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Spiceworks vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.8
Spiceworks provides high ROI as a free tool, benefiting efficiency, issue resolution, and stability despite setup time investment.
Sentiment score
1.0
vRealize Network Insight improved efficiency and reduced costs, achieving labor and hardware savings and enhancing problem-solving and network mapping speed.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Spiceworks offers excellent, free email-based support, with strong community assistance and some criticisms for lacking direct phone support.
Sentiment score
4.0
vRealize Network Insight's customer support is generally praised but noted for delays and challenges, especially post-Broadcom acquisition.
It's difficult to find necessary documentation, open tickets, and get support.
We are paying too much for technical support from VMware.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Spiceworks is scalable for small to large setups, though larger organizations may face challenges; newer versions improve scalability.
Sentiment score
7.6
vRealize Network Insight is scalable, adaptable, and efficient, praised for ease of expansion and varied organizational adaptability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Spiceworks is stable but may slow down or crash with large setups; proper configuration enhances performance and stability.
Sentiment score
1.0
vRealize Network Insight is praised for stability, with rare minor Web UI glitches, staying robust during upgrades and deployments.
We are managing that one but usually we have an API connector between our firewall vendor and our VMware NSX.
 

Room For Improvement

Spiceworks users desire enhanced monitoring, scalability, reporting, integration, and user-friendly features with faster performance and lower resource consumption.
vRealize Network Insight requires enhanced integration, user-friendly features, better support, intuitive reports, and improved interoperability for complex cloud deployments.
Broadcom should improve by going back to what was working before, offering the suite of tools that clients actually use, and allowing clients to decide the best options for them.
 

Setup Cost

Spiceworks provides a customizable, free help desk solution with optional costs for premium features, suitable for small to medium businesses.
vRealize Network Insight is valued for features and stability but seen as costly, especially in larger or bundled setups.
Broadcom is known for increasing product prices, making them expensive compared to what people used to pay.
 

Valuable Features

Spiceworks offers SMBs a free help desk, inventory management, user-friendly interface, and strong community support for IT needs.
vRealize Network Insight provides comprehensive network visualization, monitoring, automation, and security enhancement with user-friendly interfaces and customization.
Additionally, it is free software.
One of the biggest problems with VMware NSX is logging, and vRealize Network Insight helps by providing comprehensive logs.
 

Categories and Ranking

Spiceworks
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
47th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (15th), IT Asset Management (12th)
vRealize Network Insight
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
42nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (40th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 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 0.5%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Rohit Samel - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Shaijith KB - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
report
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
 

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.
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.
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.
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....
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Arkin
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Symantec, Webroot, EMC, Pertino
NTTi3, VCIX-NV, VMware Networking and Security Business Unit, Illumio, CompuNet
Find out what your peers are saying about Spiceworks vs. vRealize Network Insight and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.