SolarWinds AppOptics vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

SolarWinds and VMware are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. SolarWinds is ranked #57, while VMware is ranked #41 with an average rating of 8.7. SolarWinds holds a 0.4% mindshare in IM, compared to VMware’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of VMware users who would recommend it.

SolarWinds AppOptics

Read 9 SolarWinds AppOptics reviews

1,032 Views
454 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 46 vRealize Network Insight reviews

1,784 Views
785 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

SolarWinds AppOptics

vRealize Network Insight

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

vRealize Network Insight and SolarWinds AppOptics compete in the network monitoring and management category. Based on feature offering and network insights, vRealize Network Insight seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced visualization and application rationalization capabilities.

Features: vRealize Network Insight includes comprehensive log collection, network mapping, and microsegmentation assistance, offering deep insights and automation for security. It also features robust network flow visualization and powerful application assessment tools, which make it intuitive. SolarWinds AppOptics provides real-time monitoring, end-to-end performance tracking, and visibility into service-provider networks, complemented by intuitive visualization features such as heat maps and topology discovery.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest vRealize Network Insight could improve integration with other services and provide clearer microsegmentation, also addressing pricing concerns. Enhancements in reporting and application identification are desired. For SolarWinds AppOptics, users recommend better integration and expanded monitoring capabilities. Pricing improvements and a more centralized view would be beneficial.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: vRealize Network Insight is primarily deployed on-premises, supported by strong technical support and VMware Professional Services, offering seamless setup experience. Users report excellent customer service. SolarWinds AppOptics provides both on-premises and public cloud deployment options. Its knowledgeable support staff is valued, though initial use challenges have been noted.

Pricing and ROI: vRealize Network Insight, noted for its high cost due to comprehensive features, offers substantial ROI by enhancing operational efficiency and network management. Its pricing reflects its advanced capabilities in microsegmentation and application rationalization. SolarWinds AppOptics follows a similar pricing model with perpetual licensing, providing reasonable costs and strong value in labor savings and efficiency improvements.

To learn more, read our detailed SolarWinds AppOptics vs. vRealize Network Insight Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds AppOptics vs. vRealize Network Insight

July 2025

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Helped 862,077 peers since 2012

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

SolarWinds AppOptics

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

57th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (56th), Cloud Monitoring Software (43rd)

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

41st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (38th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.4%, up from 0.4% 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

John Yuko

Assistant Manager ICT - Projects at I&M Bank Ltd

Unique features allow consolidating and combing metrics into a single dashboard, but don't monitor mobile solutions

I would like to see more granular information provided on Unix applications. Also, the integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward in terms having an agent to retrieve your credentials rather than having to enter or save them for SSH on SolarWinds. From the outset, we had to set some commands to log into the search console, and they are saved on the solution, which presents a challenge in terms of exposure. The solution is unable to monitor APK solutions completely because we'd then be forced to break down the APK and provide the APIs or go through the source code. They don't have a module that can analyze an application that is maybe under-used.

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NiteshKumar1

Principle consultant at Infosys

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product has a great dashboard."

"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."

"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."

"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."

"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."

"The reporting of the solution is very good."

"The most valuable feature for me is the different views that you can get when selecting an application or a VLAN. It shows you the traffic flows. It gives you a visual representation of something that, in text, just may not make as much sense."

"If we deploy NSX it shows us how the workflow will flow in the organization, what the roadblocks are, and what we need to do to overcome those hurdles. When we run this product, it gives us reports which describe problems with physical switches. We work with the network team to get them all resolved."

"It helps a lot because, until now, we didn't have the tools to figure out the micro level, VM-to-VM kind of traffic; that was not in the current environment. We could not figure out VM-to-VM communication from the other tools. This is the tool which gives us end-to-end transparency."

"It especially helps with deploying NSX, that you're not having to manually chase down and figure out what you need to do to microsegment VMs. This gives a nice option where you can say, "Hey, this VM, show me what flows are there." I can export it out and then import it as an NSX rule and job done."

"It allows us to go from virtual through NSX, up to the core, and see all of that in one pane of glass, it's pretty easy."

"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 has definitely helped us to meet compliance rules by assuring that all traffic is going to where it's supposed to go. It can be used to report that you are in compliance, as well as helping you get into compliance."

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight pros

Cons

"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."

"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."

"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."

"In terms of the technology, I think they need to put some more advanced troubleshooting into SolarWinds, in terms of AI capabilities. That's the next generation, especially in the cases of APIs which have already adopted AI capabilities into their products."

"The solution should be more user-friendly."

"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."

"There's enough information there, especially in the visualizations, but I would love to see this in a kiosk mode, where I could have a dashboard for interested stakeholders to see and appreciate what's going on. Then, moving on to a more practical level for our Help Desk, our operations team could benefit by seeing, in real-time, a visual view of the network."

"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."

"I want to see more in terms of microsegmentation. As of now, I can see the rules, but they are not in a readable format that I can convert to microsegmentation and can fit into NSX Manager."

"The solution is very much viewer centric and it would be nice if it would transcend just the virtual infrastructure."

"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."

"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."

"The virtual appliance has rebooted."

"vRNI needs more remediation where it hooks into NSX."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Mostly, it's a perpetual license. We don't have any customers using the subscription right now—it's mostly a perpetual license that the customers purchase. The licensing is based on the number of elements, whereas other solutions are node-based."

"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."

"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

17%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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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.

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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.

See all answers

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...

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

July 2025

Download SolarWinds AppOptics product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

June 2025

Download vRealize Network Insight product report

Also Known As

AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato

Arkin

Overview

AppOptics is a SaaS-based simple, powerful and affordable Infrastructure & Application monitoring for custom on-premises, cloud, and hybrid systems.

Your business runs on applications, and when they go down or run slowly, it can impact the business in lost productivity, customers, or revenue. To add to the complexity, your IT environment is changing, and workloads can be spread across data centers, and cloud resources. You need to monitor the availability and performance of applications and infrastructure, regardless of where they are, so you can identify potential issues early and address them before they impact users

SolarWinds

VMware vRealize Network Insight delivers intelligent operations for software-defined networking and security. It helps customers build an optimized, highly-available and secure network infrastructure across multi-cloud environments. It accelerates micro-segmentation planning and deployment, enables visibility across virtual and physical networks and provides operational views to manage and scale VMware NSX deployments.

VMware

Sample Customers

TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista

NTTi3, VCIX-NV, VMware Networking and Security Business Unit, Illumio, CompuNet

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds AppOptics vs. vRealize Network Insight

July 2025

Free Report: SolarWinds AppOptics vs. vRealize Network Insight

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