Cisco UCS Manager vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

Cisco and VMware are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Cisco is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.7, while VMware is ranked #41 with an average rating of 8.7. Cisco holds a 1.4% mindshare in IM, compared to VMware’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS Manager

Read 27 Cisco UCS Manager reviews

1,893 Views
1,628 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 46 vRealize Network Insight reviews

1,784 Views
785 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS Manager

vRealize Network Insight

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

vRealize Network Insight and Cisco UCS Manager are prominent solutions within the networking and computing infrastructure management category. vRealize Network Insight appears to have the upper hand in pricing and support, while Cisco UCS Manager stands out with comprehensive features that justify its higher cost.

Features: vRealize Network Insight offers advanced network visualization, flow analysis, and troubleshooting capabilities. It aids in microsegmentation and capacity management, providing an interactive and intuitive interface for identifying network patterns. Cisco UCS Manager excels in consolidating storage, networking, and computing resources, offering robust management capabilities and seamless updates valuable for hardware management.

Room for Improvement: vRealize Network Insight should enhance third-party integration, reporting, and ease of use while addressing pricing concerns. Cisco UCS Manager could improve automation features, simplify its user interface, and offer better licensing options. Usability enhancements are needed for both but target different refinement areas.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both solutions offer satisfactory technical support but may require technical expertise for initial deployment. vRealize Network Insight is noted for ease of use post-deployment. Cisco UCS Manager requires more experienced handling during setup but both companies provide reliable support, with vRealize Network Insight having a more streamlined customer service experience.

Pricing and ROI: Users find vRealize Network Insight's pricing high but appreciate its value in reducing operational time and improving efficiency. Cisco UCS Manager, though more expensive, offers features that contribute to its value. ROI from both comes through time-saving efficiencies, with Cisco's hardware reliability being a critical value driver.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco UCS Manager vs. vRealize Network Insight Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager vs. vRealize Network Insight

July 2025

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Helped 862,077 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

Cisco UCS Manager

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

17th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

41st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (38th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Manager is 1.4%, down from 1.5% 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

Edwin Mwosa

IT Infrastructure Manager at KTDA

Enhanced network oversight with rapid issue identification and good efficiency

We mainly use Cisco UCS Manager to integrate and manage our Cisco switches across the building. We also utilize it for network integration. It provides an integrated solution for our Cisco environment, streamlining our operations and managing multiple Cisco devices like switches and routers Cisco…

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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

"For the blade architecture and ease of use, I consider Cisco UCS Manager the best option on the market at the moment."

"It is more robust than other solutions. So, the stability is good."

"The most valuable features of Cisco UCS Manager include the visibility it provides and the ease of identifying issues within the Cisco environment."

"The reporting functionality will give you any report you want."

"Cisco UCS Manager is overall a good package because it gives a GUI interface and a CLI."

"Ease of management is certainly the most valuable feature in this product."

"From a usability and functionality perspective, Cisco UCS Manager is very good."

"We can configure the Cisco UCS Manager, the profiles and interactions with the resource we manage."

More Cisco UCS Manager pros

"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."

"We're a smaller company so it automates a lot of the tasks and lets us focus in on building out our own solution. It's quicker, there is less building of manual solutions, and less downtime. It allows our developers to quickly develop, get provisioning done, de-provisioning, etc; the stuff that you would expect to be able to make it streamlined."

"The solution is extremely intuitive and user-friendly. When you log in to the application you are presented with a dashboard that is very reasonable for an initial user, and you can then customize it to your specific needs. But for all the data that we've found, we've only had to go through two or three drill-downs to get into that information."

"We haven't had any complaints about the stability of the solution or heard of any issues. None of our clients have mentioned running into bugs or glitches. There haven't been crashes."

"The most valuable features are the monitoring and tracking. It's also intuitive and user-friendly. The screen looks exactly the same as the other appliances for VMware, so it's easy to navigate."

"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."

"vRNI can trace the flow of each and every packet and it is easy for us to troubleshoot all the issues that we do have with the networking. We can trace down the packet to a point where it has been dropped."

"The initial was straightforward. You can have it up and running in one hour."

More vRealize Network Insight pros

Cons

"I would like to see improved visibility into the operating system, enabling us to identify issues directly from the operating system itself."

"The pricing can be better."

"The integration with other solutions could be better. I think Cisco can only integrate using Intersight. There is a second interface available as a SaaS platform, in the cloud, or on-premise. It's based on the Redfish protocol, which is standard for all the B-series servers in the market. We can integrate other solutions using API."

"The installation and upgrade sytems need to be improved."

"Cisco UCS is expensive compared to others. The Cisco UCS Chassis is more expensive than a standalone server, but some companies require standalone servers because of their production load and affordability. You need to pay more if you require more features on the Blade or if you need more ports on the switch."

"For improvements, while the current graphical user interface is satisfactory, it could be further simplified for different tasks."

"I would like to see Cisco UCS optionally work as a hyper-converged system because right now, it only operates as a converged system."

"Some settings are still fairly well hidden, even the basic ones."

More Cisco UCS Manager cons

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"Support could be much better."

"I would like to see application identification. That would be cool."

"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."

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco UCS Manager’s annual licensing fee is expensive."

"Cisco UCS is more expensive than Dell and HP, but it is more reliable. I see less issues and it's quite stable."

"You buy the hardware and then you get Cisco UCS Manager for free."

"The pricing for Cisco UCS Manager is okay for its market, so it's a four out of five for me."

"With product discounts which can be negotiated, the product is a great value."

"We need to take a license for each port, which amounts to a big sum."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."

"It has brought more money into our company."

"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

23%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS Manager?

When one server fails, we can attach the service profile to a new server, which saves a lot of time.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS Manager?

My experience with the pricing of Cisco UCS Manager ( /products/cisco-ucs-manager-reviews ) is that it is reasonable. Recently, we acquired an excellent bundle with significant discounts, with offe...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco UCS Manager?

For improvements, while the current graphical user interface is satisfactory, it could be further simplified for different tasks. While it has been improved from using Java to HTML, simplifying the...

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

Comparisons

Cisco Intersight vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 82% of the time

Nutanix Prism vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 9% of the time

HPE OneView vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 6% of the time

Zabbix vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 3% of the time

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ThousandEyes vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 13% of the time

DX NetOps vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 13% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 9% of the time

VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 9% of the time

DX Spectrum vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 9% of the time

More vRealize Network Insight Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager

July 2025

Download Cisco UCS Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

June 2025

Download vRealize Network Insight product report

Also Known As

No data available

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Overview

Cisco UCS Manager helps significantly reduce management and administration expenses by automating routine tasks to increase operational agility. Customers can extend the benefits of Cisco UCS Manager globally across an enterprise to thousands of servers in multiple domains with Cisco UCS Central Software.

Cisco

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

Management Science Associates, Peak 10, Virtual Consulting Professionals

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

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager vs. vRealize Network Insight

July 2025

Free Report: Cisco UCS Manager vs. vRealize Network Insight

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