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SolarWinds Virtualization Manager vs VMware vSphere comparison

The compared SolarWinds and Broadcom solutions aren't in the same category. SolarWinds is ranked #6 in VM , and holds a 9.7% mindshare in the category. Broadcom is ranked #1 in SVS , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 19.1% mindshare. Additionally, 71% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.
SolarWinds Virtualization M...
Read 7 SolarWinds Virtualization Manager reviews
  • 1,403 Views
  • 1,193 Comparison Views
71% willing to recommend
VMware vSphere
Read 460 VMware vSphere reviews
  • 28,661 Views
  • 25,508 Comparison Views
94% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary
We performed a comparison between SolarWinds Virtualization Manager and VMware vSphere based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom, Nutanix, IBM and others in Virtualization Management Tools.

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To learn more, read our detailed Virtualization Management Tools Report (Updated: May 2026).
Buyer's Guide
Virtualization Management Tools
May 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

SolarWinds Virtualization M...
Average Rating
7.4
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Virtualization Management Tools (6th)
VMware vSphere
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
460
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Virtualization solutions, they serve different purposes. SolarWinds Virtualization Manager is designed for Virtualization Management Tools and holds a mindshare of 9.7%, up 9.6% compared to last year.
VMware vSphere, on the other hand, focuses on Server Virtualization Software, holds 19.1% mindshare, up 16.2% since last year.
Virtualization Management Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Virtualization Manager9.7%
VMware Aria Operations23.7%
IBM Turbonomic17.0%
Other49.6%
Virtualization Management Tools
Server Virtualization Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware vSphere19.1%
Hyper-V19.8%
Proxmox VE10.4%
Other50.699999999999996%
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ravi Khanchandani - PeerSpot reviewer
Ravi Khanchandani
Founder Director at Techsa Services
Optimizing virtual environments by reclaiming and allocating resources efficiently
SolarWinds Virtualization Manager optimizes VM performance and virtualization. It provides me with recommendations for resource allocation, indicating if a virtual machine is under-provisioned or over-provisioned. This allows me to reclaim resources, such as reducing the number of CPU cores or RAM, which is beneficial. Its capacity planning feature is also very useful for me. The GUI is highly simplified, cutting across various virtualization platforms, including VMware, Hyper-V, and Nutanix environments.
Read full review
RajeshK10 - PeerSpot reviewer
RajeshK10
Information Technology Architect at Central Bank of India
Reliable virtualization has supported smooth DR drills and efficient resource allocation
VMware vSphere has proven to be robust in nature, and the new features are quite acceptable. The new features in NSX network switching make it more useful in the reliability management of data centers. vMotion has helped my organization's business continuity strategies during our planned DR drill activity. The migration of VMs from DC to DR is quite smooth with respect to the network link. I assess the impact of VMware vSphere's High Availability feature on my infrastructure resilience as effective during DR drill activities and firmware upgrades, which we perform every six months. During those times, we rely on maintenance mode of several servers, and HA works properly. I have nothing to complain about. We have utilized VMware vSphere's Distributed Resource Scheduler effectively. Even though we have over-provisioned the vCPUs, it efficiently manages the CPU cores and memory of the servers intelligently, so I am not experiencing any bottleneck in resource utilization. Distributed Resource Scheduler has affected my resource allocation performance positively, providing a 20 percent advantage over my old hardware.
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

"Virtualization manager’s cost analysis comparison report identified areas in which specific customers were being grossly undercharged for their resource consumption levels, as compared to rates available through AWS."
"This product is so helpful out-of-the-box."
"SolarWinds Virtualization Manager optimizes VM performance and virtualization."
"Alerting expands, and makes, our monitoring and management much more efficient."
"The most valuable features of SolarWinds Virtualization Manager are the non-Windows servers' monitoring and capacity planning."
"SolarWinds Virtualization Manager is a great tool that is easy to use...It is a stable solution."
"If you’re looking to get a lot more insight into your virtualization environment and more than just basic information, SolarWinds Virtualization Manager is the choice you should make."
"Building our services on top of this product provides us the ability to create stable, enterprise level services."
"Scalability is great."
"It helps to automate the data replication and DR (disaster recovery)."
"It is os-independent having a very thin architecture with which it can offer unparalleled security and reliability."
"It's very transparent and independent."
"We spend less money on hardware."
"No product is perfect but VMware vSphere is absolutely excellent."
"The setup was very straightforward and simple."
More VMware vSphere pros
 

Cons

"The problem or issue with the product is related to its pricing."
"Out of the box support for a wider array of hardware vendor/device-specific SNMP mibs could be improved upon."
"The SolarWinds Virtualization Manager platform in general can have a better response time in the performance."
"SolarWinds needs to support integration with other virtualization platforms like KVM or Linux-based systems."
"The UI is a little cumbersome at first, but the more you use it and get accustomed to it, the simpler it becomes."
"Adhoc reporting takes time to get used to – due mainly to the fact that the team I am on are all admins, and not necessarily accustomed to query reporting in the manner utilized by Solarwinds Virtualization Manager."
"I had some stability issues. I lost my environment."
"We have vCloud suite, Hyperion was a pain, but now they've just announced integration into vCenter, so everytime I have a complaint, they’ve already started to address it."
"The solution is extremely expensive, especially for startups such as ours, who don't have the capacity to invest so much in such a product."
"The multi-path is very complex with iSCSI and non-existent with NFS."
"I think room for improvement would be in the site recovery manager."
"In the next release, I would love to have Java as a service, platform as a service, and container as a service."
"The worst aspect of VMware vSphere is the price."
"The web user interface can be a bit clunky from time to time, so there may be some room for improvement in that regard."
"The pricing."
More VMware vSphere cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The is an annual subscription needed to use this solution."
"The maintenance and support are a part of the package, meaning it is included in the product's price."
"The pricing is a little expensive. The licensing is a bit complex."
"The pricing could be improved."
"Our customers have the option of paying the licensing fee when they purchase the solution or renting it from us."
"There is an annual subscription to use this solution."
"Our customers incur a yearly licensing fee, one of three or five years, in fact."
"The price could always be lower, but I think it's fair."
"There are some competitive vendors out there who are sticking to the original model that VMware seemed to have, which includes a lot of additional features and functionality in the initial pricing, and I think they are gaining a lot of market share based on the fact that they are keeping their licensing simple. The only argument I have with VMware is that, when I ask about a new solution to our VMware team, I hear comments like, "For a nominal fee we can upgrade your license and you can have that." For the large number of Hypervisors and the scale we have, it's frustrating to hear that I have to go ask for additional money for very small, additional features that I think should be included."
"We pay for the solution on an annual basis. There are no additional fees other than the standard license."
More VMware vSphere pricing and cost advice
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user234735
Technology Consultant, ASEAN at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
May 10, 2015
Hyper-V 2012 R2 vs. VMware vSphere 5.5
I was won with Hyper-V 2012R2 recently and the table below based on customer RFP (edited). This articles all about technical, there is not related with TCO/ROI, licensing cost, “political”, etc. Another to noted is the Windows Server 2012 licenses is based on 2 socket CPU, meanwhile…
Read full review
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Healthcare Company
9%
Government
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business177
Midsize Enterprise138
Large Enterprise260
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Virtualization Manager?
This solution delivers significant cost savings, especially from a capacity perspective. Consistent monitoring is essential in a virtualization environment, and Virtualization Manager, or VMAN as i...
See all answers
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Virtualization Manager?
SolarWinds needs to support integration with other virtualization platforms like KVM or Linux-based systems.
See all answers
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Virtualization Manager?
We predominantly work with financial organizations such as large banks, stock exchanges, and insurance companies, as well as IT-enabled services (ITES). I use SolarWinds Virtualization Manager at o...
See all answers
What is IOMMU?
DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platforms. It is used a lot inside virtualization platforms like VMware VSphere. It pr...
See all answers
Why KVM??? Help please!
We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux and Windows. For us, VMware does not offer any advantage. Moreover, KVM is free.
See all answers
Proxmox vs ESXi/vSphere: What is your experience?
For me the biggest impact is the cost of licensing in the case of VMware despite its overall intuitiveness and ease of handling and management. However, KVM-based Open Source solutions are becoming...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

VMware Aria Operations vs SolarWinds Virtualization Manager Logo
VMware Aria Operations vs SolarWinds Virtualization Manager
Compared 43% of the time
Veeam Data Platform vs SolarWinds Virtualization Manager Logo
Veeam Data Platform vs SolarWinds Virtualization Manager
Compared 12% of the time
Savision Cloud Reporter vs SolarWinds Virtualization Manager Logo
Savision Cloud Reporter vs SolarWinds Virtualization Manager
Compared 10% of the time
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs SolarWinds Virtualization Manager Logo
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs SolarWinds Virtualization Manager
Compared 10% of the time
Dell OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter vs SolarWinds Virtualization Manager Logo
Dell OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter vs SolarWinds Virtualization Manager
Compared 10% of the time
More SolarWinds Virtualization Manager Competitors
Hyper-V vs VMware vSphere Logo
Hyper-V vs VMware vSphere
Compared 53% of the time
Oracle VM vs VMware vSphere Logo
Oracle VM vs VMware vSphere
Compared 11% of the time
Proxmox VE vs VMware vSphere Logo
Proxmox VE vs VMware vSphere
Compared 6% of the time
KVM vs VMware vSphere Logo
KVM vs VMware vSphere
Compared 4% of the time
Citrix XenServer vs VMware vSphere Logo
Citrix XenServer vs VMware vSphere
Compared 3% of the time
More VMware vSphere Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Virtualization Management Tools
May 2026
SolarWinds Virtualization Manager reportDownload SolarWinds Virtualization Manager product report
Buyer's Guide
VMware vSphere
May 2026
VMware vSphere reportDownload VMware vSphere product report
 

Also Known As

SolarWinds VMAN
No data available
 

Overview

SolarWinds Virtualization Manager streamlines the monitoring and management of virtual environments by offering comprehensive visibility and actionable insights for IT professionals.

Designed to handle complex virtual systems, SolarWinds Virtualization Manager aids IT teams in tracking application performance, optimizing resource utilization, and identifying potential issues before they impact operations. The robust features ensure efficient operation and continuous system health, fostering an environment where virtual infrastructures can be effectively monitored and managed without significant manual intervention.

What are the key features of SolarWinds Virtualization Manager?
  • Performance Monitoring: Tracks system health and alerts users to potential bottlenecks.
  • Capacity Planning: Analyzes trends to predict future resource needs.
  • Sprawl Control: Identifies and manages VM sprawl to optimize resources.
  • Storage Monitoring: Provides insight into storage utilization and performance.
  • Customizable Dashboards: Allows personalized views of critical data.
What benefits and ROI should users look for?
  • Increased Efficiency: Streamlines virtual environment management.
  • Cost Savings: Reduces resource wastage and prevents overspending.
  • Improved Uptime: Proactive identification of issues minimizes downtime.
  • Enhanced Planning: Data-driven insights support effective resource allocation.

In industries such as healthcare, finance, and manufacturing, SolarWinds Virtualization Manager supports infrastructure maintenance by ensuring reliable performance and aiding compliance management through detailed monitoring capabilities. It adapts to specific industry requirements, facilitating seamless integration and operational excellence.

SolarWinds

VMware vSphere offers robust virtualization capabilities with features that enhance data center performance and optimize workloads. Centralized management and ease of deployment make it a cost-effective choice for many industries.

VMware vSphere is recognized for its high availability, vMotion, and Distributed Resource Scheduler, essential for efficient server infrastructure management. Users value its virtual machine management, seamless live migration, and strong resource allocation across data centers. Though the web client can be slow, and individual management of multiple ESXi hosts is challenging without central management, vSphere remains popular due to its flexibility and integration capabilities. While fault tolerance and free version features have their limitations, the product supports private clouds and hybrid cloud deployments effectively.

What are the key features of VMware vSphere?
  • High Availability: Ensures uptime through automatic failover and load balancing.
  • vMotion: Facilitates live migration without downtime.
  • Distributed Resource Scheduler: Optimizes workload distribution across servers.
  • Centralized Management: Simplifies administration tasks through single-pane control.
  • Resource Allocation: Allocates computing power and memory efficiently.
What benefits and ROI does VMware vSphere offer?
  • Cost Efficiency: Reduces hardware requirements and energy usage.
  • Scalability: Easily scales to meet growing business requirements.
  • Improved Performance: Enhances application performance and reliability.
  • Flexibility: Supports integration with other technologies for operational agility.
  • Ease of Management: Simplifies monitoring and administrative efforts.

VMware vSphere is widely used in industries to manage server infrastructure effectively, hosting mission-critical applications like ERP and SQL servers. It supports development, testing, and backup environments, contributing to data center consolidation and cost reduction while enabling private and hybrid cloud setups.

Broadcom
 

Sample Customers

Elliot Health System
Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
Buyer's Guide
Virtualization Management Tools
May 2026
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