Checkmk vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

Checkmk and Broadcom are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Checkmk is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.5, while Broadcom is ranked #40 with an average rating of 8.3. Checkmk holds a 4.0% mindshare in IM, compared to Broadcom’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Checkmk users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Checkmk

Read 9 Checkmk reviews

4,452 Views
3,339 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 47 vRealize Network Insight reviews

1,694 Views
745 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Checkmk

vRealize Network Insight

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

vRealize Network Insight and Checkmk compete in network management and monitoring. vRealize Network Insight tends to have an edge in environments needing detailed visibility and troubleshooting, while Checkmk is favored for its more budget-friendly pricing and automation options.

Features: vRealize Network Insight provides detailed visualization of network flows, robust capacity management, and insightful application interaction tracking. Checkmk delivers strong resource monitoring, infra monitoring capabilities, and powerful log factor configuration.

Room for Improvement: vRealize Network Insight could simplify its GUI navigation, enhance its pricing models, and expand integration capabilities. Checkmk could improve integration with solutions like Dynatrace, refine its alert acknowledgment process, and enhance overall ease of use.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both vRealize Network Insight and Checkmk offer on-premises deployment. Users often praise vRealize Network Insight for VMware's responsive technical support. Checkmk's support is also valued, though its user interface can be overwhelming, requiring more streamlined onboarding.

Pricing and ROI: vRealize Network Insight is often seen as expensive, requiring bundled solutions, but users report significant time and cost savings. Checkmk offers affordability and is valued particularly by educational institutions and cost-sensitive users, providing effective core features and substantial ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Checkmk vs. vRealize Network Insight Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk vs. vRealize Network Insight

September 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

Checkmk

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

14th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

24th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (8th), Cloud Monitoring Software (16th)

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

40th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

40th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Checkmk is 4.0%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Checkmk	4.0%
vRealize Network Insight	0.5%
Other	95.5%

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Paolo Sala

Application performance and System monitoring at Agos

A reasonably priced tool for system and application monitoring

The main room for improvement is in the solution's presentation and the integration area. In our company, we use the integration capabilities from ServiceNow. We also have another big monitoring solution in place in our company, which is Dynatrace. At the moment, there doesn't exist an out-of-the-box integration for Dynatrace. I think that the integration and the exporting of the data collected are areas where Checkmk lacks but should try to improve the most. The only implementation of Checkmk that allows high availability is the virtual appliance that has the option for the availability of a different box. Otherwise, you have to find a way to implement it manually with some custom solution, which could be an improvement.

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Shaijith KB

Senior System Specialist at General Directorate of Residence and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA)

Comprehensive management and detailed reports benefit operations while improvements are needed in support and maintenance

We have Tanzu and OpenShift. We have OpenShift, Canonical, and the Tanzu one. The Tanzu platform from VMware is a Kubernetes platform. We haven't completely installed Tanzu yet; we installed the vROps part. vRealize Network Insight is beneficial because you can control the East-West traffic. vRealize has a component called NSX, which has East-West traffic controlling and micro-segmentation, that is one of the best options, and we have the layer extension, layer 2 extension possible through NSX. If you have anything accountable in any business, even in a candy business, having proper accountability on what you are selling and buying will save a lot. If you don't know what you're selling and buying, you will end up with a loss. My team does not use the flow analytics feature; we have a security and network monitoring team, which is a different SOC team. I am using it as an administrator internally. We perform different tasks including costing analysis, capacity management, and many other things. vRealize Network Insight has a concern about the maintenance part, as it requires a person to monitor it completely. It's not something you install and your report will be generated automatically. You have to work on this properly to get the insights. vRealize Network Automation, vRealize Operations, and vRealize Network Insight are completely related to the network. I cannot say much about these network aspects because I am on the operations side, but overall, the vRealize suite is good for reporting perspective or any ISO-related documentation; this is very helpful. The product is called vRealize Operations Manager, and now it is referred to as Aria or vAria. I am now a Senior System Specialist. We use different metrics because we have multiple departments, and we can monitor utilization and comparisons with the previous year. On a scale of one to ten, I rate this solution a seven.

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

"The most valuable features of Checkmk are its resource monitoring, infra monitoring, and log factor configuration."

"Overall, from one to ten, I rate Checkmk a nine."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it has a lot of different pieces, and they all work together...It is a very scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"I really like the auto-discovery feature."

"We can monitor multiple sites using the product."

"The alerting system in Checkmk really works properly."

"Checkmk was built on a platform that was user-friendly, and I could build my charts easily."

"It's versatile, scalable, and easier to use compared to other solutions like Nagios and OMD."

More Checkmk pros

"The automation collects all the relationships between servers, allowing us to visualize these relationships and organize the migration into waves."

"It has really tightened down the security. That was something that we were lacking. It has also given us deep visibility into our network. We can really get down and see all of the traffic within the data center, between the VMs, between the applications, database servers, other application servers, web servers. We can identify everything that is communicating, and we can see it all on one product."

"The most valuable feature for us is that insight into what our network is really doing - it's a fairly complex network. Not having to go through thousands of lines of network configuration to find firewall ports that were open or closed, for various ports, was very valuable. It went out and found everything we need very quickly."

"compare-to-competition; I would recommend the product. I don't think there is any other product like this on the market right now."

"It has definitely helped us to meet compliance rules by assuring that all traffic is going to where it's supposed to go. It can be used to report that you are in compliance, as well as helping you get into compliance."

"It especially helps with deploying NSX, that you're not having to manually chase down and figure out what you need to do to microsegment VMs. This gives a nice option where you can say, "Hey, this VM, show me what flows are there." I can export it out and then import it as an NSX rule and job done."

"If we deploy NSX it shows us how the workflow will flow in the organization, what the roadblocks are, and what we need to do to overcome those hurdles. When we run this product, it gives us reports which describe problems with physical switches. We work with the network team to get them all resolved."

"It provides deep visibility into what is happening with traffic and helps us manage our network."

More vRealize Network Insight pros

Cons

"Sometimes we receive alerts, and it can become annoying when you acknowledge an alert. It is very clunky when you acknowledge the alert. The process is not very intuitive, and there are instances where it feels a bit cumbersome to acknowledge an alert."

"The initial setup is a bit complex."

"It is easy for tech-savvy people, but newcomers might find it intimidating."

"If an alert is generated for a specific pattern in the log, and if Checkmk catches that log, it will stay there even after the alert is resolved."

"Checkmk does not work too easily with the PowerStore. I use a PowerShell script as Checkmk runs on Linux and a Windows system, connecting with the Checkmk agent."

"Checkmk does not allow running scripts at varying intervals."

"In Checkmk, the documentation can probably be improved a bit more."

"I think that the integration and the exporting of the data collected are areas where Checkmk lacks but should try to improve the most."

More Checkmk cons

"The virtual appliance has rebooted."

"It needs to be a little easier to use and to understand the information it's putting out. That would make it more helpful. If you're not a network person you need to understand things like network policies and concepts. If you gave it to a regular admin, it would be nice if it were easier for them to pick up what is going on, understand the flows and whether or not stuff should be talking to each other, as opposed to just port groups and IP addresses."

"If it had some kind of plugins with vSphere, more effective plugins with Horizon View or other VMWare products, if it had interconnectivity, I think it would be more effective than it is today."

"After Broadcom acquired VMware, I would rate their support at five or less in many cases. It's difficult to find necessary documentation, open tickets, and get support."

"The solution is very much viewer centric and it would be nice if it would transcend just the virtual infrastructure."

"There could be some deeper analytics into packet inspection and trace flows. It could use some kind of machine learning to look at Layer 7 traffic for potential malware or corrupt packets."

"The only real improvement they can make is to add more third-party vendors into the environment, mostly switch manufacturers, because it's really limited to Cisco equipment and there are a lot of companies out there other than Cisco."

"There's enough information there, especially in the visualizations, but I would love to see this in a kiosk mode, where I could have a dashboard for interested stakeholders to see and appreciate what's going on. Then, moving on to a more practical level for our Help Desk, our operations team could benefit by seeing, in real-time, a visual view of the network."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Checkmk is a fairly reasonably priced solution."

"The price of Checkmk is cheaper compared to other enterprise products."

"The product is affordable."

"I rate vRealize Network Insight's pricing a seven point five out of ten."

"It's a little expensive, but for what you're getting out of the product, you often see the trade-off. It depends on the type of licensing you have. It might be a little too pricey for some."

"They should include the product in NSX because it's important to have it for deployment."

"We have spent less time investigating network flows, so it is absolutely cost-effective."

"The solution has reduced the time that we spend on other products. For example, with NSX, we were able to quickly find things that we would normally spend days trying to figure out."

"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."

"It reduces costs. It takes something that may be challenging and makes it more usable and visual by being able to bring in tools, seeing what their impact is, such as microsegmentation and application rationalization, and seeing it quickly."

"It's an expensive product because we have a lot of nodes."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	2

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	41

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Checkmk?

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it has a lot of different pieces, and they all work together...It is a very scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Checkmk?

I will get more information about Checkmk when the proof of concept is done. It's going to be before the summer. There will be a report about the tool and a recommendation to use it. So far, it loo...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Checkmk?

Checkmk ( /products/checkmk-reviews ) is a monitoring tool, so that's what I will use it for. Right now, it's not in production, but it's in a proof of concept phase. It looks good, so probably, du...

See all answers

What do you like most about vRealize Network Insight?

The tool's ease of configuration and use and the availability of information and artifacts through professional services and the web are key factors that customers find valuable.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for vRealize Network Insight?

In VMware you have to buy a separate license for it. We have VVF and VCF-type of licenses, and if you want to go with this NSX and sort of higher-end professional services, you need to go with VCF....

See all answers

What needs improvement with vRealize Network Insight?

There is room for improvement as not all cases are getting resolved, and we often do not get L3 support directly, having to go through L1 and L2, resulting in delays that usually are a headache for...

See all answers

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 10% of the time

Goliath Performance Monitor vs vRealize Network Insight

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk

October 2025

Download Checkmk product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

September 2025

Download vRealize Network Insight product report

Also Known As

No data available

Arkin

Overview

Checkmk provides a comprehensive monitoring solution designed to streamline IT infrastructure management with features like auto-discovery, custom checks, and effective alerting.

Checkmk serves as a powerful tool for organizations managing large networks of servers, databases, and network appliances across multiple locations. It simplifies monitoring tasks with features like auto-discovery, custom scripting, and Slack integration. Users benefit from its resource monitoring capabilities and scalability, although there are areas for improvement, such as alert acknowledgment and greater usability. It supports both Linux and Windows environments, enabling effective oversight of IT infrastructure. The growing body of documentation enhances its adaptability in complex settings.

What are the key features of Checkmk?

Auto-Discovery: Identifies new hosts and applies monitoring rules automatically.
Custom Monitoring Checks: Tailor checks for databases and specific applications.
Slack Integration: Receive downtime alerts directly in Slack channels.
Automation for Scripts: Streamline repetitive tasks with scripts.
Effective Alerting System: Offers timely notifications on network activities.

What benefits can users expect?

Resource Efficiency: Saves time on configuration with automated features.
Scalability: Easily adapts to growing network and system requirements.
Cost-Effectiveness: Suitable option for budget-conscious users.
User-Friendly Setup: Easy to configure, reducing the learning curve.

Industries deploying Checkmk frequently utilize it for monitoring IT infrastructure, including servers and network appliances, to manage proactive issue identification and compliance. Companies employ it in the proof of concept phase or for ongoing monitoring, covering hosts, services, and custom application metrics.

Checkmk

VMware vRealize Network Insight delivers intelligent operations for software-defined networking and security. It helps customers build an optimized, highly-available and secure network infrastructure across multi-cloud environments. It accelerates micro-segmentation planning and deployment, enables visibility across virtual and physical networks and provides operational views to manage and scale VMware NSX deployments.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

NTTi3, VCIX-NV, VMware Networking and Security Business Unit, Illumio, CompuNet

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk vs. vRealize Network Insight

September 2025

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