Zabbix vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

Read 106 Zabbix reviews

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95% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Zabbix and vRealize Network Insight are network monitoring solutions with unique strengths. Zabbix has the upper hand in cost-effectiveness due to its open-source model, while vRealize Network Insight is superior in advanced features and integration.

Features: Zabbix is highly valued for automated network and item discovery, scalability, and customizable dashboards. It integrates seamlessly with third-party solutions like Grafana for data visualization. vRealize Network Insight excels in detailed traffic analysis, anomaly detection, and visibility, valuable in complex networks.

Room for Improvement: Zabbix users desire more intuitive reporting functions, improved predictive analytics, and better documentation. vRealize Network Insight users seek enhanced third-party integration, a more favorable cost structure, and improved micro-segmentation capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zabbix offers diverse deployment options and benefits from extensive community support, though it can be complex to deploy. Professional support is available if needed. vRealize Network Insight is typically deployed on-premises with good professional support, integrated with VMware products but at a higher cost due to its feature set.

Pricing and ROI: Zabbix's open-source approach provides significant ROI with no licensing fees, making it budget-friendly. vRealize Network Insight requires higher investment due to premium features, often priced per device, offering detailed analytics that justify its cost for advanced insights.

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

Zabbix vs. vRealize Network Insight

July 2025

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Helped 862,499 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

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

38th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

41st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zabbix

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

1st

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

106

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (9th), Server Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.6%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 12.7%, up from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

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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B Ahmed

Manager, Information Technology Zara & Inditex at Cenomi

Enables seamless global client monitoring with reliable remote connectivity

I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients. Many tools that I require for system maintenance are included. I can easily monitor all of my clients throughout the world I did not give much thought to it, however, improvements could be made to Zabbix.…

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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 like being able to see the flows coming in and out of the product. In terms of monitoring network flows, we use it to verify whether or not different servers/applications should be communicating with each other."

"It provides deep visibility into what is happening with traffic and helps us manage our network."

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

"Whenever we say "valuable" with respect to the network, it's more towards the security. The firewall rule issues it shows us and the recommendations that we get from vRNI are the most valuable features because they are actually making our network more secure."

"The ability to use the natural language query and see the visualization is quickly intuitive, and it works very well."

"By doing dependency mapping, it makes migrations more efficient. There are less outages that require engineers to spend additional hours troubleshooting the migration failures."

"The solution has helped improve our organization by directing the network traffic using SDN."

"I find that the interface of most VMware products is very similar, which I consider an advantage due to its ease of use compared to other tools like Splunk."

More vRealize Network Insight pros

"The initial setup was not complex."

"The solution's design has recently changed and it is visually pleasing with more color, for example, there is blue, black, and white."

"Health and communication links availability."

"Zabbix is quite stable once it is set up. We haven't had any post-setup issues."

"The product is very stable."

"The level of discovery-based configuration that lets us auto-configure the monitoring for various systems is a valuable feature."

"Zabbix has high scalability. I would rate it a nine out of ten."

"It's the best solution. Great. I would rate the overall solution ten out of ten."

More Zabbix pros

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."

"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."

"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."

"In a very general way, I would like to see an improvement in interoperability with third-party product, from other vendors."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The product is slightly complex use, while still being user-friendly. It could use more training modules, as it is not a straightforward product."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

"The user web interface is a little bit too basic, we need to link Zabbix to Grafana to have more options, such as graphs and charts. The interface needs to be improved. Additionally, there could be better integration with Grafana API."

"I had problems using Zabbix when working with SUSE Enterprise; many companies use SUSE."

"The server monitoring could be better."

"In terms of user-friendliness, large maps could be more interactive. We should be able to click on some areas and move some objects. It would make it simpler to see things while analyzing some dedicated parameters."

"Sometimes, the documentation is a little bit written in Estonia – a country in Europe. The language barrier and translation to English can sometimes make it difficult to understand what they're trying to get at. It's just a language thing."

"There are some features of Zabbix that are not good for reporting. The DX Spectrum solution has better reporting."

"I would like for this solution to be more cloud-friendly."

"Implementation is always tailored to the customer and the kind of information we need from the client to carry it out can make them very uncomfortable. Sometimes the clients are not ready to share it."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"It has brought more money into our company."

"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

"Zabbix and Grafana are both open source products, we only needed to go to their website and download the application and we began to use them. The solutions are free."

"Zabbix is an open-source tool, and it's free to use."

"Zabbix is open-source so if one wishes to implement it in-house, they must have qualified professionals to set up and optimize databases, Linux/Unix OS, PHP, Apache, and depending on what is monitored, a full-stack network and systems administrator may be needed."

"The product is an open source and free solution."

"Zabbix is a free solution but the support contact costs money."

"There are no licenses."

"This is an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

More Zabbix 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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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?

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.

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...

What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

We didn't use the commercial version. We used the free version.

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

I think it's the best solution for monitoring. I don't know any better.

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Product Reports

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vRealize Network Insight

June 2025

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June 2025

Also Known As

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Overview

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

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

Sample Customers

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

1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba