Spiceworks vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

Spiceworks and Broadcom are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Spiceworks is ranked #42 with an average rating of 8.5, while Broadcom is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.8. Spiceworks holds a 0.5% mindshare in IM, compared to Broadcom’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of Spiceworks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Spiceworks

Read 47 Spiceworks reviews

2,387 Views
931 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Read 14 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews

3,211 Views
1,638 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Spiceworks

VMware Aria Operations for ...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Spiceworks and VMware Aria Operations for Applications compete in the service desk and monitoring category. VMware Aria Operations for Applications has the upper hand due to its robust monitoring capabilities and integration features.

Features: Spiceworks offers free inventory and helpdesk capabilities, network scanning features, and community support. VMware Aria Operations for Applications provides cloud and hybrid monitoring, Kubernetes integration, and detailed monitoring insights.

Room for Improvement: Spiceworks needs better monitoring tools, reporting capabilities, and scalability for larger enterprises. Improvement in the ticketing system and streamlining the community login process would enhance its offering. VMware Aria Operations for Applications requires easier setup, improved integration with Kubernetes, and more predictable costs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Spiceworks provides versatile deployment options, being available on-premises or in the cloud, with community-driven support. VMware Aria Operations for Applications offers robust official support across on-premises and hybrid solutions, suitable for enterprises needing structured support.

Pricing and ROI: Spiceworks is free, providing an excellent ROI for small businesses. Its effectiveness relies on user expertise and time investment. VMware Aria Operations for Applications, though more expensive with licensing fees, provides comprehensive features justifying the costs for large organizations seeking detailed application insights.

To learn more, read our detailed Spiceworks vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Spiceworks vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

January 2026

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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

Spiceworks

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

42nd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Help Desk Software (14th), IT Asset Management (10th)

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

16th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (19th), Container Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (15th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Spiceworks is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 1.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
VMware Aria Operations for Applications	1.6%
Spiceworks	0.5%
Other	97.9%

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Rohit Samel

Account Manager Enterprise Sales at Navdeep Technologies Pvt.Ltd

Cloud storage with no hardware needed and great comprehensive reports

The software is cloud-based, so I do not need to store any data locally. It is a fully software-based solution, eliminating the need for investment in hardware. We have the capability to create reports as needed. It is good software to use, as there were no incidents where I needed to contact technical support. Additionally, it is free software.

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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

"The solution can find all asset details automatically, whether it's a Mac address, computer name, IP address, models, etc. It's very helpful."

"Helpdesk and inventory are both equally valuable, and they form the true core of the product."

"Spiceworks' dashboard allows you to drill down to the notes, where I can take an inventory of the network and see the devices I need to monitor."

"The solution is easy to use and easy to manage."

"It lets us know whether devices are getting out of date and tracked warranties. Spiceworks also gave me visibility in terms of what software was installed on each device and its status."

"The software is cloud-based, so I do not need to store any data locally."

"It shows the users that are currently logged in, which is not something that Active Directory by default will ever let you know up front."

"The software is cloud-based, so I do not need to store any data locally."

More Spiceworks pros

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

"No issues with stability."

"It significantly improves application performance management by offering recommendations for resource allocation to avoid wastage or overcommitment."

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

"The most valuable aspects of the solution are its ease of use and its ease of implementation."

"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."

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

"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."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros

Cons

"They've also tried to integrate it with social logins, like Twitter and LinkedIn, and that type of login authentication has no place in a corporate application."

"Since Spiceworks is a free tool, it's not very scriptable or customizable."

"Having an integrated asset management tool, where I can plug in things that are offline, would be good."

"One of the biggest ways in which Spiceworks could improve is by developing better and more automated workflows. For example, in another solution called ServiceDesk by ManageEngine, you can have levels of approval in the event that there is a request for new software, or when someone requests a VPN or WiFi connection. This kind of multi-stage approval feature provided by ServiceDesk does not appear to exist in Spiceworks, and it is one of their main shortcomings for me."

"Once a device was recognized on the network, Spiceworks never got rid of it even after you took it off the network. You had to go in and manually remove it."

"There are a lot of disadvantages to Spiceworks because it's not an agent-based solution."

"The customer service is okay, however, I would appreciate much more clarity on what I want to know exactly."

"It would be nice to have remote access to the solution via a tablet. They also need remote control from a PC. Right now, to complete the technical support process, you have to have a tool to access the PC, and check the problems."

More Spiceworks cons

"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 initial setup should be easier and more seamless."

"The documentation and integration with Kubernetes could be improved."

"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."

"They could make it more easy to plug-in data so that a nontechnical person will be able to use it, like accountants or finance people. That way they don't have to ask us."

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

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is free! Get it now."

"Seeing that it is a low-cost solution, I would advise you to go ahead with Spiceworks and experiment with it to see if you can get things working properly, especially if you currently don't have any existing service desk software in place."

"The tool is cheap."

"It might be about $300 annually for a bigger company. If you pay annually, it's better and cheaper."

"It's free."

"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

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

University

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	10

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Spiceworks?

The solution is easy to use and easy to manage.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Spiceworks?

The tool is cheap.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Spiceworks?

I am unable to provide suggestions for improvement at this moment, however, I can provide feedback later. Currently, there do not seem to be any issues.

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

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Datadog vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 5% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Spiceworks

January 2026

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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

From network inventory and network monitoring to help desk software, and mobile device management (MDM) to cloud services detection, Spiceworks helps you manage everything about your IT workday from one easy place.

Spiceworks

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

Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Symantec, Webroot, EMC, Pertino

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

Spiceworks vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

January 2026

Free Report: Spiceworks vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Find out what your peers are saying about Spiceworks vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.

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