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OmniPeek 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

OmniPeek
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
49th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (37th)
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 OmniPeek is 0.3%, down from 0.4% 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

Vinal-Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time analytics and alerts improve application performance and network operations
OmniPeek's ability to convert application visibility into flow helps me quickly understand application performance over LAN, WAN, or wireless. Its real-time analytics, integrated with LiveNX, allow me to monitor business-critical applications and set up alerts for application performance issues. This centralized dashboard and alert system is highly valuable for maintaining network operations.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features are the voice bot, which checks the quality of service for voice, and the expert view that gives me insight on what and where to troubleshoot."
"OmniPeek's ability to convert application visibility into flow helps me quickly understand application performance over LAN, WAN, or wireless."
"I believe the most crucial feature of OmniPeek search is the ability to sniff packets based on channel switching."
"The most valuable feature is OmniPeek is user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature of OmniPeek was the ability it gave us to see the connection procedure."
"It's a solid piece of software. It's stable."
"The most valuable feature of OmniPeek is the ability to assign custom color codes to the different packets easily."
"The most valuable feature for us is that insight into what our network is really doing - it's a fairly complex network. Not having to go through thousands of lines of network configuration to find firewall ports that were open or closed, for various ports, was very valuable. It went out and found everything we need very quickly."
"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."
"The initial was straightforward. You can have it up and running in one hour."
"It's very user-friendly in the sense that the querying is just regular language like you and I speak or write. You don't need to know any SQL-query type of language to be able to get what you want out of it."
"The most valuable feature is the profiling of the applications for micro-segmentation... It has made the migration to NSX much easier. Most of the sys admins within the smaller silos, they have no idea what ports are needed to run their stuff at all. I am pretty sure the micro-segmentation would never, ever have occurred without it."
"It has enabled us to set up and do application discovery, as far as network traffic is concerned, and set up the appropriate rules that we need to make sure we're compliant with our security frameworks."
"A lot of time is saved when you use this type of software solution for the network. We have moved systems into the new data center and the servers and systems are much faster because of the very low latency between virtual machines."
"I find that the interface of most VMware products is very similar, which I consider an advantage due to its ease of use compared to other tools like Splunk."
 

Cons

"I don't see a clear roadmap in the future for improving this software."
"Making it more clear on how to configure the filters, or really automating them, would be an improvement."
"The solution's automation has room for improvement."
"OmniPeek doesn't support Linux or Unix installations, which prompted the shift to Wireshark."
"I am not using OmniPeek for automation, we only do manual testing. Automation testing is tedious to do. The automation should be more user-friendly. I have exposed some APIs but the usage is not user-friendly."
"I would like to see the saving feature improved. We have had issues if you do not save your progress then you have to start from the beginning."
"I would like to see the tool work in an open environment the same as how it does in a closed environment."
"The only issue we have is that the solution does not always capture the host names."
"If it were more application-aware, more descriptive; if it were able to determine the application that is actually doing the communication, that would be easier. More application information: which user or account it's accessing, is it accessing this application, doing these calls, if it is accessing a script, what script is it accessing. Things like that would provide deeper analytics so I can track what's going on. It would not just be, "These people shouldn't be talking," but who is actually doing these calls."
"The solution is very much viewer centric and it would be nice if it would transcend just the virtual infrastructure."
"It just needs to be more reliable and more accurate. At some point, there are some things where it does not match properly."
"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."
"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."
"The only real improvement they can make is to add more third-party vendors into the environment, mostly switch manufacturers, because it's really limited to Cisco equipment and there are a lot of companies out there other than Cisco."
"After Broadcom acquired VMware, I would rate their support at five or less in many cases. It's difficult to find necessary documentation, open tickets, and get support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have only purchased the add-on once and have not paid for any subsequent versions as it was too costly for us."
"The pricing for this solution could be improved, as it is a very expensive product."
"There are different types of licenses available."
"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."
"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."
"We have spent less time investigating network flows, so it is absolutely cost-effective."
"I rate vRealize Network Insight's pricing a seven point five out of ten."
"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."
"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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with OmniPeek?
There isn't anything specific that needs improvement in OmniPeek, as it performs better than Wireshark for our requirements. However, OmniPeek could benefit from supporting different platforms. Pla...
What is your primary use case for OmniPeek?
I have been working with the OmniPeek product for almost two years at the start of my career, primarily using it for wireless 802.11 Wi-Fi packets, sniffer, and analysis. My experience with OmniPee...
What advice do you have for others considering OmniPeek?
I didn't explore much about OmniPeek beyond its basic features. OmniPeek is user-friendly and easy to start working with, especially on the Windows platform. For beginners, it is very easy to handl...
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

Savvius OmniPeek
Arkin
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Apcon, Aruba Networks, Avaya Inc., Cisco Systems, Ekahau, Gigamon Systems, HP, IBM, IXIA, Meru Networks, Napatech, NextComputing, Procera Networks, Qualcomm Atheros, Ralink Technology Corporation, Telchemy
NTTi3, VCIX-NV, VMware Networking and Security Business Unit, Illumio, CompuNet
Find out what your peers are saying about OmniPeek vs. vRealize Network Insight and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.