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Grafana Loki vs VMware Aria Operations for Logs comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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

Grafana Loki
Ranking in Log Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Ranking in Log Management
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Grafana Loki is 8.4%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Logs is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Volodymyr Bondarchuk - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrations enhance monitoring but problem-solving proves challenging
Different types of integrations with various sources are the most helpful and useful features of Grafana Loki that I found for myself. As part of Kubernetes technology, I noticed benefits from using this product such as availability, configuration balancing, high availability solutions for high performance, and failover clustering. It provides a clear picture about the state of the system and gives needed information for taking action and quickly fixing problems.
LarsChristensen - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient troubleshooting with precise log filtering and an easy setup
The tool could benefit from improved filter settings and dashboarding. While there are dashboards available, they are often created by community members and may not work after updates. It would be beneficial to have a roadmap for these dashboards to ensure consistent functionality. It would also be advantageous if the tool could process even large amounts of data faster, though this may be more related to data movement challenges rather than the software itself.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There are new features like that pilot code and things like that for profiling."
"I appreciate the capability to process logs from microservices and seamlessly integrate them into Grafana."
"Different types of integrations with various sources are the most helpful and useful features of Grafana Loki that I found for myself."
"The most valuable feature is the capability to set up alerts, which becomes necessary when we need to receive notifications for specific events."
"The tool can be used in multi-cluster environments."
"The effectiveness of filters is pivotal for optimizing the search process and extracting the specific information we need from the extensive log data."
"Grafana agent is very lightweight and does not cost significant resources of our cluster."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source tool that is stable and flexible."
"Overall, I would recommend VMware Aria Operations for Logs because it is a good tool with many valuable features."
"Log Insight correlates with the VMware product log. It can assemble the logs you want, making it easier to find the output, incident, or keyword you want to search."
"VMware Aria Operations for Logs is a very stable product."
"The system's management and its alerts are the most valuable aspects of the solution."
"The virtualization solution supports data center virtualization, network and security."
"The ability to narrow into a specific time to filter heavy hitters and anomalies is extremely valuable."
"The tool helps my company deal with security and log analysis, which are very important areas for us...It is a scalable solution."
"The interface of the solution is good."
 

Cons

"The correlation of requests is not simple in Grafana Loki and can be improved."
"It's not intended for proprietary services, so you have to struggle with configuration a lot."
"I do not see any areas for improvement at the moment."
"The solution has shortcomings regarding security monitoring-oriented features that need improvement."
"We encountered certain limitations when it came to alerting, particularly when dealing with specific data sources."
"There is a need for some change in the alerting types of the product. In short, a few changes in the alert area are needed due to minor shortcomings."
"I would rate Grafana Loki a seven out of ten because it is open source, and sometimes there can be problems that are difficult to fix without official support."
"The product must improve its UI."
"What I'd like to improve in vRealize Log Insight is the licensing model. VMware provides vRealize Log Insight along with the VMware Cloud Foundation, but customers who would like to go for the native VMware would have to procure vRealize Log Insight separately. Today, vRealize Log Insight is offered on two different licenses, one is based on the number of VMs, and the other is based on the number of physical codes on the machine. If VMware can provide a bundle offer for customers who procure more than ten licenses, where you can have an option to run, for example, three hundred machines on vRealize Log Insight with no extra cost, this would encourage more people to adopt the solution. What I'd like to see in the next release of vRealize Log Insight is for a cloud option to be available, which would be a pay-as-you-go licensing model that would allow me to pick and choose what I'll monitor. For example, I have one thousand and three hundred critical servers, and the seven hundred servers for basic development, I don't want to monitor on vRealize Log Insight today, so I should be able to pick what I need to monitor on the solution and only pay for that specific instance. If VMware can apply these changes, it would help VMware customers to procure more or adopt more of vRealize Log Insight even in smaller projects."
"If data migration occurs during a search, it alters performance, causing delays."
"The pricing of the solution could be improved."
"In the VMware environment, one area for improvement is the handling of VM failovers due to host failures, such as unexpected shutdowns from hardware issues. Currently, High Availability (HA) doesn't seem to recognize whether the VMs are online during failover, treating them as offline or unavailable."
"I think that it should be able to integrate with other third-party backup and recovery solutions, more that it does now."
"Documentation is lacking, including some guide as to how to use the expressions. It is not clear how to look for a log, for example. Some examples in the documentation might be helpful. I think that VMware had good documentation, but it's no longer hosted. The documentation is not as easy to understand as it was before."
"The solution should be more user-friendly. The user interface and dashboard could be simplified."
"Log retention should have more options for user control."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is less than other paid services like CloudWatch."
"Grafana Loki is an open-source solution."
"The solution is open source."
"I use the open-source version of the product."
"My company doesn't need to pay for the licensing cost of the solution."
"Since we are using the open-source version of Grafana Loki, we are not paying anything for the solution."
"I find the licensing structure quite reasonable, as the free license effectively meets my requirements."
"I use the solution's open-source version. Grafana Loki is a completely free solution for me."
"The product's price is reasonable, but when it comes to SQL licensing, it's a bit expensive."
"The pricing has been updated recently."
"Pricing could always be lower. If it were free, I would be more satisfied."
"The licensing cost for vRealize Log Insight is a little higher, so in terms of cost, it all depends upon what kind of environment you have. If you have a complete virtualized environment, or at least you're using a ninety-five percent virtualized environment, then vRealize Log Insight will play a very good role because it is a VMware component, so it has very tight integration with other VMware components and systems. This means you don't have to procure any other monitoring and management tool, and you don't need a separate automation tool. vRealize Log Insight will have an upper hand if your environment is purely virtualized on VMware. If you're using a mix of physical and virtual components, for example, a 50:50 ratio, then you need to have a third-party component to manage overall monitoring."
"It is not cheap. But it is worth it."
"I rate the product's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"The license cost for any other monitoring tool is too high compared to this product."
"Pricing is good because it is part of the suite package. It comes in a bundle for us."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Grafana Loki?
We are using Grafana Loki as a database for real-time metrics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana Loki?
Since it is an open source tool, there are no charges or fees.
What needs improvement with Grafana Loki?
I have no ideas at this moment about what could be improved in Grafana Loki.
What do you like most about vRealize Log Insight?
The events are notably more descriptive, aiding in security and event analysis. We've also integrated Sky Collector, providing valuable insights and solutions for troubleshooting.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for vRealize Log Insight?
The cost of using VMware Aria Operations for Logs was very high, around two to three million dollars, although the exact figure is uncertain. The price was proving to be too much, especially with t...
What needs improvement with vRealize Log Insight?
VMware Aria Operations for Logs is not a cost-effective tool. Changing any telemetry requires creating a new template, such as changes to the VM disk size. Always having to create a new template ma...
 

Also Known As

No data available
vRealize Log Insight
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Wildlands Adventure Zoo, Medic Mobile, IBM, Seventy Seven Energy, Baystate Health, Osis, Oxford University, Columbia University, Siemens, Cardinal Health, Ashdod Port, Vasakronan, Sydney Adventist Hospital, University of Derby
Find out what your peers are saying about Grafana Loki vs. VMware Aria Operations for Logs and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.