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Splunk Observability Cloud vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
73
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
19th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
16th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Container Monitoring (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 2.4%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 2.0%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud2.4%
VMware Aria Operations for Applications2.0%
Other95.6%
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Taiwo Ige - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Operations Engineer at ABC Supply Co. Inc.
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.
AS
Consultant at HCLTech
Automation and insightful diagnostics elevate operations while improvements are welcome
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 private, public, and hybrid, are already well-implemented. The ability to manage multiple vCenters across different geographical locations is very effective. The new Skyline health feature and certificate and licensing management are particularly useful improvements. The dashboard's overview tab provides comprehensive information about current vCenter status, resizable amounts, reclamation opportunities, anomalies, diagnostics, licensing, and certificates. However, there is room for improvement in application analysis. The current functionality lacks detailed monitoring at the kernel level, focusing mainly on CPU, memory, and storage matrices. Enhanced application monitoring capabilities, including tracking downtime for specific types of applications such as transactional or e-commerce applications, would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features include user time tracking and the ability to analyze application load times."
"Splunk Observability Cloud has helped improve our operational performance and company's resilience, which was their initial offering."
"Great monitoring of network devices."
"It supports proactive management, enhances security, and improves operational efficiency."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to customize dashboards based on my queries or any other customization I may need."
"After moving to Splunk Observability Cloud, it is almost zero downtime."
"Splunk Observability Cloud has enhanced our operational performance and our company's resilience, ultimately contributing to improved customer satisfaction."
"The most valuable feature is dashboard creation."
"It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started."
"I gladly recommend VMware Aria Operations for Applications because it is cost effective and has commendable AI response capabilities."
"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."
"People are very pleased with the implementation."
"This solution allows me to have true visibility for any metrics when it comes to my cloud, and private."
"The stability of Aria Operations for Applications has improved significantly over the years."
"Scalability for VMware Aria Operations for Applications is easy to implement and manage."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are its ease of use and its ease of implementation."
 

Cons

"In Splunk Observability Cloud, I notice room for improvement in synthetic monitoring. It does not provide output based on server names."
"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."
"This solution is difficult to configure and the instructions are complex."
"It would be beneficial to have more enhanced features with capabilities to adapt more integrated applications. Improvements in dashboard configuration, customization, and artificial intelligence functionalities are desired."
"I've been using the Splunk query language, and it can be a bit time-consuming to set up the queries I need."
"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."
"They can improve the flow system and the keyword language. It has predefined keywords, but they can be improved."
"The monitoring of workloads when using SignalFx could be improved."
"The main problem I have is that the license cost is very high."
"The initial setup should be easier and more seamless."
"The solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."
"An area for improvement would be more in-depth reporting, such as analyzing disk IO during business hours compared to after hours."
"I would like to see integration with Kubernetes cluster and APIs so that you can manage the entire stack."
"The implementation is a long process that should be improved."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is reasonable."
"Splunk's infrastructure monitoring costs can be high because our billing is based on data volume measured in terabytes, rather than the number of devices being monitored."
"The solution's pricing is costly."
"Splunk APM is expensive."
"Splunk offers a 14-day free trial and after that, we have to pay but the cost is reasonable."
"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."
"The price of Splunk APM is less than some of its competitors."
"Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring is an expensive solution."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing as three out of five."
"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."
"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
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 Enterprise46
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.
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Splunk Observability Cloud vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,477 professionals have used our research since 2012.