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PRTG Network Monitor vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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
5th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
9th
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
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (16th), Container Monitoring (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 4.3%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 2.2%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
PRTG Network Monitor4.3%
VMware Aria Operations for Applications2.2%
Other93.5%
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

madhan kumar hs - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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

"I can customize the port as per my need and the real-time monitoring feature that is already provided to me."
"The simplicity is what I appreciate about PRTG Network Monitor."
"From my somewhat more high-level view, the summary dashboards are excellent, they give me what I need, and having spoken to the operations guys, it gives them everything they need."
"The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts."
"Its proactiveness is its most valuable feature. We already know when we come in, in the morning, if a server or site is down, as opposed to someone telling us."
"Our users perceive it as our being able to provide a very high level of service because we're avoiding situations where they suffer downtime."
"The support is fantastic."
"The remote probe feature in PRTG Network Monitor helps you monitor remote systems or your network at a lower cost than other solutions."
"This solution allows me to have true visibility for any metrics when it comes to my cloud, and private."
"It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started."
"The features I find most valuable is the querying and alerting capabilities."
"For us, the ease of deployment in combination with TMZ was the most important part because we don't have to manually deploy a complex monitoring solution. We can more or less do that with the click of a button, and we are not dependent on the developers to provide us with all the necessary features and functions to make that work. We can just deploy it on a workload cluster and monitor at least a good part of the workload. If we want to go into detail, we clearly need to make changes, but for a good part of application monitoring, it gives us good insights."
"I find VMware Aria Operations for Applications to be very stable, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"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."
"People are very pleased with the implementation."
"Using Wavefront, we have been able to reduce the complexity of our pipeline."
 

Cons

"With custom sensors, there is a lot of work which needs to be done in the background, just for it to be tailor-made for the specific thing that we are actually monitoring. We take a lot of time with the custom sensors. I would like to see the customer sensor be more robust and a bit more varied."
"Integration into service management ticketing systems could be better. They should simplify the integration into big service management platforms like ServiceNow, Remedy, and Cherwell."
"Having a Unix implementation or Unix installation could be an improvement. Right now, it's based just on Windows, and that's a problem for some customers."
"I would like to see network mapping."
"PRTG does not allow us to scan devices like we can scan software or another problem in it. Also, I cannot draw graphical graphs in Woodview/look. Another problem is that we cannot draw a good diagram in PRTG."
"I would like to see a more robust platform and a new dashboard. In addition, the code is good, but it needs improvement."
"Mostly, this software has sensors for devices to monitor specs and you can build or develop or modify various sensors, according to your company's needs. But you may need to do that with coding or plugins or with the support of Paessler AG, the manufacturer."
"To have the additional features costs a lot. It's too much."
"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 solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."
"The main problem I have is that the license cost is very high."
"The documentation and integration with Kubernetes could 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."
"However, it is still not a very mature product."
"The implementation is a long process that should be improved."
"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

"Right now, the smallest sensor pack that they have is just a bit out of range for me, as a business. This kills me, as I need the product. Therefore, there is always a balance between needing to buy it or continuing their free version."
"The ability to use the base version with 100 free sensors is great. The cost on other packages can be very reasonable."
"The price of PRTG Network Monitor is reasonable."
"We've got the unlimited package... I believe it was around the £15,000 per year mark."
"At the moment I'm only using 500 sensors. I pay yearly, so it's a cost that's easily swallowed."
"It's an annual license that is based on the number of endpoints that we're tracking and using."
"We've got 1,000 nodes and I believe it's a few hundred quid a month."
"We have unlimited devices and sensors, and it is a bit pricey, but we do have unlimited sensors. With all things considered the price is fine, related to the solution itself. PRTG Network Monitor is good value for money."
"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."
"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."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise50
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
 

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...
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...
What needs improvement with PRTG Network Monitor?
The reporting features look very technical and that can be improved. If they can change the report so everyone can understand it, that would be helpful.
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

No data available
Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about PRTG Network Monitor vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.