SolarWinds AppOptics vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

SolarWinds and Broadcom are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. SolarWinds is ranked #58, while Broadcom is ranked #38 with an average rating of 8.3. SolarWinds holds a 0.7% mindshare in IM, compared to Broadcom’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

SolarWinds AppOptics

Read 9 SolarWinds AppOptics reviews

1,452 Views
653 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 47 vRealize Network Insight reviews

2,191 Views
1,008 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: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds AppOptics vs. vRealize Network Insight

January 2026

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Helped 880,685 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

58th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (55th), Cloud Monitoring Software (47th)

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

38th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (34th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
vRealize Network Insight	0.7%
SolarWinds AppOptics	0.7%
Other	98.6%

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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Shaijith KB

Senior System Specialist at General Directorate of Residence and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA)

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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."

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

"The product has a great dashboard."

"The reporting of the solution is very good."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"I find it user-friendly and intuitive. With the GUI interface that we do use on a regular basis, it's easy to navigate, it's easy to see, easy to query. We get reports. It's easy to use."

"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 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."

"It allows us to see how the network devices function as well as to see network glitches or fluctuations or dropping of packets."

"It's user-friendly. It's similar to the GUI that most VMware products are moving to, and the consistency across those makes it easy to switch from one product to another. Also, the search bar at the top is plain text and it helps you, it guides you along with your search query, so that helps. The first day you're in there you can start building actual queries."

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."

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

"The solution should be more user-friendly."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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 would like to see them expand the capabilities to infrastructure types other than just VMware."

"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."

"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."

"It just needs to be more reliable and more accurate. At some point, there are some things where it does not match properly."

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

"The only issue we have is that the solution does not always capture the host names."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."

"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."

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

"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."

"I rate vRealize Network Insight's pricing a seven point five out of ten."

"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."

"It has brought more money into our company."

"They should include the product in NSX because it's important to have it for deployment."

"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."

"We have spent less time investigating network flows, so it is absolutely cost-effective."

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

University

Manufacturing Company

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Healthcare Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	41

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?

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....

See all answers

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...

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

January 2026

Download SolarWinds AppOptics product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

December 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.

Broadcom

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

January 2026

Free Report: SolarWinds AppOptics vs. vRealize Network Insight

Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds AppOptics vs. vRealize Network Insight and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.

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