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Azure Network Watcher vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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

Azure Network Watcher
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
45th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
vRealize Network Insight
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
23rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (23rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Azure Network Watcher is 0.4%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.6%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Emanuel Kjellin - PeerSpot reviewer
An affordable solution to block and analyze the situation with VPN troubleshooting feature
If Azure Network Monitor is part of the solution, it's a comprehensive tool. For example, during cloud migration, the workload on the cloud can be significant. However, the Ethernet solution is low cost and provides a fast return on investment. In larger scenarios, such as a major deployment, the return on investment might take three months to a year. The solution involves managing workloads, machine storage, and network modes.
NiteshKumar1 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Azure Network Watcher is using the gateways with the connections. The monitoring is useful for the logs and application insights into the data. The traffic filtering issues when it comes to deploying those applications are helpful."
"What I like most about Azure Network Watcher is that it's focused more on the architecture. I also like that it has a packet capture feature that tells you how the packet travels and whether it's exiting Azure, etc."
"The stability is very good. I rate it a ten out of ten."
"The solution is good for monitoring device behavior."
"We use the solution to monitor network services. It helps to capture any network issues."
"The solution is stable."
"I like the visibility."
"It provides good visibility."
"The graphical interface of this environment is so good with all the views, the graphics, and everything in them. It's really easy for me. It doesn't need an engineer to work on it. It's easy enough that anyone can get into the environment and look for issues or look at how communication is going on across the VMs. It's pretty much straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is the visualization. It's really handy to be able to classify network objects as with applications and see the interaction between them."
"vRNI can trace the flow of each and every packet and it is easy for us to troubleshoot all the issues that we do have with the networking. We can trace down the packet to a point where it has been dropped."
"It has really tightened down the security. That was something that we were lacking. It has also given us deep visibility into our network. We can really get down and see all of the traffic within the data center, between the VMs, between the applications, database servers, other application servers, web servers. We can identify everything that is communicating, and we can see it all on one product."
"The most valuable feature for us is that insight into what our network is really doing - it's a fairly complex network. Not having to go through thousands of lines of network configuration to find firewall ports that were open or closed, for various ports, was very valuable. It went out and found everything we need very quickly."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"It's very user-friendly in the sense that the querying is just regular language like you and I speak or write. You don't need to know any SQL-query type of language to be able to get what you want out of it."
"We can see everything going on in NSX and get a good picture of our environment."
 

Cons

"I would like to see in the future if we can troubleshoot as a firewall because it is equipment as a network player and some diagnostics."
"User experience could be improved."
"The solution could improve by limiting the need to clarify the logs. When the clarification is minimized, it is better for everyone involved."
"I still use Wireshark and Azure Network Watcher to get the required data. My team captures the traffic from Azure Network Watcher, downloads it, then imports that traffic into Wireshark to get more details on the number of hits and replies, for example. If you can do that on Azure Network Watcher and have Wireshark built-in, that would make Azure Network Watcher better. If Azure Network Watcher has that functionality where you won't need a third-party tool to get what you need, that would be helpful. I'm also expecting more from Azure Network Watcher. It's more complex than knowing how the IP flows from its source to the destination. The tool also needs more open-source features, such as having some built-in Wireshark that improves monitoring for customers. Sometimes, you encounter a VPN tunnel, network, or routing issue, but finding out more about the blockage is challenging. Is it one hundred percent an Azure issue? Is it a peer issue? You don't get complete information from Azure Network Watcher, so you must use other tools and depend on your strategies to resolve a specific issue. If more features could be added in the next release of Azure Network Watcher, specifically ones you can find on open-source tools, then that would be a plus point for the tool."
"Lacks sufficient security features."
"The initial setup and deployment could be improved to be simplified."
"The initial setup and initial learning curve could be improved to be easier."
"Azure Network Watcher could improve by having other built-in applications. For example, an application to log activities for in and outbound traffic."
"I would like to see more reporting features, more dashboards."
"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 virtual appliance has rebooted."
"Since Broadcom acquired VMware, it has been experiencing challenges. Many sales processes are not well defined."
"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."
"I would like to see more interoperability on the firewall and low balancer sides."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is good. It's not too expensive."
"Price-wise, I have no information on how much Azure Network Watcher costs."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit 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 has brought more money into our company."
"They should include the product in NSX because it's important to have it for deployment."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Arkin
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
NTTi3, VCIX-NV, VMware Networking and Security Business Unit, Illumio, CompuNet
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Network Watcher vs. vRealize Network Insight and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,253 professionals have used our research since 2012.