Grafana Enterprise Stack vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

Grafana Labs and VMware are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Grafana Labs is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.2, while VMware is ranked #29 with an average rating of 9.0. Grafana Labs holds a 0.8% mindshare in IM, compared to VMware’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Grafana Labs users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Grafana Enterprise Stack

Read 9 Grafana Enterprise Stack reviews

692 Views
501 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Read 12 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews

1,344 Views
1,198 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Grafana Enterprise Stack

VMware Aria Operations for ...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

VMware Aria Operations for Applications and Grafana Enterprise Stack compete in application performance monitoring and data visualization. Grafana Enterprise Stack appears to hold the upper hand due to its comprehensive visualization features and flexibility in handling diverse data sources.

Features: VMware Aria Operations for Applications provides deep insights, predictive analytics, and seamless integration with VMware environments. Grafana Enterprise Stack offers powerful dashboard capabilities, extensive plugin support, and broad platform compatibility.

Room for Improvement: VMware Aria Operations for Applications could expand support beyond VMware environments, improve user interface intuitiveness, and enhance integration with non-VMware tools. Grafana Enterprise Stack may need streamlined configuration processes, improved role-based access control, and enhanced support for newer data sources.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware Aria Operations for Applications offers easy deployment within VMware ecosystems and access to VMware’s support network. Grafana Enterprise Stack, although possibly requiring more initial setup due to its open-source nature, benefits from detailed documentation and community engagement, with responsive customer service aiding deployment.

Pricing and ROI: VMware Aria Operations for Applications might involve higher setup costs but can deliver significant ROI in VMware environments due to its compatibility. Grafana Enterprise Stack provides flexible pricing models, generally lower initial costs, and high ROI potential for enterprises focusing on scalable visualization solutions, potentially reducing costs through its open-source foundation.

To learn more, read our detailed Grafana Enterprise Stack vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Grafana Enterprise Stack vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

April 2025

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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

Grafana Enterprise Stack

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

25th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

29th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (27th), Container Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (22nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Grafana Enterprise Stack is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 1.2%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Gregory Diana

Managing Director at Exponential Energy (Pty) Ltd

Offers very good charting capabilities and capable of automatically generating dashboards, even for a large number of data points

In terms of what Grafana provides, it just provides the charting tools. Everything else is third-party. It's like Node-RED. Node-RED is free, and you can choose an application, but that application depends on the person who's supporting it. If they decide not to support it, then you're stuck. However, I believe that it can't be improved or changed because people have to make money and make a living from it. Nothing will ever be changed. It depends on the software. Same as Windward. Windward just decided it could not support a large number of customers, so it focused on high-income, low-volume clients. Whereas Node-RED has millions of followers and fantastic support, the same as Grafana. Grafana is partly free, but it's your problem. That's how all these companies work. If you're big and you pay a lot of money, they'll pay attention to you.

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ToniLindberg

senior consultant at Virtual Consultants Sverige AB

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.

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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

"The tool's most valuable feature is real-time monitoring. It helps in securing the application or the node by allowing us to monitor and manage resource consumption during peak times. For instance, from 10 AM to 2 PM, we may experience high memory utilization. It helps us to solve these issues."

"Grafana's full observability stack, known as LGTM, is highly valuable."

"Grafana has enough features around dashboard management. It's got enough plugins to create your dashboards."

"The dashboards are pretty good."

"It is truly reliable."

"Our productivity has improved with its use."

"Grafana's most valuable feature is its ability to provide a graphical representation of data collected from various sources."

More Grafana Enterprise Stack pros

"VMware comes with a support team, and if you have trouble, you can easily create a ticket, and VMware will help you. Therefore, the best aspect is the support."

"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."

"VMware Aria Operations for Applications offers significant features such as real-time statistics, the ability to identify possible issues within the VM environment, and helpful heat maps."

"I find VMware Aria Operations for Applications to be very stable, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."

"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."

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

"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

"I find Grafana really hard to configure. It's difficult to build the dashboard, and it's non-intuitive. In my opinion, it's very difficult to work with Grafana."

"The connection between metrics, logs, and traces could be improved."

"The connection between metrics, logs, and traces could be improved. Currently, one needs to ingest labels and timestamps for them to be connected, however, drilling down sometimes takes time."

"Integrating AI capabilities for automated self-healing and reduced manual interventions would be valuable."

"They could use more small tutorials to explain a bit about how Grafana works."

"In terms of what Grafana provides, it just provides the charting tools. Everything else is third-party."

"I have encountered occasional issues with false inputs or incorrect data in Grafana."

"The tool needs to show only fewer updates."

More Grafana Enterprise Stack cons

"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."

"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."

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

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

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I use the tool's free license."

"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."

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

"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."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Energy/Utilities Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Grafana Enterprise Stack?

The tool's most valuable feature is real-time monitoring. It helps in securing the application or the node by allowing us to monitor and manage resource consumption during peak times. For instance,...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Grafana Enterprise Stack?

From an analytics perspective, the integration of AI would be a beneficial improvement for Grafana Enterprise Stack.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Grafana Enterprise Stack?

Our primary use case for Grafana Enterprise Stack includes monitoring cluster utilization, taking care of impact avoidance, conducting upgrades, ensuring storage memory does not become full, and id...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Compared 13% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Grafana Enterprise Stack

April 2025

Download Grafana Enterprise Stack product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations for Applications

March 2025

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

Grafana Enterprise Stack is a powerful tool for real-time data monitoring and visualization. With its flexible and scalable features, it is widely used for creating dashboards, analyzing metrics, and gaining insights into infrastructure, databases, and applications.

Its valuable features include powerful visualization capabilities, extensive data source integrations, customizable dashboards, a user-friendly interface, and a robust alerting system. Users appreciate its flexibility, scalability, and ability to integrate with different data sources, making it suitable for a wide range of industries and use cases.

Grafana Labs

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.

VMware

Sample Customers

1. Uber 2. PayPal 3. eBay 4. Sony 5. Red Hat 6. IBM 7. Cisco 8. Adobe 9. Expedia 10. Booking.com 11. Airbnb 12. LinkedIn 13. Twitter 14. Netflix 15. Spotify 16. Pinterest 17. Slack 18. GitLab 19. Docker 20. Atlassian 21. Salesforce 22. Microsoft 23. Google 24. Amazon 25. Facebook 26. Apple 27. Intel 28. Oracle 29. SAP 30. VMware 31. HP 32. Dell

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

Grafana Enterprise Stack vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

April 2025

Free Report: Grafana Enterprise Stack vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

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