SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

SolarWinds and VMware are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. SolarWinds is ranked #30 with an average rating of 8.0, while VMware is ranked #38 with an average rating of 8.7. SolarWinds holds a 0.6% mindshare in NMS, compared to VMware’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of VMware users who would recommend it.

SolarWinds Network Device M...

Read 23 SolarWinds Network Device Monitor reviews

781 Views
750 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 46 vRealize Network Insight reviews

1,784 Views
1,284 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Network Device M...

vRealize Network Insight

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor and vRealize Network Insight compete in the network management domain. vRealize Network Insight offers a more comprehensive feature set, making it preferable for robust network analysis.

Features: SolarWinds Network Device Monitor provides real-time device monitoring, simplified alarms, and SNMP support. vRealize Network Insight includes advanced analytics, historical data analysis, and traffic optimization.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could improve with enhanced analytics, better scalability, and more comprehensive reporting. vRealize Network Insight might benefit from a simpler deployment process, reduced costs, and increased user-friendliness.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is known for quick setup and ease of use, making it suitable for rapid deployment. vRealize Network Insight requires a more involved deployment process but offers extensive VMware support.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds Network Device Monitor has competitive pricing, appealing to smaller networks. vRealize Network Insight justifies its higher cost with extensive features, supporting larger infrastructures for long-term ROI.

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

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs. vRealize Network Insight

July 2025

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Helped 862,289 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 Network Device M...

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

30th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

38th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (41st)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is 0.6%, up from 0.6% 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

Vijay Samant

Assistant Manager at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Monitor network utilization and manage bandwidth efficiently with live monitoring and reliable fault management capabilities

I use SolarWinds Network Device Monitor for monitoring network utilization, bandwidth utilization, uptime, and downtime. It also assists in incident management SolarWinds Network Device Monitor provides live monitoring capabilities, which are very useful. Its fault management capabilities are…

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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

"I rate the product's initial setup process a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is a difficult phase and ten is an easy process."

"Since our devices are spread out across the world, we can see the status of these devices without having to send someone physically to a remote location, which saves money."

"SolarWinds is flexible and works with multiple vendor devices."

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is it shows you the utilization of devices to allow you to take proactive action before something goes down or reaches the saturation point. You can take proactive action to fix the problem before it occurs."

"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is a straightforward product with valuable functionality."

"The alerting functionality in SolarWinds Network Device Monitor helps us stay informed during off-hours by sending alerts if our main links or devices are impacted, allowing us to quickly address any issues."

"The alerts we are getting when we start losing connection access have been helpful."

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is it can alert you when a device is not working."

More SolarWinds Network Device Monitor pros

"compare-to-competition; I would recommend the product. I don't think there is any other product like this on the market right now."

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

"It is user-friendly. It's pretty simple to deploy and to run. It gives you pretty easy-to-understand reports, very graphically intense, so you can visualize what's going on in your network."

"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."

"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."

"With this product, we can precisely identify communication patterns between virtual machines within our data center, whether it's east-east or east-west communication."

"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."

"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 initial setup of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could be easier. It took us approximately one month to complete the implementation."

"If everything were in the package so that everything was ready to go out of the box, that would be ideal."

"The security needs improvement, which is why we are moving away from Solar Winds. We have security concerns."

"The solution lacks in performance monitoring."

"Although I haven't explored all of the features available, I wouldn't mind if the software were made to be a bit more customizable."

"There is no mobile version of this product, and our team should be able to access it using a mobile device."

"The reporting feature needs improvement because we are unable to configure reports that were included during initial implementation."

"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could improve by being more user-friendly. The network has so many features which make it difficult to find how to configure how to use it. It is not simple to customize."

More SolarWinds Network Device Monitor cons

"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."

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

"I would like to see application identification. That would be cool."

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

"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."

"If it had some kind of plugins with vSphere, more effective plugins with Horizon View or other VMWare products, if it had interconnectivity, I think it would be more effective than it is today."

"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."

"I want to be able to monitor a network flow that is approximately two weeks back, but I haven't found an easy way to do this."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Well, we had a perpetual license and the renewal was $20 to $25,000."

"The product is expensive."

"The enterprise license is good for the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor. However, it is expensive, they should reduce their price."

"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is not an expensive solution."

"I find the cost of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor reasonable for our company. Though, I'm not aware of the exact licensing cost."

"When compared with other solutions SolarWinds is more expensive."

"Thankfully, it doesn't take a lot of manpower to install and deploy."

"I rate the product's price as three to three and a half or on a scale of one to ten, where one means low price, and ten means high price."

More SolarWinds Network Device Monitor pricing and cost advice

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

"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."

"It has brought more money into our company."

"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'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."

"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."

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

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

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

What do you like most about SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?

I rate the product's initial setup process a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is a difficult phase and ten is an easy process.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?

SolarWinds pricing is on the higher side, and in India, every customer is cautious about commercial aspects.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor should include automatic diagrams in its network solutions. Additionally, there is a challenge with having to add an additional polling engine after 10,000 element...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor

June 2025

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Network Device Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

June 2025

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Also Known As

Network Device Monitor

Arkin

Overview

Network Device Monitor is a free tool that makes it easy to monitor the real-time performance and health of a single device on your network with a desktop dashboard that alerts you when your device is in trouble.

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

Air Rarotonga

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

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs. vRealize Network Insight

July 2025

Free Report: SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs. vRealize Network Insight

Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs. vRealize Network Insight and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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