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Splunk Observability Cloud vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

Splunk and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Monitoring Software category. Splunk is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.4, while Broadcom is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.8. Splunk holds a 2.3% mindshare in CMS, compared to Broadcom’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Splunk users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.
Splunk Observability Cloud
Read 71 Splunk Observability Cloud reviews
  • 6,374 Views
  • 1,721 Comparison Views
95% willing to recommend
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Read 14 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews
  • 2,878 Views
  • 1,122 Comparison Views
93% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 21, 2025

Splunk Observability Cloud and VMware Aria Operations compete in the monitoring and analytics solutions category. Splunk has the upper hand in data gathering and search efficiency, while VMware is stronger in integration and resource optimization.

Features: Splunk Observability Cloud offers robust data gathering capabilities, customizable dashboards, and agile deployment. The fast search indexing and efficient log analysis enhance operational visibility. VMware Aria Operations excels in advanced diagnostics, resource optimization, and seamless integration with various environments. Its real-time statistics are beneficial for application performance management.

Room for Improvement: Splunk users desire improved pricing models, better documentation, and more seamless third-party tool integration. Enhanced support for non-standard integrations is also needed. VMware needs better kernel-level monitoring, deeper application analysis, and easier third-party integration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Splunk offers flexibility with on-premises, public, and hybrid cloud deployment models, and provides proactive customer service. Some users, however, note room for improvements in support speed. VMware typically requires on-premises deployment and offers consistent support, though integration with non-VMware products can be complex.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk is often seen as expensive due to its data volume pricing, but users find its features justify the cost with improved operational efficiency and reduced downtimes. VMware's comprehensive license requirements make it costly, yet it offers a reasonable cost-to-benefit ratio, especially in resource management and analysis. Both platforms show notable ROI, yet perceptions of cost-effectiveness vary by organization size and needs.

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Buyer's Guide
Splunk Observability Cloud vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications
October 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

Splunk Observability Cloud
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
8th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
7th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (6th), Container Management (6th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
17th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
14th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Container Monitoring (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 2.3%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 2.0%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud2.3%
VMware Aria Operations for Applications2.0%
Other95.7%
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Taiwo Ige - PeerSpot reviewer
Alerting improves incident response across teams and enables faster awareness before customer impact
Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved in terms of integrations with more technical add-ons, such as Zoom. Although they have one with Zoom, it's not available in the cloud, so having that feature would be beneficial. Essentially, Splunk should continue expanding to create easier ways to ingest logs from different products. The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders. However, there are aspects that could be improved, such as linking dashboards to one another. While IT leaders may not drill down, it's crucial to create levels of dashboards for technical users to find root causes, making it effective for stakeholders.
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ToniLindberg - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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

"Detectors are a powerful feature."
"I have definitely seen a return on investment with Splunk Observability Cloud, particularly through how fast it has grown and how comfortable other teams are in relying on its outputs for monitoring and observability."
"The volume it handles is very good, including the number of metrics, the volume number of traces, and more."
"Initially, before Splunk, we had a long time to resolve issues. Now, with Splunk Observability Cloud, we will be able to solve them quickly and know exactly where the issue is."
"The solution's most valuable aspect is its ability to get information about all of the security measurements in my environment."
"The vibrant dashboards are valuable."
"The most valuable features include user time tracking and the ability to analyze application load times."
"The most beneficial aspect of Splunk APM is the ATM, which is the map displaying the inbound and outbound relationships of the microservices, as well as the traffic between these dependencies. This feature provides us with valuable insights and helps us understand the interactions between different microservices."
More Splunk Observability Cloud pros
"I gladly recommend VMware Aria Operations for Applications because it is cost effective and has commendable AI response capabilities."
"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."
"The stability of Aria Operations for Applications has improved significantly over the years."
"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."
"No issues with stability."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are its ease of use and its ease of implementation."
"The solution provides single-console management for multiple VMware environments and cloud integrations, whether hybrid, private, or public cloud."
"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."
More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros
 

Cons

"Splunk APM's performance could be improved - at the moment, it's very slow and takes forever to give me what I want."
"There is room for improvement in the alerting system, which is complicated and has less documentation available. We sometimes encountered issues in setting up alerts."
"The solution's stability is an area that has room for improvement. It needs to provide constant stability to its users."
"Primarily, the logs in Splunk APM can be challenging to navigate and comprehend, making it difficult to understand the details within each log. Compared to other tools like LogDNA, which are more intuitive in this aspect, the logs in Splunk APM can require more effort to understand."
"The UI enhancements could be a way to improve the solution in the future."
"There are always areas for potential improvement to enhance its functionality and user experience."
"Splunk's functionality could be improved by adding database connectors for other platforms like AWS and Azure."
"Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and process terms. These categories of dashboards would be very helpful for customers."
More Splunk Observability Cloud cons
"The initial setup should be easier and more seamless."
"An area for improvement would be more in-depth reporting, such as analyzing disk IO during business hours compared to after hours."
"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."
"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 implementation is a long process that should be improved."
"The documentation and integration with Kubernetes could be improved."
"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."
More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the price of Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring as an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"The price of Splunk APM is less than some of its competitors."
"The solution's pricing is costly."
"Licensing cost is the biggest argument I get from those divesting from Splunk. There are those within our organization who say we are going to go to other tools since Splunk is too expensive."
"Splunk APM is expensive."
"It is expensive."
"Splunk Observability Cloud is expensive."
"The solution's pricing is competitive. I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten. The price of the solution could be cheaper."
More Splunk Observability Cloud pricing and cost advice
"I would rate the pricing as three out of five."
"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 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise43
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SignalFx?
The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.
See all answers
What needs improvement with SignalFx?
Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and pr...
See all answers
What is your primary use case for SignalFx?
The solution involves observability in general, such as Application Performance Monitoring, and generally addresses digital applications, web applications, sites, and mobile applications. I worked ...
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?
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 priva...
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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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Splunk Observability Cloud
October 2025
Splunk Observability Cloud reportDownload Splunk Observability Cloud product report
Buyer's Guide
VMware Aria Operations for Applications
October 2025
VMware Aria Operations for Applications reportDownload VMware Aria Operations for Applications product report
 

Also Known As

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring
Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability
 

Overview

Splunk Observability Cloud offers sophisticated log searching, data integration, and customizable dashboards. With rapid deployment and ease of use, this cloud service enhances monitoring capabilities across IT infrastructures for comprehensive end-to-end visibility.

Focused on enhancing performance management and security, Splunk Observability Cloud supports environments through its data visualization and analysis tools. Users appreciate its robust application performance monitoring and troubleshooting insights. However, improvements in integrations, interface customization, scalability, and automation are needed. Users find value in its capabilities for infrastructure and network monitoring, as well as log analytics, albeit cost considerations and better documentation are desired. Enhancements in real-time monitoring and network protection are also noted as areas for development.

What are the key features?
  • Log Searching: Efficiently search and analyze logs from various sources.
  • Data Integration: Seamlessly integrate with multiple environments.
  • Dashboard Customization: Tailor dashboards to specific monitoring needs.
  • Monitoring Capabilities: Provides comprehensive insights into application performance.
  • Security Features: Analyze and address security threats across systems.
  • Visualization Tools: Enhance data analysis and system performance optimization.
Why consider this for ROI?
  • Comprehensive Visibility: Gain complete insights into IT infrastructure.
  • Performance Optimization: Improve overall system performance and efficiency.
  • Rapid Deployment: Quick setup to meet organization demands swiftly.
  • Enhanced Security: Strengthen security measures through detailed analytics.

In industries, Splunk Observability Cloud is implemented for security management by analyzing logs from detection systems, offering real-time alerts and troubleshooting for cloud-native applications. It is leveraged for machine data analysis, improving infrastructure visibility and supporting network and application performance management efforts.

Splunk

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

Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara
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
Splunk Observability Cloud vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications
October 2025
Free Report: Splunk Observability Cloud vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications
Find out what your peers are saying about Splunk Observability Cloud vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: October 2025.
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