Checkmk vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

Checkmk and VMware are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Checkmk is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.4, while VMware is ranked #23 with an average rating of 8.8. Checkmk holds a 4.1% mindshare in IM, compared to VMware’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Checkmk users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Checkmk

Read 9 Checkmk reviews

3,383 Views
2,954 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 46 vRealize Network Insight reviews

848 Views
509 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: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk vs. vRealize Network Insight

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 850,349 peers since 2012

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

10th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

12th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (12th)

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

23rd

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

23rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Checkmk is 4.1%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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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NiteshKumar1

Principle consultant at Infosys

The tool's configuration is easy and artifacts are easily accessible through professional services and the web

The product is highly regarded, and many customers have been using it along with other VMware products like vSphere and VMware vCloud Usage Insight. However, recently, there's been a trend among customers, especially those using VMware for a considerable period, to explore the potential of migrating to the public cloud. The common concern among these customers is how the VMware products will perform in the public cloud environment. Migrating instances from VMware to different platforms is not easy, especially when dealing with many instances across multiple customers. Customers are keen to maintain the functionality of their existing VMware products but prefer to run them on the public cloud instead of on-premise servers. Our clients for vRealize Network Insight are enterprise businesses. I rate it a nine out of ten.

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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 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."

"The alerting system in Checkmk really works properly."

"I really like the auto-discovery feature."

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

"We can monitor multiple sites using the product."

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

"Checkmk helps me compare data and foresee issues."

"The initial setup of Checkmk was easy...It is a very stable solution."

More Checkmk pros

"The most valuable feture is NetFlow to help us understand how VMs communicate with each other over ports that are known and ports that are also unknown to us. Our company is a security company, so it's very important for us to know exactly which VMs are doing what at all times."

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

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

"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."

"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's a very powerful, very manageable product."

"The most valuable feature for me is the different views that you can get when selecting an application or a VLAN. It shows you the traffic flows. It gives you a visual representation of something that, in text, just may not make as much sense."

"The initial setup was straightforward."

More vRealize Network Insight pros

Cons

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The main challenge for us is that we're moving from Nagios to Checkmk, and we're still getting used to the new way of working."

More Checkmk cons

"The only reason I would not give it a nine or a 10 is for cost reasons. It seems to be one of those things that really belongs as part of the product inherently and not as an add-on. That would be my only concern."

"While it's not exactly a feature, what normally happens when we are trying to look at the VM flow portion is - although Network Insight does have options to integrate a few physical switches into it - we can't really get an end-to-end flow of the network. We might be using a few switches that are not supported by Network Insight. That is where they can improve, in the support for more physical switches and network devices."

"The IT infrastructure industry is expected to evolve towards a hybrid cloud model in the next five to ten years. In this model, most of the customer's resources reside on-premise within a private cloud setup, such as VMware. Another segment operates within public cloud environments like Azure and AWS, and a portion remains in traditional data centers. There should be seamless interoperability between public and private clouds. AWS and VMware need to work together to make it possible. Whether users interact with on-premise infrastructure or configure resources in the public cloud, the user experience must be seamless."

"I want to be able to monitor a network flow that is approximately two weeks back, but I haven't found an easy way to do this."

"vRNI needs more remediation where it hooks into NSX."

"When we talk about those micro-segmentation rules, there's an Export function. It is very macro-segmentation oriented instead. So if you choose an application, it will find the tiers within that application and say that it's communicating on, say, port 80 to a separate VLAN. There might be 200 machines in that other VLAN. You don't want to open port 80 at all of them. So we need a lot more granularity in those suggested firewall rules."

"The UI, even though once you get to know it, it's easier, still it's hard to figure out by yourself. You have to go read, watch videos. It has a lot of data on it. So that is an issue."

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The product is affordable."

"Checkmk is a fairly reasonably priced solution."

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

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

"Cost always has room for improvement, you could always make it cheaper. But I think it's a good value for what you pay for it."

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

"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."

"The solution has helped us to reduce time, increase performance, reduce costs, and even easily manage networks. We are probably seeing 10 to 20 percent labor savings because we are able to be very specific and focused on what we want to do. It ends up saving the customer money and makes us be more efficient on our cost deliveries."

"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 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."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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.

See all answers

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

Broadcom is known for increasing product prices, making them expensive compared to what people used to pay. I liken the subscription model to not truly owning what you pay for.

See all answers

What needs improvement with vRealize Network Insight?

Right now, I do not see a specific area for improvement. My main concern is understanding the intentions of Broadcom, which has acquired VMware. Broadcom should improve by going back to what was wo...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk

May 2025

Download Checkmk product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

April 2025

Download vRealize Network Insight product report

Also Known As

No data available

Arkin

Overview

Checkmk is a powerful tool for monitoring IT infrastructure, providing vital insights on servers, databases, network devices, and custom applications.

Primarily used for supervising IT infrastructure, Checkmk helps organizations ensure service availability by monitoring hosts, processes, load, storage, and network appliances. With support for both Linux and Windows environments across multiple data centers, Checkmk performs compliance checks and preserves historical data for core network devices.

What are the key features of Checkmk?

Auto-discovery: Automatically identifies new hosts and applies monitoring rules.
Custom monitoring: Enhances MySQL performance tracking.
Slack integration: Provides immediate downtime alerts.
Graphical trend analysis: Offers 400 days of trend data.
Multiple site monitoring: Ensures seamless data synchronization through task automation.
Resource and infrastructure monitoring: Configures log factors to fit budget constraints.
System metric imports: Includes servers, SQL, file systems, and application monitoring.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?

Time-saving: Auto-discovery and task automation streamline processes.
Proactive alerts: Immediate downtime notifications optimize response times.
Historical insights: Long-term graphical trend analysis aids strategic planning.
Cost efficiency: Resource monitoring aligned with budget constraints.

Checkmk is deployed extensively in large enterprise environments for monitoring critical infrastructure. It proves particularly useful under conditions of frequent power outages or network issues, helping maintain smooth operations. While the alert acknowledgment process and interface require improvements, and the lack of an agent-less platform complicates server management, the strengths in auto-discovery, integration, and comprehensive monitoring make Checkmk a strong contender for IT infrastructure monitoring.

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.

VMware

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

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

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk vs. vRealize Network Insight

April 2025

Free Report: Checkmk vs. vRealize Network Insight

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