Elastic Observability vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Elastic and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Monitoring Software category. Elastic is ranked #11 with an average rating of 9.0, while Broadcom is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.8. Elastic holds a 1.8% mindshare in CMS, compared to Broadcom’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Elastic users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Elastic Observability

Read 29 Elastic Observability reviews

12,505 Views
4,002 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Read 14 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews

9,088 Views
3,726 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Elastic Observability

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 2025

VMware Aria Operations for Applications and Elastic Observability compete in the observability and performance management sector. Elastic Observability holds the advantage with its advanced analytics capabilities, suited for feature-rich environments.

Features: VMware Aria Operations for Applications offers comprehensive application monitoring, predictive analytics, and workload optimization. Elastic Observability provides real-time insights with powerful log analysis, advanced data visualization tools, and extensive customization options.

Room for Improvement: VMware could enhance its analytics capabilities, offer more customization options, and improve its support for non-VMware environments. Elastic Observability could improve ease of integration with third-party tools, simplify its setup process, and enhance customer support for complex deployments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware Aria Operations for Applications integrates seamlessly into VMware-centric infrastructures and offers responsive support. Elastic Observability provides flexible cloud and on-premise deployment options, supported by thorough documentation and a strong community.

Pricing and ROI: VMware Aria Operations for Applications involves higher upfront costs but provides significant ROI through integration and infrastructure efficiency. Elastic Observability offers a flexible pricing model and delivers compelling ROI due to its advanced analytical features, despite potentially higher setup costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Elastic Observability vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications Report (Updated: November 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

November 2026

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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

Elastic Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

12th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

15th

Ranking in Container Monitoring

5th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (16th)

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

18th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

13th

Ranking in Container Monitoring

6th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

13th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 1.8%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 2.0%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Elastic Observability	1.8%
VMware Aria Operations for Applications	2.0%
Other	96.2%

Cloud Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Mohammed-Abdelalim

Assistant Vice President at QualityKiosk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Has provided powerful customization for unique monitoring needs but needs more out-of-the-box capabilities

In my opinion, the best features of Elastic Observability are their flexibility to integrate with other existing systems and the ability to build a unified monitoring tool that can integrate with existing ones and end-to-end user journeys which require a lot of customizations. The greatest feature in Elastic is the ability to customize. This is similar to my comments about customizable dashboards in Elastic because it's visible to the analyst. However, it's very great. Customizing these dashboards can meet the customer's specific use cases and specific stories that they have in their environment, their special environment that doesn't look like other environments. The dashboarding in Elastic is highly customizable to the level of logos. If the customer wants his company logo in the dashboard, it can be done.

Read full review

Ajay Shukla

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.

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

"It's easy to deploy, and it's very flexible."

"I think Elastic Observability is already in very good shape."

"Machine learning is the most valuable feature of this solution."

"It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it."

"Elastic Observability is highly stable; we ingested nearly 170 million records in the system and we have tested it, and you get your reports and dashboards within a few seconds, so it doesn't take much time."

"Good design and easy to use once implemented."

"The solution allows us to track performance via metrics and we're able to see where latency is happening."

"The customizable dashboards in Elastic Observability allow us to group relevant data to specific aspects of our solution, giving us around 20 interlinked dashboards which provide an overview, and if one aspect shows weird behavior, we can focus on that specific aspect of our software with a dedicated dashboard."

More Elastic Observability pros

"People are very pleased with the implementation."

"It significantly improves application performance management by offering recommendations for resource allocation to avoid wastage or overcommitment."

"We haven't had any 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."

"I gladly recommend VMware Aria Operations for Applications because it is cost effective and has commendable AI response capabilities."

"Using Wavefront, we have been able to reduce the complexity of our pipeline."

"Wavefront's monitoring tools and visibility into public cloud platforms are competing with the best out there."

"This solution will give you a single pane of glass for everything, and centralized monitoring."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros

Cons

"Improving code insight related to infrastructure and network, particularly focusing on aspects such as firewalls, switches, routers, and testing would be beneficial."

"I am familiar with Azure Monitor, which I find more user-friendly compared to Elastic, which is a very technical tool."

"One example is the inability to monitor very old databases with the newest version."

"The solution needs to use more AI. Once the product onboards AI, users would more effectively be able to track endpoints for specific messages."

"They need more skills in the market. There are not enough skills in the market. It is not pervasive enough on the market, in my opinion. In other words, there isn't a big enough user base."

"Elastic Observability is an excellent product for monitoring and visibility, but it lacks predictive analytics. Most solutions are aligned with the AIOps requirements, but this piece is missing in Elastic and should be included."

"The auto-discovery isn't nearly as good. That's a big portion of it. When you drop the agent onto the JVM and you're trying to figure things out, having to go through and manually do all that is cumbersome."

"In the future, Elastic APM needs a portfolio iTool. They can provide an easy way to develop the custom UI for Kibana."

More Elastic Observability cons

"However, it is still not a very mature product."

"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."

"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 initial setup should be easier and more seamless."

"The solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."

"I would like to see integration with Kubernetes cluster and APIs so that you can manage the entire stack."

"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."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Elastic Observability's pricing could be better for small-scale users."

"So far, there are just the standard licensing fees. Several of the components are embedded in the license or are even open source. They're even free depending on what you use, which makes it even more appealing to someone that is discussing pricing of the solution."

"We will buy a premium license after POC."

"We have been using the open-source version."

"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."

"Elastic Observability is cheaper than other similar solutions, such as Dynatrace. Its license calculation is based on various factors like data volume and physical infrastructure, particularly related to RAM capacity."

"There are two types: cloud and SaaS. They charge based on data ingestion, ingest rate, hard retention, and warm retention. I believe it costs around $25,000 annually to ingest 30GB of data daily. That is the SaaS version. There is also a self-managed license where the customer manages their own infrastructure on-prem. In such cases, there are three license tiers that respectively cost $5,000 annually per node, $7,000 per node, and $12,500 per node."

"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."

More Elastic Observability pricing and cost advice

"I would rate the pricing as three out of five."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Outsourcing Company

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	16

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	10

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?

The problem is their licensing model, which is a bit confusing. Many customers struggle to understand their total cost of ownership because Elastic licensing is not dependent on easy, quantifiable ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?

After careful consideration about areas for improvement in Elastic Observability, aspects such as pricing, customization, implementation, and scalability could be improved. As a user of the system,...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Elastic Observability?

My use case for Elastic Observability is observability, as we upload our customers' data, including logs, and when there is an issue, we can analyze what went wrong.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability

November 2026

Download Elastic Observability product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations for Applications

October 2026

VMware Aria Operations for Applications report

Download VMware Aria Operations for Applications product report

Also Known As

No data available

Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability

Overview

Elastic Observability is known for its powerful search capabilities, central logging, and integration with cloud-native tasks. It enhances monitoring for applications and systems through its flexibility and machine learning features.

Elastic Observability is a robust tool offering end-to-end monitoring and performance analysis, widely utilized for application performance monitoring, centralized logging, and metrics collection. Kibana enables data visualization and connection of sources, while the platform aids in incident response with real-time insights. Despite its complex learning curve, limited customization, and licensing challenges, it remains valuable for businesses seeking to improve operational efficiency with additional support from log analytics and system automation.

What are the key features of Elastic Observability?

Powerful Search: High-performance search that simplifies finding data across systems.
Centralized Logging: Consolidates logs from multiple sources for easier monitoring.
Customizable Dashboards: Allows tailored visual monitoring experience through Kibana.
Machine Learning Features: Incorporates AI-driven analytics for deeper insights.
Scalability and Stability: Adaptable infrastructure supporting high-volume data efficiently.

What benefits or ROI should be considered?

Enhanced Monitoring: Improves system performance visibility and response time.
Cost-Effectiveness: Offers value through scalable infrastructure solutions.
Flexible Integration: Connects seamlessly with existing systems for operational efficiency.

A wide range of industries apply Elastic Observability for its capabilities in capturing significant data points to offer insights into business and technical performance. Its applications span log events, application monitoring, network protocol monitoring, and more, aiding in data-driven decision-making processes within sectors like IT, finance, and e-commerce.

Elastic

VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront is a powerful tool for monitoring and analyzing the performance and availability of applications and infrastructure in real-time.

With its comprehensive monitoring capabilities, visualizing and analyzing data becomes effortless. The real-time alerting system ensures timely issue resolution, while scalability and a user-friendly interface provide a seamless experience for smooth operations.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank

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

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

November 2026

Free Report: Elastic Observability vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.

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