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NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
31st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
vRealize Network Insight
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
23rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (23rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is 0.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.6%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Leandro Di Maria - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers real-time monitoring capabilities, which help businesses optimize their operations
The tools are part of managed environments, but when the capabilities of the routers need to be increased, we use NETSCOUT to manage things at an international level. The tool's user interface is okay. It would be great if the tool could provide alerts during attacks in Spanish. In the next release, if the traffic analysis could send our company an alert before an attack starts, it would be even better. Before an attack starts, seeing the traffic behavior and activities would be great. The tool should also share alerts since it is an area where the product has certain shortcomings.
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

"I like the single pane of glass view because it presents everything in one window, obviously. You can see it all. With a quick glance, you get a pretty good snapshot of what's going on in a particular situation."
"The most valuable features of this solution are monitoring and maintaining traffic queuing, as well as seeing who is using the bandwidth."
"This is a very reliable and complete solution for troubleshooting and monitoring environments."
"I like the single pane of glass view. I like being able to go to one place instead of having to hunt around for everything."
"The most valuable feature of NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is the network troubleshooting analysis. You can pinpoint an issue before it could shut down the network."
"The solution's technical support team consists of good engineers and technicians."
"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 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."
"The solution has helped improve our organization by directing the network traffic using SDN."
"It allows you to see traffic that you couldn't otherwise see, which is traffic within your Layer 3-bounded network, meaning east-west traffic. It's hard to get that any other way."
"I like being able to see the flows coming in and out of the product. In terms of monitoring network flows, we use it to verify whether or not different servers/applications should be communicating with each other."
"We can see everything going on in NSX and get a good picture of our environment."
"As a troubleshooting tool, it's a level-3 troubleshooting-skills tool and it's very easy to use and very easy to find the information that you need."
"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."
 

Cons

"Usability is the area with the biggest room for improvement. We've found that with NETSCOUT, while it's a fantastic product, the usability is a major factor because there are just way too many clicks. It's obvious, from our experience, that the people who are developing the product aren't using it."
"Before an attack starts, seeing the traffic behavior and activities would be great. The tool should also share alerts since it is an area where the product has certain shortcomings."
"They require a lot of manual effort as traffic flows, networks, and formal times change."
"In terms of additional features, I would like to see better event notification. Right now, we put in an email address to receive an alert and it receives every event and every alert that comes out. We need something a little more granular."
"The GUI interface and dashboards could be more attractive to the customer."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
"It just needs to be more reliable and more accurate. At some point, there are some things where it does not match properly."
"I'd like to see better support for being able to search the hardware NetFlow data. It ingests fairly well, but you can't tell, in a lot of cases, what source the data came from. I'd like to see more support for picking specific sources. That way you could really make a compelling use case. There are also some difficulties where it can't exactly trace the path between source and destination but if you hit the reverse flow on the same search it shows the entire path."
"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."
"It needs to be a little easier to use and to understand the information it's putting out. That would make it more helpful. If you're not a network person you need to understand things like network policies and concepts. If you gave it to a regular admin, it would be nice if it were easier for them to pick up what is going on, understand the flows and whether or not stuff should be talking to each other, as opposed to just port groups and IP addresses."
"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."
"Since Broadcom acquired VMware, it has been experiencing challenges. Many sales processes are not well defined."
"The only reason I would not give it a nine or a 10 is for cost reasons. It seems to be one of those things that really belongs as part of the product inherently and not as an add-on. That would be my only concern."
"The solution can be improved by making it more compatible with other brands, allowing for better integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cost is contracted on a yearly basis. There is no additional cost beyond the standard licensing."
"The price of NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is high. The other solutions are less expensive but we cannot depend on the other solutions, they are not as stable."
"The tool's price is okay. On a scale of one to ten, I rate it as a five, where one means it is not expensive, and ten means it is the most expensive."
"It has brought more money into our company."
"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."
"I rate vRealize Network Insight's pricing a seven point five out of ten."
"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE?
The tool's price is okay. On a scale of one to ten, I rate it as a five, where one means it is not expensive, and ten means it is the most expensive.
What needs improvement with NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE?
The tools are part of managed environments, but when the capabilities of the routers need to be increased, we use NETSCOUT to manage things at an international level. The tool's user interface is o...
What is your primary use case for NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE?
I use the solution in my company to analyze international traffic.
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

nGeniusPULSE
Arkin
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banco Votorantim
NTTi3, VCIX-NV, VMware Networking and Security Business Unit, Illumio, CompuNet
Find out what your peers are saying about NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE vs. vRealize Network Insight and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
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