Icinga vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

Icinga and VMware are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Icinga is ranked #28 with an average rating of 8.0, while VMware is ranked #42 with an average rating of 8.3. Icinga holds a 3.8% mindshare in IM, compared to VMware’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Icinga users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Icinga

Read 17 Icinga reviews

3,895 Views
3,272 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 47 vRealize Network Insight reviews

1,734 Views
763 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Icinga

vRealize Network Insight

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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Icinga and vRealize Network Insight compete in network monitoring and management. Icinga is preferred for its cost-effectiveness and support, while vRealize Network Insight offers extensive features that justify its higher price, giving it an edge for comprehensive network insights.

Features: Icinga supports numerous plugins allowing monitoring of infrastructure and services, providing significant flexibility and robust community backing. Its integration capabilities ensure seamless operations with existing systems. vRealize Network Insight provides advanced analytics and detailed network troubleshooting abilities. Its features include deep insights into network flow and performance, network visualization, and capacity planning which cater to enterprises with complex networks.

Room for Improvement: Icinga could enhance its user interface for a more intuitive experience, offer more detailed documentation, and improve scalability for large-scale deployments. vRealize Network Insight might integrate more third-party tools, streamline its installation process, and reduce its overall operational costs for better access to smaller enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Icinga offers straightforward open-source deployment, supported by a responsive community. It integrates well with existing tools but requires technical expertise. vRealize Network Insight provides cloud-based deployment, easing complexities with professional support and managed services, ideal for enterprise environments seeking simplified setup processes.

Pricing and ROI: Icinga's implementation costs are minimal, enhancing cost-efficiency and ROI for small to mid-sized businesses due to its open-source nature. vRealize Network Insight, while having a higher initial setup cost, offers substantial ROI through advanced insights and automation, positioning it as a preferred choice for large enterprises requiring comprehensive network visibility.

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

Buyer's Guide

Icinga vs. vRealize Network Insight

August 2025

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Helped 865,164 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

Icinga

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

20th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

28th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (13th), Cloud Monitoring Software (22nd)

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

40th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

42nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Icinga is 3.8%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.5%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Harrison Bulley

Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Net Consulting

A stable, scalable and cost-effective solution that helps with inbuilt scripts for easy modification

I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built.

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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 best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first."

"This solution has a self-healing handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted."

"Icinga has multiple automation and integration features. There is an API for everything and a web UI for configurations. The APIs enable you to automate tasks in Icinga. We can also use plugins to talk to the API. The Icinga Director talks to a database in the background, and you can import settings from the CMDB to all systems in Icinga."

"The ability to customize scripts and build your own queries to request information from the infrastructure elements you want to monitor. This level of personalization and customization is highly appreciated."

"Icinga does the job and is fairly stable."

"The drafts are easy but what I like about Icinga is that there are many add-ons that you can download."

"There's a module called Icinga Director, which helps us configure the product using an intuitive interface through clicks instead of creating a text configuration. It's very helpful for us."

"I like the ability to amend and adjust things really easily, which is useful in a case where you could make it auto-discover and then set a template to say all of these applications or servers under this template have an automatic threshold set that you’d set up manually."

More Icinga pros

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Also, the ability to troubleshoot all the way across the NSX part of it to the physical and actually watch the packets go through and then see where the bottleneck is or where the interruption is. We run queries on the network flows within the application to find where they are in it and it graphically tells us how the packets are actually going through the system."

"The graphical interface of this environment is so good with all the views, the graphics, and everything in them. It's really easy for me. It doesn't need an engineer to work on it. It's easy enough that anyone can get into the environment and look for issues or look at how communication is going on across the VMs. It's pretty much straightforward."

"It allows us to see how the network devices function as well as to see network glitches or fluctuations or dropping of packets."

"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."

"It's user-friendly. It's similar to the GUI that most VMware products are moving to, and the consistency across those makes it easy to switch from one product to another. Also, the search bar at the top is plain text and it helps you, it guides you along with your search query, so that helps. The first day you're in there you can start building actual queries."

More vRealize Network Insight pros

Cons

"We have found some problems with Nagios, and support isn't very responsive."

"One thing that Icinga lacks is the capability to create advanced and customized dashboards within the tool itself."

"It needs Trap SNMP. I saw the documentation for Zabbix, that it has its own built-in product which handles SNMP traps, and there's nothing similar in Icinga or Nagios. I think this feature is most important for me."

"The user interface should be improved."

"Icinga is a complex solution that's hard to learn. It's a powerful product for monitoring, but new users will have a hard time figuring out what to do."

"The installation and configuration are very complex."

"In general, the product does not look good. However, it does what it is supposed to do. So, the improvements should focus on usability and UI."

"The solution lacks many features important to higher-level IT management and network support."

More Icinga cons

"I would like to see them expand the capabilities to infrastructure types other than just VMware."

"I want to see more in terms of microsegmentation. As of now, I can see the rules, but they are not in a readable format that I can convert to microsegmentation and can fit into NSX Manager."

"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 you use it for a little while you become accustomed to it but the layout doesn't feel very intuitive. You have to dig around and find the exact place where you can find the information, where you can actually see your east-west traffic, etc. I would like them to bring that information more to the forefront, instead of having to find it."

"There is room for improvement when it comes to pricing because we pay here in Brazil, and all the costs are based on the dollar."

"It just needs to be more reliable and more accurate. At some point, there are some things where it does not match properly."

"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 would like to see more reporting features, more dashboards."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We're using the free version of Icinga."

"This is an open-source solution with paid support."

"The solution is cheap."

"It's an open-source solution."

"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."

"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."

"The solution is free to use."

"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."

"It has brought more money into our company."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Icinga?

The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Icinga?

It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low. If you want to include this product in the services you offer to your customers, the return on i...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Icinga?

There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved. For instance, multi-tenancy for monitoring the virtual infrastructur...

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?

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

Comparisons

Zabbix vs Icinga

Compared 41% of the time

Nagios Core vs Icinga

Compared 20% of the time

Checkmk vs Icinga

Compared 10% of the time

Nagios XI vs Icinga

Compared 4% of the time

Datadog vs Icinga

Compared 3% of the time

More Icinga Competitors

Alluvio AppResponse vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 20% of the time

DX NetOps vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 14% of the time

VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 11% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 10% of the time

Datadog vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 9% of the time

More vRealize Network Insight Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Icinga

August 2025

Download Icinga product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

July 2025

Download vRealize Network Insight product report

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring

Arkin

Overview

Icinga is a robust tool for monitoring IT infrastructure, known for its distributed monitoring capabilities and seamless integration with multiple platforms. It efficiently observes servers, network devices, and environments like Linux and Windows, enabling proactive issue identification and resource management.

With a focus on task delegation and clustering, Icinga offers an intuitive interface through its GUI and Icinga Director, simplifying configuration. The extensive plugin library supports diverse technologies, while the API allows automation with tools like Terraform and Ansible. Despite its strengths, users report challenges with data display in the GUI, a need for improved dashboards, and complex configuration processes. Users benefit from its SNMP alerts, email notifications, and automated incident handling, making it essential for managed service environments and enterprises.

What are the key features of Icinga?

Task Delegation: Streamlines monitoring tasks across distributed systems.
Event Handler: Enables automatic service recovery with minimal intervention.
Plugin Library: Offers extensive support for integrating diverse technologies.
API Accessibility: Facilitates automation with popular tools like Terraform.
Custom Plugins: Allows easy creation and personalization for monitoring needs.

What benefits should you consider in Icinga reviews?

Flexibility: Tailors monitoring to specific requirements with community support.
Scalability: Successfully manages growing infrastructure demands.
Proactivity: Enhances issue identification and resource allocation.
Integration: Seamlessly works with existing IT operations platforms.

Icinga is widely adopted in IT environments for monitoring servers, networks, and applications across industries such as finance, healthcare, and technology. Its ability to integrate with various operating systems and automation platforms makes it a versatile choice for industries prioritizing comprehensive surveillance and proactive management of their infrastructure.

Icinga

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

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre

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

Buyer's Guide

Icinga vs. vRealize Network Insight

August 2025

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Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. vRealize Network Insight and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.

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