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SolarWinds Virtualization Manager vs VMware vSphere comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 (7th)
VMware vSphere
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
457
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 9.4%, up 8.2% compared to last year.
VMware vSphere, on the other hand, focuses on Server Virtualization Software, holds 16.8% mindshare, down 19.6% since last year.
Virtualization Management Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds Virtualization Manager9.4%
VMware Aria Operations30.7%
IBM Turbonomic13.0%
Other46.9%
Virtualization Management Tools
Server Virtualization Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware vSphere16.8%
Proxmox VE16.1%
Hyper-V15.2%
Other51.89999999999999%
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ravi Khanchandani - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Neeraj Mehra - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlines virtualization and has features like high availability and vMotion
The primary use case is for virtualization, including the implementation of vSphere, vCloud Foundation, vCloud Director, and cloud automation with vSphere My customers, particularly SMBs, mainly utilize High Availability (HA), DRS, and vMotion features. The vMotion feature is beneficial for…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SolarWinds Virtualization Manager optimizes VM performance and virtualization."
"SolarWinds Virtualization Manager is a great tool that is easy to use...It is a stable solution."
"SolarWinds Virtualization Manager optimizes VM performance and virtualization."
"The most valuable features of SolarWinds Virtualization Manager are the non-Windows servers' monitoring and capacity planning."
"It is very versatile. All features are beneficial and very good, especially DRS and resource pooling."
"It is easy to deploy and find troubleshooting articles as well."
"The initial setup is easy."
"vMotion radically changes the way we think about how we can operate a large infrastructure, and notably, in terms of proactive maintenance."
"The virtualization, the remote management user interface, and the web console are most valuable."
"The scalability is good."
"It is a powerful solution that enables us to take a snapshot and clone any version of machine."
"I like that it's like a distributed rescheduler. You can move to and use VMotion as well. You can move the server and move the virtual machines around different physical servers. This makes it easier when it comes to redundancy."
 

Cons

"The problem or issue with the product is related to its pricing."
"SolarWinds needs to support integration with other virtualization platforms like KVM or Linux-based systems."
"SolarWinds needs to support integration with other virtualization platforms like KVM or Linux-based systems."
"The SolarWinds Virtualization Manager platform in general can have a better response time in the performance."
"It needs to integrate better between multiple modules."
"Not having to buy something from a third-party to scan the actual hardware components, like the hard drives and the port containers and fan speeds; not having to bolt something on and go through another vendor, would be helpful."
"It lacks a snapshot feature."
"OS templates should be readily available, so there is no need to get an OS separately. Only the activation part should be different, which is not presently available due to the need to get the OS from a different location, then create VMs."
"On Vista, there should be a lot more new features. We would like to see more security features to harden our environment in the future."
"In future releases, I would like to see less pricing. The license can be improved."
"The solution could improve by having more integration."
"It would be great if VMware could have a consolidated way of delivering this as software rather than pieces and several add-ons so that you could enjoy the product in its entirety."
 

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."
"This is an expensive product and the price needs to be reduced."
"vSphere is expensive."
"In my opinion, the price is not cheap, not it is expensive. It's average."
"This is not the cheapest solution, but when you consider the stability of VMware vSphere, it is a great solution."
"I rate the solution's pricing a ten out of ten due to the recent price changes."
"The solution’s licensing terms keep changing, which is too complex for our customers."
"Considering the number of users, it is pretty reasonable. I am not aware of any costs in addition to the licensing fees."
"It is very expensive as compared to other competitive hypervisor solutions in the market today. Its competitors are actually more aggressive. Even though most of them are less established solutions, they have started to catch up in functionality and capacity, and their pricing is extremely aggressive."
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Government
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
Non Profit
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

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 Business174
Midsize Enterprise137
Large Enterprise256
 

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...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Virtualization Manager?
SolarWinds needs to support integration with other virtualization platforms like KVM or Linux-based systems.
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...
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...
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.
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...
 

Also Known As

SolarWinds VMAN
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elliot Health System
Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom, Nutanix, Veeam Software and others in Virtualization Management Tools. Updated: September 2025.
870,623 professionals have used our research since 2012.