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Microsoft System Center vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 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

Microsoft System Center
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
28th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (14th)
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (16th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (16th), Container Monitoring (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Microsoft System Center is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 2.3%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Aria Operations for Applications2.3%
Microsoft System Center0.7%
Other97.0%
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Carl Palapal - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Sys. Server & Storage Egineer / Tech .Consultant at CANAR OFFICE SYSTEMS
Provides comprehensive system management with effective deployment and integration capabilities
The advantages of Microsoft System Center are significant, and I have seen other products as well. As far as advantages are concerned, they have PXE deployment, which is good for deploying operating systems, such as Windows client systems including Windows 10 and Windows 11. Since it is a Microsoft product, all the patches are proprietary, making it easier to deploy. In Microsoft System Center, all the features are integrated already, whereas in ManageEngine, you have to license each feature individually to access those features. The automated features of Virtual Machine Manager are very useful; it automates as long as the policy that I have created is in line with the objective, especially the templates when I'm going to deploy. Regarding endpoint management, Microsoft System Center is very helpful; it has integrated endpoint protection deployment, allowing me to handle endpoint configuration, system deployment, and patch deployment, making it an all-in-one stop shop for managing and configuring end clients. The impact of using Microsoft System Center is significant; it gives me a whole picture of my environment, making it easy to get inventory details regarding applications and hardware, providing full visibility of my setup within the organization.
AS
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Managment Packs for Microsoft-specific products, help us implement the best practices for each product."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it helps us manage our company's application pool, license pool, application update pool, and OS updates."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the ease of configuration and the easy discovery of the environment."
"The solution is stable; we haven't had issues, it doesn't crash or freeze, there aren't bugs or glitches, and it's reliable."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft System Center is its GUI (graphical user interface)."
"The deployment and asset management features are the most valuable; these are the product's main features."
"We like Microsoft System Center's Operations Manager. That is primarily why we use it."
"It can generate KPIs and management reports with monthly presentations on activities and updating the environment (success and failure)."
"The solution is great for virtualization and preparing the infrastructure in Tanzu to test products, it's very fast and has good visibility."
"It significantly improves application performance management by offering recommendations for resource allocation to avoid wastage or overcommitment."
"The solution is great for virtualization and preparing the infrastructure in Tanzu to test products. It's very fast and has good visibility."
"The stability of Aria Operations for Applications has improved significantly over the years."
"It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are its ease of use and its ease of implementation."
"Using Wavefront, we have been able to reduce the complexity of our pipeline."
"The stability of Aria Operations for Applications has improved significantly over the years."
 

Cons

"Less server consumption would help, as would better, more flexible reports."
"System Center hasn't updated to keep up with the industry. It needs improvements in the user interface, ease of use, and overall product functionality, particularly the cloud-monitoring features. It needs more capabilities to monitor AWS and Azure infrastructure."
"The solution's dashboard needs improvement."
"For me, the tool's UI seems to be too old."
"We have some bugs but it's stable. It doesn't break every day."
"Installation is cumbersome and not much documentation available for best practices for installation."
"The most difficult area we faced was the requirement of having one central system center that deployed in one domain, capable of managing and controlling the end user devices."
"Implementation and integration in the case of multi-tenant environments needs improvement."
"The implementation is a long process that should be improved."
"The initial setup should be easier and more seamless."
"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."
"VMware technical support has declined since the Broadcom acquisition. Previously, they were more focused on issue resolution, but now they prioritize licensing verification before providing support."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It could use a URL document server. Everything in the market is moving towards automation and everybody's looking for the single click operations as well relational data locality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I know that sometimes there is some reduction in the prices of Microsoft System Center because of the costs of Microsoft SQL Server, which can be advantageous."
"Microsoft System Center's licensing is costly."
"We maximized our license investment."
"It's rolled into our enterprise subscription. The entire subscription is around $25,000 a year, however, that covers all the products that we use."
"I rate the product price as five to six on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is cheap and ten means it is expensive."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"Microsoft System Center is quite expensive."
"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Microsoft System Center?
The disadvantage of Microsoft System Center is related to the many integrated services; if one service is failing, then all features will be affected. For example, with site configuration, when one...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft System Center?
I am using Microsoft System Center. I use Microsoft System Center for patch deployment and application deployment.
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...
What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
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 priva...
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...
 

Also Known As

MS System Center
Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Kassen_rztliche Vereinigung Nordrhein, Magyar Telekom Nyrt., Adeka, QualCare, Aeriandi, UniCredit Bank d.d., Mostar, Allianz Australia Ltd., Grupo Familia
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 Microsoft System Center vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.