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 #40 with an average rating of 8.3. SolarWinds holds a 0.5% mindshare in IM, compared to Broadcom’s 0.5% 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

1,069 Views
492 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 47 vRealize Network Insight reviews

1,694 Views
745 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: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds AppOptics vs. vRealize Network Insight

September 2025

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Helped 869,760 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 (57th), Cloud Monitoring Software (44th)

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

40th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (40th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.5%, 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	0.5%
SolarWinds AppOptics	0.5%
Other	99.0%

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

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

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

"The reporting of the solution is very good."

"The product has a great dashboard."

"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."

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

"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."

"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 allowed us to set up NSX and to do microsegmentation, without all of the pain points of having to determine each port and each IP address that needed to have access, and which ones needed to be blocked."

"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."

"The best feature of this application is its ability to capture everything within the same application, as well as capture all the traffic."

"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."

"We're a smaller company so it automates a lot of the tasks and lets us focus in on building out our own solution. It's quicker, there is less building of manual solutions, and less downtime. It allows our developers to quickly develop, get provisioning done, de-provisioning, etc; the stuff that you would expect to be able to make it streamlined."

"The gradual way the Network Insight shows you all the relevant information about your networks. It's pretty good. You can really dig deep deep inside and see where the problem is, where it comes from, what you have inside, how did you configure it. Also, it has alerts so you can have pretty much quite a big overview about your network. This is really something good."

More vRealize Network Insight pros

Cons

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

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

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

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

"The solution should be more user-friendly."

"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."

"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 IT infrastructure industry is expected to evolve towards a hybrid cloud model in the next five to ten years. In this model, most of the customer's resources reside on-premise within a private cloud setup, such as VMware. Another segment operates within public cloud environments like Azure and AWS, and a portion remains in traditional data centers. There should be seamless interoperability between public and private clouds. AWS and VMware need to work together to make it possible. Whether users interact with on-premise infrastructure or configure resources in the public cloud, the user experience must be seamless."

"I would like to see more interoperability on the firewall and low balancer sides."

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

"There is room for improvement when it comes to pricing because we pay here in Brazil, and all the costs are based on the dollar."

"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."

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

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

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

"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."

"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."

"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's an expensive product because we have a lot of nodes."

"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'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."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Healthcare Company

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

September 2025

Download SolarWinds AppOptics product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

September 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

September 2025

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: September 2025.

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