouds.
Multi-cloud governance: The solution can be used to manage cost, performance, networking, configuration, and security at scale for multi-cloud environments. VMware Aria Automation offers all this with an everything-as-code approach.
DevOps for infrastructure: Through VMware Aria Automation, companies can enable a powerful infrastructure as code platform with support for iterative development and infrastructure pipelining.
Kubernetes automation: Users can utilize VMware Aria Automation to automate the management of Kubernetes clusters and namespaces with support for vSphere with Tanzu.
Security operations: VMware Aria Automation facilitates event-driven automation to deliver full-service IT system compliance enforcement and vulnerability remediation.

VMware Aria Automation Features

VMware Aria Automation has various features that allow users to easily perform operations. Some of the solution's capacities include:

VMware Cloud agnostic template: This feature allows organizations to use a single cloud template to deploy with Infrastructure as a Code. Deployment options include VMware Cloud as well as major public cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and more.
Extensibility and customization: This VMware Aria Automation feature allows users to get full extensibility and customization. This can be achieved through Aria Automation Orchestrator, Action-Based Extensibility (ABX), and built-in integrations with common third-party tools.
Self-service multi-cloud: This feature enables users to request and provision infrastructure resources. It can be done across clouds using a unified and consistent Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) consumption layer, idempotent REST API, and self-service catalog.
Centralized policies and governance: VMware Aria Automation offers a feature for users to manage multiple clouds with templatized cloud and policy definition, automated remediation, and cloud environment visibility.
Configuration management: Through this feature of the product, day 1 and 2 control can be achieved for virtualized and cloud environments. This can be done with intuitive configuration automation, compliance enforcement, and vulnerability remediation.
Infrastructure pipelining: Through this feature, organizations can access user-friendly release automation pipelines. They can be specifically tailored for CI/CD in infrastructure use cases.

VMware Aria Automation Benefits

VMware Aria Automation offers its users various benefits. Some of the biggest advantages that the solution brings to companies that utilize it include:

VMware Aria Automation provides faster time to market for companies through offloading manual tasks with advanced workflows and agile templating.
The solution offers high levels of security and control.
This product is suitable for beginners, as it offers a self-service consumption experience for users.
VMware Aria Automation accelerates innovation through Infrastructure as Code and DevOps principles.
The product provides users with flexibility, as it is compatible with the most popular public cloud solutions.
The solution offers fast deployment because of all natively integrated functions.

Reviews from Real Users

Awais J., CTO/CEO at a tech services company, likes VMware Aria Automation because it saves a lot of time, provides more visibility, and has extensive automation capabilities.

An IT consultant at a government rates VMware Aria Automation highly because the product gives you flexibility to analyze and consume resources.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

AIG, Bank of America, Cigna, Citi

Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual

Buyer's Guide

Densify vs. VMware Aria Automation

March 2026

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