Nagios Core vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

Nagios and VMware are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Nagios is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.5, while VMware is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.8. Nagios holds a 3.4% mindshare in IM, compared to VMware’s 1.4% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Nagios users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Nagios Core

Read 51 Nagios Core reviews

4,424 Views
3,849 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Read 14 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews

2,539 Views
1,320 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Nagios Core

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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VMware Aria Operations for Applications and Nagios Core compete in application monitoring and management. VMware often has the upper hand due to its flexibility and modern analytics, while Nagios is favored for customization and simplicity.

Features: VMware Aria Operations for Applications includes advanced analytics, real-time performance monitoring, integrated automation, unified visibility, and proactive issue resolution. Nagios Core offers robust alerting, highly customizable monitoring, community-supported extensions, open-source flexibility, and scalability for various environments.

Room for Improvement: VMware Aria Operations for Applications could improve in user interface simplicity, cost efficiency, and scalability for smaller organizations. Nagios Core may need enhancements in documentation clarity, integration with third-party tools, and professional customer support options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware Aria Operations for Applications provides a streamlined deployment process with extensive support and is ideal for complex environments. Nagios Core offers a straightforward deployment model but requires more manual configuration, relying on community-driven support.

Pricing and ROI: VMware Aria Operations for Applications may involve higher upfront costs but delivers substantial long-term ROI through automation and efficiency. Nagios Core, as an open-source solution, presents a lower initial cost with good ROI for those investing time in setup and customization.

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To learn more, read our detailed Nagios Core vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

July 2025

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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

Nagios Core

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (11th)

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

17th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (18th), Container Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (14th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Nagios Core is 3.4%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 1.4%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Nishith-Vyas

Tech Lead at STL Digital Limited

Valuable reporting and alert system with room for PDF export improvements

The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak. It should be generated automatically with minimal human intervention and should be exportable as a PDF. Besides that, an integrated PDF export feature for reports is necessary. Also, the alert mechanism and graphing mechanism need to be integrated properly into Nagios Core. Currently, integrating these requires advanced Linux knowledge. Integration of more visualization tools like Grafana and Prometheus for better graphing and visualization is also recommended.

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ToniLindberg

senior consultant at Virtual Consultants Sverige AB

Troubleshooting capabilities have improved application monitoring and support engagement

I can see what happens end to end, which is pretty beneficial. The solution has troubleshooting capabilities, providing a direct connection to knowledge base articles from VMware Broadcom. When I encounter an error, I can search directly within the system to see what solutions have been employed by others. It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The reporting structure and the feature set are valuable to me."

"The solution is quite efficient."

"The most valuable feature is the performance parameters of the system."

"Nagios monitors our servers, so we know if anything goes wrong and can solve the problem before it happens."

"The solution's most valuable feature is that it offers proper alerting capabilities."

"It is fairly easy to set up, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to."

"The most valuable feature depends on the project. It's great if you need to check to ensure a service is running 24/7. I can use the full solution for free, and it's flexible. If I need to add a dashboard, I can integrate it with Nagios. Cloud synchronization is wonderful."

"Nagios Core is stable."

More Nagios Core pros

"People are very pleased with the implementation."

"VMware Aria Operations for Applications offers significant features such as real-time statistics, the ability to identify possible issues within the VM environment, and helpful heat maps."

"The stability of Aria Operations for Applications has improved significantly over the years."

"No issues with stability."

"It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started."

"The solution provides single-console management for multiple VMware environments and cloud integrations, whether hybrid, private, or public cloud."

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

"The solution is great for virtualization and preparing the infrastructure in Tanzu to test products. It's very fast and has good visibility."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros

Cons

"It's not that easy to install the product itself. Also, the UI is a bit hard for regular users to navigate through."

"The alerting mechanism in Nagios Core could be improved."

"Nagios Core does not have a graphic display."

"The user interface could be more interactive because it is pretty basic."

"Nagios Core could improve by adding a user interface. If you want the user interface you have to use Nagios XI."

"The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak."

"t was a little hard to get our setup represented in the configuration."

"Nagios Core can improve the graphical interface, it would make things a little easier."

More Nagios Core cons

"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."

"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."

"An area for improvement would be more in-depth reporting, such as analyzing disk IO during business hours compared to after hours."

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

"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."

"The initial setup should be easier and more seamless."

"The implementation is a long process that should be improved."

"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."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."

"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."

"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."

"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."

"The Nagios Core (PNP4Nagios + Core) is free and can be setup by Netadmin within a few hours. The only additional cost is the cloud server."

"Most the plugin features are free."

"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."

"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."

More Nagios Core pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Nagios Core?

What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios Core?

Nagios Core is a free and open-source product. We don't charge for the product itself, but we charge for the man-hour costs related to installation, configuration, ongoing operation, and maintenance.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nagios Core?

The dashboard should be improved. It's very simple. I don't have a very clear or specific suggestion. You can change the skin of the dashboard, however, it's good for me.

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?

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...

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

Comparisons

Icinga vs Nagios Core

Compared 23% of the time

Nagios XI vs Nagios Core

Compared 15% of the time

Zabbix vs Nagios Core

Compared 12% of the time

Centreon vs Nagios Core

Compared 7% of the time

Checkmk vs Nagios Core

Compared 5% of the time

More Nagios Core Competitors

Grafana vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 11% of the time

Dynatrace vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 8% of the time

Zabbix vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 7% of the time

Datadog vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 5% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 5% of the time

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core

August 2025

Download Nagios Core product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations for Applications

July 2025

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

This is IT infrastructure monitoring's industry-standard, open-source core. Free without professional support services.

Nagios

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.

VMware

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel

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

Nagios Core vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

July 2025

Free Report: Nagios Core vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios Core vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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