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SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 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

SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (10th), Active Directory Management (11th)
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
27th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th), Container Monitoring (6th), Cloud Monitoring Software (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.6%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Subhajit Nag - PeerSpot reviewer
The component and cable monitoring features are good, but the interface is slow
SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern. Every SolarWinds user complains about the sluggishness. The response is slow. If you browse from one page to another, you have to wait. Our company is a massive user with plenty of licenses, so the performance issues could be due to the load per license. Ten thousand components can be mapped under one license. So SolarWinds needs to take care of the speed problem. It cannot be this slow. That is a huge complaint. Otherwise, the tool is good. It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle. The upgrade time matters because you only install the solution once, but you'll need to upgrade the solution repeatedly over the life of the product. A complex installation isn't an issue, but I mind if the upgrade takes too long because it's already in production.
ToniLindberg - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Management Console - Managing service to each server enrolled in the Solarwinds is much easier. Using a web base console, you can control your service much convenient way. There is no need to login remotely. It save a lot of time and effort."
"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."
"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."
"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."
"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."
"The application dependency feature identifies issues between applications and servers or within the network where the application is hosted. It highlights related problems, whether related to packet processing or other issues, enabling the creation of alerts and reports accordingly."
"The stability of Aria Operations for Applications has improved significantly over the years."
"I find VMware Aria Operations for Applications to be very stable, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"The features I find most valuable is the querying and alerting capabilities."
"It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started."
"It significantly improves application performance management by offering recommendations for resource allocation to avoid wastage or overcommitment."
"I gladly recommend VMware Aria Operations for Applications because it is cost effective and has commendable AI response capabilities."
"This solution allows me to have true visibility for any metrics when it comes to my cloud, and private."
"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."
 

Cons

"There is one feature that is a report writer. And they are currently trying to take it out from being a stand-alone application and integrating to the web. This doesn't give us the flexibility and it doesn't expand what we can get when it comes to reporting. So, putting it on the web is going to make it difficult to get some information. Leaving it where it is now will help us a lot."
"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."
"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."
"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."
"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."
"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."
"The solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."
"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."
"The main problem I have is that the license cost is very high."
"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."
"The solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."
"An area for improvement would be more in-depth reporting, such as analyzing disk IO during business hours compared to after hours."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"I would advise potential buyers to wait until the end of the quarter, end of year, or other time to place orders. There are actually great deals to be had at those times if your budget cycle can match up."
"Nagios XI, WhatsUpGold, Uptime Software, PRTG, Manage Engine, and SpiceWorks are the other tools that have lower pricing and licensing costs. However, they can't compete with SolarWinds when it comes to the features and functionality that SolarWinds can provide."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
35%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor at this time. I have not encountered any missing features or fu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
The cost of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is fair and reasonable compared to what we receive in support and packages from VMware.
What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
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.
What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
Our primary use case for VMware Aria Operations for Applications is to enhance application monitoring tasks, allowing us to set up alerts for different components and send them via SMTP to a team d...
 

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM
Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
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 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.