PRTG Network Monitor vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

Paessler GmbH and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Monitoring Software category. Paessler GmbH is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.4, while Broadcom is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.8. Paessler GmbH holds a 5.0% mindshare in CMS, compared to Broadcom’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Paessler GmbH users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

PRTG Network Monitor

Read 113 PRTG Network Monitor reviews

10,333 Views
4,547 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Read 14 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews

3,591 Views
1,508 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

PRTG Network Monitor

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

PRTG Network Monitor and VMware Aria Operations for Applications compete in the network and application monitoring category. PRTG appears to have the upper hand in cost-effectiveness and ease of use for basic monitoring needs, whereas VMware excels in providing advanced analytics and comprehensive monitoring across hybrid and private cloud environments.

Features: PRTG Network Monitor offers quick deployment, scalability, and robust monitoring capabilities. Users value its rapid deployment, cost advantage, and extensive support for various infrastructure environments. VMware Aria Operations for Applications focuses on advanced monitoring analytics and application performance management featuring AI-driven insights. Users benefit from its comprehensive real-time statistics and cloud integration, enabling extensive monitoring across diverse environments.

Room For Improvement: PRTG Network Monitor could enhance map design flexibility, application monitoring, and agent-defined sensors. There's also room for improvement in advanced monitoring capabilities. VMware could improve integration with third-party applications and offer more in-depth application-level monitoring. PRTG needs better real-time data analysis, while VMware should enhance compatibility and provide detailed application insights.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: PRTG Network Monitor is known for straightforward deployment with minimal technical support needed, although it primarily offers email-based communication. VMware Aria Operations for Applications provides robust integrations but may require specialized setup knowledge. Both have comprehensive documentation, yet differ in customer service, with PRTG focusing on user-friendliness and VMware on supporting complex environments.

Pricing and ROI: PRTG Network Monitor is cost-effective, especially for smaller businesses, with an all-in-one pricing strategy and a free version limited by sensor count. VMware Aria Operations for Applications is more expensive, particularly with additional integrations, offering significant value through enhanced analytics and cloud capabilities. While PRTG provides excellent cost-efficiency, VMware necessitates a steeper investment for deeper insights and broader capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed PRTG Network Monitor vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

PRTG Network Monitor vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

February 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 881,821 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

PRTG Network Monitor

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

4th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

113

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (5th)

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

17th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Container Monitoring (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 5.0%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 2.1%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
PRTG Network Monitor	5.0%
VMware Aria Operations for Applications	2.1%
Other	92.9%

Cloud Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

madhan kumar hs

software engineer at Capgemini

Alerting precision has reduced incident response times and improved department-level network visibility

The auto-pause sensor during the maintenance window is good without any false alerts, and it prevents me from getting flooded with alerts during planned maintenance, helping department heads understand their own network usage better. It has reduced incident response time by giving clearer ownership of each alert, ensuring alerts go to the proper recipient. SNMP testers and auto-pause are among the best features of PRTG Network Monitor, which is particularly useful for different departments such as HR and finance, where alerts can be filtered accordingly. The alerting features and dashboard of PRTG Network Monitor are very helpful, especially in our industry. However, the dashboard can look cluttered on smaller screens, which is one negative aspect. PRTG Network Monitor has impacted us positively; we have stopped getting flooded with alerts during planned maintenance or unplanned outages. Compared to others, this gives specific alerts very quickly and helps department heads understand their own network usage better, thus reducing incident response time so that each alert has clear ownership.

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 is able to satisfy all our requirements in terms of email notifications and specific errors on the devices."

"The fact that I can use custom MIB files to customize my sensors for the things that are not there as a default is a good feature."

"PRTG is integrated on Windows."

"It allows us to directly add individual VMs independently."

"The most valuable feature is the notifications. As long as you spend time and think about what and when you want to be notified, it's always accurate. It is always there. I find things out before my Internet provider."

"Nice product with an easy interface to use and a large variety of sensors."

"Ease of set-up – it is quick and easy to add a probe and start collecting data from a device."

"The authentication links into our standard Active Directory authentication, which is very good."

More PRTG Network Monitor pros

"People are very pleased with the implementation."

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

"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."

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

"The features I find most valuable is the querying and alerting capabilities."

"Tanzu itself, integrated with multiple solutions, bestows support and security upon a container platform, especially when it comes to managing open-source container platforms such as Kubernetes."

"This solution allows me to have true visibility for any metrics when it comes to my cloud, and private."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros

Cons

"The inventory of the device should be improved."

"Integration into service management ticketing systems could be better. They should simplify the integration into big service management platforms like ServiceNow, Remedy, and Cherwell. They're really into monitoring, but they don't do any self-resolution. It would be better if the company moved more into the AIOps space so that you could actually kick off some remedies. I know that you can execute some commands from the tool, but you need to develop those all yourself. It would be really handy if they had some auto-remedy scripts that they could develop on top."

"They should work on syncing the solution with Gmail."

"We run it in a cluster, so we have two that run together. The cluster behind it is sketchy at times."

"The solution has to evolve as an end-to-end monitoring solution. It has to do better at understanding the application at the deepest level."

"PRTG's application monitoring sensor is not strong."

"I would like a more straightforward ability to create dashboards and maps. The network maps should be a bit more flexibility in the GUI to do what we need to do."

"Users need to buy the more expensive licenses if they expect to be able to scale."

More PRTG Network Monitor cons

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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 main problem I have is that the license cost is very high."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In my company now, we are using the free version."

"We've got 1,000 nodes and I believe it's a few hundred quid a month."

"If you're looking for a cost effective software I’d suggest this product."

"We are using the basic PRTG that we can download for free. For now, we only need to monitor less than 100 devices. For more than 100 devices, we would need to buy a license. PRTG is much cheaper than SolarWinds."

"We've got the unlimited package... I believe it was around the £15,000 per year mark."

"The price was pretty good, very competitive."

"We pay for a perpetual license and we have a support fee."

"It's an annual license that is based on the number of endpoints that we're tracking and using."

More PRTG Network Monitor pricing and cost advice

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

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

"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."

"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."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

881,821 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user174738

IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

May 31, 2015

Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor

I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Government

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	59
Midsize Enterprise	19
Large Enterprise	49

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

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...

See all answers

What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?

The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?

The pricing was higher at the beginning, but the recurring licensing cost is affordable and reasonable. Overall, the pricing, setup cost, and licensing is fair for our industry. They have quoted us...

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

Comparisons

Zabbix vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

Centreon vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

Checkmk vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 4% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 4% of the time

Nagios XI vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 3% of the time

More PRTG Network Monitor Competitors

Grafana vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 6% of the time

Zabbix vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 5% of the time

Datadog vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 5% of the time

Dynatrace vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 5% of the time

Nagios XI vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 4% of the time

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

PRTG Network Monitor

January 2026

Download PRTG Network Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations for Applications

January 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

PRTG Network Monitor runs on a Windows machine within your network, collecting various statistics from the machines, software, and devices which you designate. PRTG comes with an easy-to-use web interface with point-and-click configuration. You can easily share data from it with non-technical colleagues and customers, including via live graphs and custom reports. This will let you plan for network expansion, see what applications are using most of your connection, and make sure that no one is hogging the entire network just to torrent videos.

To monitor a large IT environment, it's important to be able to scale PRTG up. Paessler PRTG Enterprise Monitor includes all the proven capabilities of PRTG Network Monitor, which are enhanced by exclusive ITOps Board for a service-oriented, central overview of multiple PRTG servers.

Paessler GmbH

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

Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust 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

PRTG Network Monitor vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

February 2026

Free Report: PRTG Network Monitor vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Find out what your peers are saying about PRTG Network Monitor vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,821 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our PRTG Network Monitor vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications report.

See our list of best Cloud Monitoring Software vendors and best IT Infrastructure Monitoring vendors.

We monitor all Cloud Monitoring Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.