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Nagios XI vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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

Nagios XI
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
14th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (10th), Cloud Monitoring Software (21st)
vRealize Network Insight
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
38th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
41st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Nagios XI is 3.6%, down from 3.8% 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

Amir  Said - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective alerting enhances network monitoring experience with an easy setup
We love Nagios XI due to the fact that JPS Web is very useful. JPS monitors the modem and performs switching, monitoring the computer, and performing switching. We implement some applications and traffic monitoring. The alerting system is very effective. For instance, if we have an alarm on some RAM storage if the traffic is cut or dropped.
NiteshKumar1 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This is a very good solution and it is simple to use, for any company."
"Nagios is stable and it's easy to use the monitoring software, which is why we chose this product."
"The most valuable feature is its support for different types of devices, where it can use all of the equipment that you need."
"Nagios XI simplifies our setup and reduces the time spent configuring monitoring tools."
"Nagios XI helps us monitor the bandwidth of the internet connection, HTTP, DNS, active directory services, and exchange data availability. We have multiple servers to monitor databases, availability of servers, and ping."
"Nagios is a custom API manager, and we can expose custom APIs for our integration. This is a great feature."
"It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability."
"The most valuable feature of Nagios XI is customization. We can customize based on our requirements. We can do modifications and implement a lot of scripts. Additionally, it is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is the visualization. It's really handy to be able to classify network objects as with applications and see the interaction between them."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"It gives the visibility that was either broken or there in pieces only. This solution provides a unified view of the whole system, back and forth. It has helped to reduce time to value, increase performance, more easily manage networks, and provide deep visibility."
"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."
"With this product, we can precisely identify communication patterns between virtual machines within our data center, whether it's east-east or east-west communication."
"The solution has helped improve our organization by directing the network traffic using SDN."
"One of the most valuable features is the ability to look at the traffic flows, to look at NetFlow data."
"It is user-friendly. It's pretty simple to deploy and to run. It gives you pretty easy-to-understand reports, very graphically intense, so you can visualize what's going on in your network."
 

Cons

"The way Nagios displays information isn't easy for a new user to understand. It's not intuitive enough. You need to read some tutorials or be trained to understand what it's displaying. Also, I think it needs more features to improve network visibility because there are some things you can't detect."
"The interface could be more user-friendly."
"The installation and monitoring need improvement."
"I would like to see more customization in the network map because it is a bit tricky to use it."
"The reporting part should be made simpler. While we can obtain all the reports we need, we always have to create work-arounds to get them."
"Open-source software is usually not user-friendly."
"Improve the documentation, examples, and best practices, therefore users can understand how to do things."
"The product uses the backend as Perl and could be modified to a more lightweight solution like what's being offered by other vendors."
"There are some random glitches in the Web UI, but they are usually pretty cosmetic in nature. I don't really seem to use any browser other than Chrome with it. I also get some weird errors from time to time on the hardware NetFlow Collectors, where it doesn't sync data."
"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."
"I would like to see more reporting features, more dashboards."
"The virtual appliance has rebooted."
"I would like to see application identification. That would be cool."
"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."
"Support could be much better."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For our country in North Africa, it's expensive and we could purchase another solution for that price. But it's a reasonable price if we're speaking in international terms."
"The pricing is high with separate licensing for the product and support."
"The licensing fees for this solution are approximately $3,000 USD per year."
"We are using the free version of this solution."
"For the cost of the commercial product and support, and taking into account the open source characteristics of it, I believe it is difficult to a better value."
"As it is not an agentless tool, I think it is expensive."
"This solution is very expensive, at approximately $5,000 USD when I purchased it, which is why I haven't upgraded my version in several years."
"It is good to contact experts for advice about what is the best solution for your specific infrastructure and enterprise."
"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."
"They should include the product in NSX because it's important to have it for deployment."
"It's an expensive product because we have a lot of nodes."
"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 has brought more money into our company."
"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."
"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."
"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."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Nagios XI?
It is an open-source platform with valuable features for performance and stability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios XI?
The pricing for the Nagios XI product is good and better than other solutions. I would give it a four or five.
What needs improvement with Nagios XI?
The user interface needs improvement. Many tools have poor user interfaces, making them hard to manage and navigate.
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?
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.
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Arkin
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios has over one million users globally, including AOL, DHL, McAfee, MCI, MTV, Yahoo!, Universal, Toshiba, Sony, Siemens, and JPMorgan Chase.
NTTi3, VCIX-NV, VMware Networking and Security Business Unit, Illumio, CompuNet
Find out what your peers are saying about Nagios XI vs. vRealize Network Insight and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.