Spiceworks vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

Spiceworks and VMware are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Spiceworks is ranked #45 with an average rating of 8.5, while VMware is ranked #39 with an average rating of 8.8. Spiceworks holds a 0.4% mindshare in IM, compared to VMware’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of Spiceworks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Spiceworks

Read 47 Spiceworks reviews

845 Views
67 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 46 vRealize Network Insight reviews

793 Views
113 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Spiceworks

vRealize Network Insight

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Spiceworks and vRealize Network Insight both operate in the IT management tools category. Spiceworks often has the upper hand for small to medium-sized businesses due to its cost-effectiveness and strong community support, while vRealize Network Insight is preferred by larger enterprises for its advanced network visualization capabilities, despite its higher cost.

Features: Spiceworks provides a comprehensive help desk, robust inventory capabilities, and ease of setup, which are particularly beneficial for SMBs with limited budgets. vRealize Network Insight offers network flow visualization, microsegmentation analysis, and detailed network insights essential for enterprises looking for advanced network management solutions.

Room for Improvement: Spiceworks users note the need for better monitoring tools, improved scalability for larger enterprises, and enhanced customization options. vRealize Network Insight could improve its application recognition, increase third-party vendor integration, and reduce complexity in its operations for enhanced interoperability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Spiceworks is praised for its simple deployment options, available both on-premises and in public cloud settings, with support from a vibrant community. vRealize Network Insight, primarily installed on-premises, is backed by dedicated technical support, though more training resources could streamline the deployment process.

Pricing and ROI: Spiceworks provides significant ROI with its free cost model, mainly through time investments, while community support further offsets costs. vRealize Network Insight, with variable pricing depending on deployment, reflects its specialized features catering to larger enterprises seeking detailed network insights.

To learn more, read our detailed Spiceworks vs. vRealize Network Insight Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Spiceworks vs. vRealize Network Insight

June 2025

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Helped 856,873 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

Spiceworks

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

45th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Help Desk Software (17th), IT Asset Management (12th)

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

39th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (34th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Spiceworks is 0.4%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.4%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Rohit Samel

Account Manager Enterprise Sales at Navdeep Technologies Pvt.Ltd

Cloud storage with no hardware needed and great comprehensive reports

The software is cloud-based, so I do not need to store any data locally. It is a fully software-based solution, eliminating the need for investment in hardware. We have the capability to create reports as needed. It is good software to use, as there were no incidents where I needed to contact technical support. Additionally, it is free software.

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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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The software is cloud-based, so I do not need to store any data locally."

"It's easy to understand."

"The most valuable features are the inventory and personalization."

"Spiceworks is generic and free."

"The solution can find all asset details automatically, whether it's a Mac address, computer name, IP address, models, etc. It's very helpful."

"Spiceworks' dashboard allows you to drill down to the notes, where I can take an inventory of the network and see the devices I need to monitor."

"The solution is very stable. It's reliable and efficient."

"It shows the users that are currently logged in, which is not something that Active Directory by default will ever let you know up front."

More Spiceworks pros

"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."

"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."

"The initial was straightforward. You can have it up and running in one hour."

"What's valuable to us is the ability to get a view into the virtual space, which is something we haven't had before. Before, it was done by collecting from network endpoints and extrapolating into the virtual environment. Now it's coming directly from the virtual environment."

"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."

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

"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 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."

More vRealize Network Insight pros

Cons

"I would like the solution to allow for more direct interaction with computers. I can open tickets and I can see their status, but I can't interact directly with the computers themselves."

"One of the biggest ways in which Spiceworks could improve is by developing better and more automated workflows. For example, in another solution called ServiceDesk by ManageEngine, you can have levels of approval in the event that there is a request for new software, or when someone requests a VPN or WiFi connection. This kind of multi-stage approval feature provided by ServiceDesk does not appear to exist in Spiceworks, and it is one of their main shortcomings for me."

"The GUI must be improved."

"It would be nice to have remote access to the solution via a tablet. They also need remote control from a PC. Right now, to complete the technical support process, you have to have a tool to access the PC, and check the problems."

"Once a device was recognized on the network, Spiceworks never got rid of it even after you took it off the network. You had to go in and manually remove it."

"The SNMP sniffer requires a lot of work to get right."

"Since Spiceworks is a free tool, it's not very scriptable or customizable."

"They've also tried to integrate it with social logins, like Twitter and LinkedIn, and that type of login authentication has no place in a corporate application."

More Spiceworks cons

"There could be some deeper analytics into packet inspection and trace flows. It could use some kind of machine learning to look at Layer 7 traffic for potential malware or corrupt packets."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"The UI, even though once you get to know it, it's easier, still it's hard to figure out by yourself. You have to go read, watch videos. It has a lot of data on it. So that is an issue."

"Support could be much better."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's free."

"It might be about $300 annually for a bigger company. If you pay annually, it's better and cheaper."

"The tool is cheap."

"The product is free! Get it now."

"Seeing that it is a low-cost solution, I would advise you to go ahead with Spiceworks and experiment with it to see if you can get things working properly, especially if you currently don't have any existing service desk software in place."

"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."

"It has brought more money into our company."

"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."

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

May 31, 2015

Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor

I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

University

11%

Real Estate/Law Firm

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 Spiceworks?

The solution is easy to use and easy to manage.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Spiceworks?

The tool is cheap.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Spiceworks?

I am unable to provide suggestions for improvement at this moment, however, I can provide feedback later. Currently, there do not seem to be any issues.

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

Comparisons

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Compared 18% of the time

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs Spiceworks

Compared 8% of the time

Freshdesk vs Spiceworks

Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 16% of the time

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Compared 15% of the time

VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 12% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 10% of the time

DX Spectrum vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 10% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Spiceworks

May 2025

Download Spiceworks product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

May 2025

Download vRealize Network Insight product report

Also Known As

No data available

Arkin

Overview

From network inventory and network monitoring to help desk software, and mobile device management (MDM) to cloud services detection, Spiceworks helps you manage everything about your IT workday from one easy place.

Spiceworks

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

Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Symantec, Webroot, EMC, Pertino

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

Buyer's Guide

Spiceworks vs. vRealize Network Insight

June 2025

Free Report: Spiceworks vs. vRealize Network Insight

Find out what your peers are saying about Spiceworks vs. vRealize Network Insight and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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