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Kentik vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.2
Kentik users benefit from reduced costs, enhanced security, and efficiency, simplifying renewal decisions due to significant perceived value.
Sentiment score
1.0
vRealize Network Insight improved efficiency and reduced costs, achieving labor and hardware savings and enhancing problem-solving and network mapping speed.
If we had, for example, a contracted capacity from Vivo of 50 GB and we were using 40, with Kentik we reduced this usage from 40 to 20.
Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees
In production environments, especially for service providers on IP networks and data centers, Kentik helps in reducing the time to identify and resolve issues.
BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
I believe the return on investment has been mainly time savings in performing troubleshooting.
Network Analyst at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Kentik's customer service is praised for proactive support, quick responses, strong communication, and effective issue identification and resolution.
Sentiment score
4.0
vRealize Network Insight's customer support is generally praised but noted for delays and challenges, especially post-Broadcom acquisition.
I have mostly used forums for any support needed because the setup is straightforward and the documentation is quite good.
BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
They have monthly calls and discuss the product roadmap with us to determine what is needed.
Network Engineer III at Fortanix
It's difficult to find necessary documentation, open tickets, and get support.
Virtualization Specialist at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
We are paying too much for technical support from VMware.
Senior System Specialist at General Directorate of Residence and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA)
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Kentik is highly scalable, effectively manages diverse network sizes, and simplifies scaling with Kubernetes integration, despite credit dependencies.
Sentiment score
7.6
vRealize Network Insight is scalable, adaptable, and efficient, praised for ease of expansion and varied organizational adaptability.
Kentik's integration with Kubernetes makes scaling easier.
BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Kentik's scalability is effective; the platform can handle these large volumes.
Network Analyst at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
Kentik's scalability depends on how it is contracted.
Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Kentik users enjoy stable performance and reliability, with quick resolutions to occasional minor outages and bugs.
Sentiment score
1.0
vRealize Network Insight is praised for stability, with rare minor Web UI glitches, staying robust during upgrades and deployments.
In production, however, dimensioning of the underlying platforms is something to be mindful of.
BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Based on stability, I would give Kentik a nine.
Network Engineer III at Fortanix
I can say it is so great for us because if we configure it with Flowspec, the orchestration that we use, which is Kentik, makes the decision and automatically forwards the traffic to another position that we have in our network, or outgoing that we use.
Telecomm Analyst at a tech company with 11-50 employees
We are managing that one but usually we have an API connector between our firewall vendor and our VMware NSX.
Senior System Specialist at General Directorate of Residence and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA)
 

Room For Improvement

Kentik users request better AI reliability, intuitive alerts, improved UX, simplified API, report customization, cost reduction, and detailed documentation.
vRealize Network Insight requires enhanced integration, user-friendly features, better support, intuitive reports, and improved interoperability for complex cloud deployments.
More work is required to integrate AI for troubleshooting, simplifying root cause analysis, and providing suggested solutions for network issues.
BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
It needed to be a bit easier for new users and have slightly more customized reports.
Network Analyst at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
Currently, the way I'm configuring it uses reactive alerts, which means alerts are triggered when an issue occurs. I would prefer more proactive alerts in the future.
Epicor Engineer at Sunway Group
Broadcom should improve by going back to what was working before, offering the suite of tools that clients actually use, and allowing clients to decide the best options for them.
Virtualization Specialist at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Setup Cost

Kentik offers competitive pricing with flexible contracts, though costs may vary by enterprise size and usage, requiring substantial budgets.
vRealize Network Insight is valued for features and stability but seen as costly, especially in larger or bundled setups.
The pricing is good and aligns with the market target.
Sales Manager at IFX NEtworks
Kentik’s pricing is competitive in the marketplace.
BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Later, the prices are very high to maintain all the functionality blocks.
Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees
Broadcom is known for increasing product prices, making them expensive compared to what people used to pay.
Virtualization Specialist at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Valuable Features

Kentik offers comprehensive network monitoring, real-time analytics, security insights, customizable dashboards, and automation for efficient network management.
vRealize Network Insight provides comprehensive network visualization, monitoring, automation, and security enhancement with user-friendly interfaces and customization.
The best features that Kentik offers are the ability to identify traffic end-to-end and to know which transit is used, if it goes through any other transit, to see the entire flow, from the subscriber to the content provider and vice versa.
Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees
This allows for better understanding of whether there is a critical ongoing case related to incoming traffic, such as a DDoS event, which is crucial for a service provider dealing with numerous customers.
Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Kentik has positively impacted our organization because when something happens, we use Kentik to analyze the problem and it brings us a faster solution to the problem, and the troubleshooting is clearer.
Telecomm Analyst at a tech company with 11-50 employees
One of the biggest problems with VMware NSX is logging, and vRealize Network Insight helps by providing comprehensive logs.
Virtualization Specialist at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Kentik
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
13th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th)
vRealize Network Insight
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
36th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (43rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Kentik is 1.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Kentik1.6%
vRealize Network Insight0.8%
Other97.6%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Gcecilio - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees
Traffic insights have reduced transit costs and support secure, direct connections with providers
The best features that Kentik offers are the ability to identify traffic end-to-end and to know which transit is used, if it goes through any other transit, to see the entire flow, from the subscriber to the content provider and vice versa, from the content provider to the subscriber.I can also determine whether it is symmetric or asymmetric traffic, and if it goes through any provider that has some kind of bottleneck. That is very important. Regarding the security part, which is also possible to handle through Kentik, you can configure it in a way that makes the network more secure and reduces the amount of dirty traffic or attacks received. Kentik has had a high positive impact on my organization. Besides the cost reduction, it has been possible to perform troubleshooting more effectively, and also regarding DDoS-related attacks. In addition to cost reduction, we had a more reliable connection. Since the moment we identified that it was possible to have a direct connection with content providers like CDN77, Cloudflare, and Akamai, we established a direct connection there through a PNI with these content providers, making the network less dependent on an IP transit provider.
Shaijith KB - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Media Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise43
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kentik?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been limited because I was not responsible for that in my company, but I have spoken with my boss, and he reported that the licensing mode...
What needs improvement with Kentik?
Kentik can be improved by enhancing the alerting system, especially the way templates work and the hierarchy of these alerts.
What is your primary use case for Kentik?
My main use case for Kentik is as a network monitoring system and flow analysis tool. A specific example of how I use Kentik for network monitoring is monitoring devices or services that go down an...
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....
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...
What is your primary use case for vRealize Network Insight?
We have Tanzu, and we also work with multiple Kubernetes services such as Nutanix and Google. We are working on these Kubernetes services on the operations side. For Tanzu, we have several componen...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Arkin
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent. 
NTTi3, VCIX-NV, VMware Networking and Security Business Unit, Illumio, CompuNet
Find out what your peers are saying about Kentik vs. vRealize Network Insight and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.