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Kentik vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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
7.0
Kentik enhances network management and cost efficiency, offering data insights while reducing engineering efforts, boosting operational efficiency and security.
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.
In production environments, especially for service providers on IP networks and data centers, Kentik helps in reducing the time to identify and resolve issues.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.3
Kentik's customer service is efficient and responsive, with proactive communication and expertise, greatly enhancing user satisfaction.
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.
They have monthly calls and discuss the product roadmap with us to determine what is needed.
It's difficult to find necessary documentation, open tickets, and get support.
We are paying too much for technical support from VMware.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Kentik is praised for its scalability in large, global installations, handling increased data flows and integrating with Kubernetes.
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.
You can scale as many devices and tests as you want, but you should have a good number of credits in your accounts.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Users commend Kentik for its strong stability, minimal disruptions, efficient issue resolution, and satisfactory performance, especially in lab settings.
Sentiment score
1.0
vRealize Network Insight is praised for stability, with rare minor Web UI glitches, staying robust during upgrades and deployments.
Based on stability, I would give Kentik a nine.
In production, however, dimensioning of the underlying platforms is something to be mindful of.
We are managing that one but usually we have an API connector between our firewall vendor and our VMware NSX.
 

Room For Improvement

Kentik users desire enhanced permissions, UI, API access, integrations, AI, insights, cost-effectiveness, and alert and data features.
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.
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.
 

Setup Cost

Kentik's pricing depends on usage factors, offering discounts for education, with annual and multi-year contracts available.
vRealize Network Insight is valued for features and stability but seen as costly, especially in larger or bundled setups.
Kentik’s pricing is competitive in the marketplace.
The pricing is good and aligns with the market target.
Broadcom is known for increasing product prices, making them expensive compared to what people used to pay.
 

Valuable Features

Kentik offers real-time network visibility, customizable dashboards, and automation, enhancing security, performance, and user experience efficiently.
vRealize Network Insight provides comprehensive network visualization, monitoring, automation, and security enhancement with user-friendly interfaces and customization.
One of the most valuable features of Kentik, especially for service providers, is its ability to visualize all the BGP peering and the status of the BGP peering platform.
Overall, the ease of use and the fact that it meets client expectations are major positives.
Kentik is easy to use and set up.
One of the biggest problems with VMware NSX is logging, and vRealize Network Insight helps by providing comprehensive logs.
 

Categories and Ranking

Kentik
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
34th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (16th)
vRealize Network Insight
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
40th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (42nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Kentik is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.6%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

ADRIANA SALDARRIAGA TOBON - PeerSpot reviewer
Client experience and cybersecurity have improved with an easy setup
The solution is valuable for client experience, especially in the financial sector. The most important feature is cybersecurity. The pricing is good, but the functionality is the most important aspect for clients. The solution is easy to deploy and requires only one person to set up, making it easy and quick. Overall, the ease of use and the fact that it meets client expectations are major positives.
Shaijith KB - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kentik?
I would say Kentik's pricing is not cheap. From my perspective as part of the technical team, I would not categorize it as expensive, but I know it is not cheap.
What needs improvement with Kentik?
There's always room for improvements and better relations when using any kind of product. We faced some issues with Kentik UI and alerting, which we asked them to fix, and they succeeded. They have...
What is your primary use case for Kentik?
We are using Kentik mostly for synthetic tests, and from one last year, network monitoring as well. We are using it for inter DC BGP tests and server monitoring as well.
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.
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...
 

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: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.