VMware Aria Automation vs Zesty comparison

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VMware Aria Automation

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

VMware Aria Automation and Zesty compete in the automation and optimization domain. Zesty holds a stronger position with advanced optimization features, while VMware Aria Automation excels in terms of comprehensive support and pricing strategies.

Features: VMware Aria Automation offers robust integration capabilities, custom workflow configurations, and flexibility for diverse enterprise environments. Zesty provides advanced automated cloud optimization features, efficient resource utilization, and significant cost-saving capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware Aria Automation provides a structured deployment process, extensive documentation, and robust customer service for a seamless setup experience. Zesty features rapid deployment with an intuitive setup; however, it offers less comprehensive customer service support, making implementation quicker but service less extensive.

Pricing and ROI: VMware Aria Automation is cost-effective, balancing initial setup costs with significant long-term ROI due to its comprehensive feature set. Zesty, requiring a higher initial investment, offers substantial ROI through reduced cloud expenses and enhanced operational efficiency, highlighting VMware's affordability against Zesty's focus on optimization-driven ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed VMware Aria Automation vs. Zesty Report (Updated: June 2026).

VMware Aria Automation vs. Zesty

June 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

VMware Aria Automation

Ranking in Cloud Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

172

Ranking in other categories

Configuration Management (8th), Network Automation (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (20th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (6th)

Zesty

Ranking in Cloud Management

16th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Cost Management (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 5.5%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zesty is 1.0%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
VMware Aria Automation	5.5%
Zesty	1.0%
Other	93.5%

Cloud Management

Featured Reviews

VasilisGiannitsiotis

Senior IT at ITSolutions

Automation has streamlined complex financial workflows but still needs more intuitive orchestration

Something to improve in VMware Aria Automation would be related to VCF 9, as I do not know what it is trying to bring because they exposed it as the solution of everything. So VCF 9 will bring VCF Automation and VCF Operations, the new product line of VMware. I have not seen what this brings or what else it includes. Maybe in the area of vRealize Orchestrator, this would be beneficial because VRO can do everything. Perhaps a more user-friendly way to use that tool would be helpful because the possibilities there are endless. I am looking for more user-friendly navigation in VMware Aria Automation.

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Srinivas Rayudu

Director at Zensa Technologies

Managing complex onboarding has been challenging but automated cost optimization delivers strong savings

Zesty is a good solution; however, the learning curve can be complex for new users without a solid tech background, posing a challenge in training and the initial setup process. I would deduct one point for this aspect since everything else is fine. A specific example of where the learning curve caused issues is when we introduced Zesty to our new development team, which struggled to understand the platform while working on a project related to AI and ML. Our system architects explained how Zesty works, but I believe a more proactive approach to training and foundational data could help teams be more self-sufficient and less reliant on internal support.

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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

"compare-to-competition; Citrix was on our short list. But over the last ten years, we have been a big VMware shop. We wanted to continue with VMware because we are confident that VMware can address any kind of problem situation, any challenges. But with Citrix, we didn't find that kind of credibility when we did solution testing, a PoC."

"It has reduced provisioning time from roughly three to six weeks to about an hour on a private cloud, and about 25 minutes on public cloud."

"I find the system to be intuitive and user-friendly. In general, I'm quite happy with the entire setup. Once you configure the system, navigating the portal is pretty simple. They use a lot of the vSphere UI interface structure so it's intuitive, especially if you have used anything vSphere-related before."

"A lot of its DevOps for infrastructure capabilities improve reliability. Much effort was put in by some customers, like a large automobile manufacturer, a large telecom, and two large banks, to achieve a certain level of capabilities in this space. These DevOps for infrastructure capabilities have saved time for developers. In one use case for a large marketplace, a typical release cycle took about 80 hours and was brought down to three hours by automating deployment for developers. The quicker that deployments happen, the faster that they can do their product release cycles."

"The self-service portal, as well as the Orchestrator, are very helpful because the orchestration piece is really handy for day-to-day operations and added features in version 7.03 have improved it a lot so you can deploy Azure VMs directly, do config management, or run scripts, and it's really better than it used to be."

"It is a very stable solution; it's a state-of-the-art kind of solution that gives a lot of flexibility, is customizable, and can be tailored according to how you want vRA to work for your organization."

"What I like the most about vRA: Its seamless ability for users to be able to go pick a catalog item that we have created for them, while they are testing a new version of their code and say, "Okay, I want you to make my old version (based on these blueprints) run, please deploy me - my entire environment.""

"The most valuable feature of the product is the automation for services; it’s the basis of my work."

More VMware Aria Automation pros

"The turnkey aspect of Zesty is very valuable."

"From a metrics perspective, Zesty reduced our Kubernetes infrastructure spend by about 24% in the first six months, we also cut wasted storage costs by roughly 18% and improved saving plan utilization by around 12%, and on the operational side, we saved roughly 40 to 50 hours a month in manual cloud cost tuning."

"I think Zesty is a really useful tool, it is really quick, it is really powerful, they are always improving it, and the customer service is flawless."

"One of the reasons we decided to onboard Zesty was that it started supporting Windows instances."

"Zesty has positively impacted our organization by providing a good return on investment, with a total reported percentage of savings around 40 to 50%."

Cons

"I would like to see a simpler way of provisioning it. As is, we can automate the provisioning of a VM, however, when it comes to the external IPs, that is outside of VMware."

"It's not cheap. It would be more expensive to get an alternative though because we would have to buy the extras for it."

"When you start to do a deployment where you need higher availability and more resiliency, then the complexity goes up drastically."

"7.5 is not user-friendly, in fact, it's a nightmare. They changed everything on the graphic user interface, the mode where the user interacts with the product."

"It would be nice in the next release if they added in tool tips. Whether you're putting it together, adding a blueprint, or you're making a change in the system, highlighting or selecting something and having it tell you what it does or what it will do would be nice. Because it's such a complex system, it's hard to work with unless you've been using it for years to know what everything is doing."

"It has a learning curve."

"Maintaining the product requires effort and a good understanding of the environment, including how to set up the codes and other configurations. Pricing needs to be improved to improve the customer penetration."

"On a scale of one to 10 stability is a seven. There are a lot of moving parts and we often have difficulty with like an individual service on one of the components failing and bringing down the entire stack, and that's pretty regular."

More VMware Aria Automation cons

"I would like to get RDS-reserved instances that I could buy and sell, but that's a limitation on AWS."

"Zesty is a good solution; however, the learning curve can be complex for new users without a solid tech background, posing a challenge in training and the initial setup process."

"The biggest area for improvement is still reporting depth."

"It would be really useful if Zesty had more code snippets that were easy to use, an easier library instead of their documentation, and something that provided an automated finish to insert code so it could give you code hints."

"There are different resource types that we would like to leverage and get reserved instances for, such as RDS instances."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."

"It is an expensive product. After VMware's acquisition by Broadcom, there was a rise in the price of VMware Aria Automation."

"The pricing for this solution is roughly 20% lower than the competitive products in the market."

"Better pricing is always handy, but I feel it's at the right price point."

"They should provide one license for all the sub-products."

"I would rate it high because, compared to other solutions, VMware’s pricing is quite expensive. VMware products have become significantly more costly in recent years, leading to higher costs."

"The solution is free of cost."

"From a budget point of view, the pricing is a bit on the higher side."

More VMware Aria Automation pricing and cost advice

"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	33
Midsize Enterprise	24
Large Enterprise	131

No data available

Questions from the Community

What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?

vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...

Is there any way to try VMware Aria Automation for free?

When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs: Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...

Which sectors can benefit the most from VMware Aria Automation?

I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zesty?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was great, as we had a great account manager that we did not have to query too much about it. The free one was nearly good enough to start with...

What needs improvement with Zesty?

I find myself using the online editor the most often, and what would be better is if you could have multiple windows open to work in, something like an actual program rather than having to shift be...

What is your primary use case for Zesty?

My main use case for Zesty is the CMS. For our corporate website, my team uses Zesty's CMS to allow users from any point in the company to upload content, add posts, add pages, and promote the comp...

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Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 3% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 3% of the time

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AWS Savings Plans vs Zesty

Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

Sonatype Lifecycle vs Zesty

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Download VMware Aria Automation product report

VMware Aria Automation

May 2026

Download Zesty product report

May 2026

Also Known As

VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack

No data available

Overview

VMware Aria Automation is known for its automation capabilities, integrating with VMware and third-party tools to enhance workflow efficiency, save time, and manage resources effectively.

VMware Aria Automation offers a diverse set of features including a self-service portal and a streamlined user-friendly interface, which make it ideal for organizations aiming to automate virtual machine provisioning. The platform supports extensive automation capabilities across multi-cloud environments, featuring flexible blueprint designs and comprehensive integration with platforms like AWS, Azure, and ServiceNow. Though improvements are desired in areas like logging, template management, and vCenter integration, its robust framework facilitates IT infrastructure services, disaster recovery, and development operations. It is specifically beneficial for orchestrating workflows, automating routine tasks, and managing workloads efficiently in private and hybrid cloud environments.

What are the most important features of VMware Aria Automation?

Self-Service Portal: Empowers users with easy access to resources and tools needed for automation.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies navigation and usage for both technical and non-technical users.
Extensive Automation Capabilities: Streamlines VM deployment and processes across various platforms.
Integration with VMware and Third-Party Tools: Enhances workflow automation and extends functionality.
Flexible Blueprint Designs: Allows for customized and scalable deployment solutions.

What are the benefits and ROI users should consider?

Efficiency: Reduces manual workload, leading to time and cost savings.
Scalability: Supports dynamic growth and resource management.
Enhanced Workflow Automation: Improves process efficiency with comprehensive integrations.
Customizable Orchestration: Enables tailored solutions that meet specific requirements.
Resource Management: Efficiently utilizes resources, reducing waste and optimizing operations.

VMware Aria Automation is implemented across industries for automating the provisioning of virtual machines and managing cloud environments. It is used in sectors requiring efficient server deployment, network configurations, and seamless integration with tools such as AWS and Azure. It aids in reducing manual efforts, supporting IT infrastructure services, and enhancing disaster recovery protocols.

Broadcom

Zesty offers scalable solutions that empower businesses to optimize their digital presence efficiently. Designed for dynamic online environments, Zesty integrates seamlessly, enhancing digital content management with versatile tools.

Zesty focuses on providing an adaptive content management experience for professionals seeking optimization in web content publishing. Known for its intuitive interfaces and robust architecture, Zesty allows effortless website management, content personalization, and SEO enhancements. With Zesty, businesses can efficiently curate digital content, ensuring swift loading times and superior user engagement. Its extensible features enable integration across different platforms, ensuring streamlined workflow management and enhanced data-driven decision-making.

What are the key features of Zesty?

Content Management: Easy-to-navigate CMS for efficient content updates.
SEO Tools: Built-in SEO analytics to boost online visibility.
Personalization: Customizable options for tailored content delivery.
Integration Capabilities: Links seamlessly with third-party applications.

What benefits should users consider?

Improved Efficiency: Streamlined processes reduce time spent managing content.
Enhanced Visibility: Advanced SEO ensures greater reach.
Increased Engagement: Personalized content fosters user interaction.
Cost-Effectiveness: Optimizes resources resulting in reduced operational costs.

Industries such as eCommerce, healthcare, and media have successfully implemented Zesty to streamline digital operations. For eCommerce, Zesty facilitates rapid product content updates, while healthcare sectors utilize it for managing patient information and media outlets employ it for real-time news publishing.

Sample Customers

Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual

Walkme, Wiz, Gong, Grubhub, Singular