Cisco Intersight vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

Cisco and VMware are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Cisco is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.0, while VMware is ranked #18 with an average rating of 9.0. Cisco holds a 2.1% mindshare in IM, compared to VMware’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Cisco Intersight

Read 13 Cisco Intersight reviews

2,645 Views
2,139 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 45 vRealize Network Insight reviews

1,001 Views
579 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Cisco Intersight

vRealize Network Insight

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

vRealize Network Insight and Cisco Intersight compete in the enterprise network management and cloud management categories. While vRealize is noted for its strong network insight capabilities, Cisco Intersight appears to have an advantage in comprehensive cloud management with its hybrid capabilities.

Features: vRealize Network Insight provides comprehensive log analysis across hypervisors and virtual servers, network visualization, and aids in network troubleshooting and microsegmentation. It excels in tracking data flows and optimizing firewall rules. Cisco Intersight integrates cloud management with hybrid capabilities, supports Kubernetes, and offers detailed insights into data center operations.

Room for Improvement: vRealize Network Insight needs better integration, more intuitive interfaces, and improved support for third-party products, with pricing and advanced analytics being areas of concern. Cisco Intersight users desire expanded automation, improved hybrid cloud management, and deeper integration with non-Cisco products.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: vRealize Network Insight is primarily deployed on-premises, praised for intuitive setup with strong VMware technical support, though initial challenges are noted. Cisco Intersight supports on-premises, public, and hybrid clouds, providing flexibility. Its technical support is well-regarded but could benefit from more in-depth assistance across platforms.

Pricing and ROI: vRealize Network Insight is considered costly but offers significant ROI through reduced troubleshooting and optimized deployments. Cisco Intersight, while expensive, provides value with competitive pricing and no extra fees for basic monitoring, ensuring efficient data center management and streamlined operations.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Intersight vs. vRealize Network Insight Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Intersight vs. vRealize Network Insight

January 2025

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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

Cisco Intersight

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

16th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (12th)

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

18th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (20th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco Intersight is 2.1%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

ItzikLiberman

System Presale at Bezeq

Provides data center management and full infrastructure visibility

Cisco Intersight is a very effective tool for data center infrastructure management. It provides visibility into other products and storage, and is beneficial for environments where Cisco and other vendors coexist, allowing full visibility of the entire infrastructure. We have visibility to other products and storages, some networking. It is also valuable for its integration capabilities with other products.

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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

"What I like most about Cisco Intersight is its manageability."

"Cisco Intersight is a very effective tool for data center infrastructure management."

"We enjoy having an inside view of all the data centers and all the EdgeX nodes within a single portal rather than going into the EdgeX connections one by one."

"The product has good integration."

"Intersight offers many features that provide great value to companies."

"Cisco Intersight is a very effective tool for data center infrastructure management."

"Scalable portfolio of services for remote device management, with good cloud integration. It's also easy to set up."

"Intersight can validate our environment."

More Cisco Intersight pros

"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."

"We haven't had any complaints about the stability of the solution or heard of any issues. None of our clients have mentioned running into bugs or glitches. There haven't been crashes."

"It gives the visibility that was either broken or there in pieces only. This solution provides a unified view of the whole system, back and forth. It has helped to reduce time to value, increase performance, more easily manage networks, and provide deep visibility."

"The solution helps reduce time to value, increase performance, provide deep visibility, and easily manage networks."

"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."

"We can see everything going on in NSX and get a good picture of our environment."

"It has definitely helped us to meet compliance rules by assuring that all traffic is going to where it's supposed to go. It can be used to report that you are in compliance, as well as helping you get into compliance."

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight pros

Cons

"The product could be easy to use."

"Cisco Intersight needs some improvement in terms of stability. Hybrid cloud management and proper hyperscaler tie-up are other areas for improvement."

"The solution needs some enhancement in order to build the cluster in two nodes."

"The usability must be better."

"An area for improvement in Cisco Intersight is automation. It needs more automation capabilities. Apart from enhanced automation, I want Cisco Intersight to integrate with third-party monitoring tools in its next release."

"The unique problem with Cisco Intersight is that it's not supporting some players."

"When new features are added, the service becomes full of bugs."

"It's a very complex solution."

More Cisco Intersight cons

"There's enough information there, especially in the visualizations, but I would love to see this in a kiosk mode, where I could have a dashboard for interested stakeholders to see and appreciate what's going on. Then, moving on to a more practical level for our Help Desk, our operations team could benefit by seeing, in real-time, a visual view of the network."

"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."

"The solution can be improved by making it more compatible with other brands, allowing for better integration."

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

"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."

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

"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 reason I would not give it a nine or a 10 is for cost reasons. It seems to be one of those things that really belongs as part of the product inherently and not as an add-on. That would be my only concern."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco Intersight is not cheap, but it's not the most expensive product either."

"It's just the standard licensing cost. There are no additional fees."

"You can get a free license for monitoring but need to purchase a license if you need extra control."

"Cisco Intersight has competitive pricing. On a scale of one to five, my rating for its pricing is four."

"The product is cost-effective."

"We have spent less time investigating network flows, so it is absolutely cost-effective."

"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."

"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."

"It has brought more money into our company."

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

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

38%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Intersight?

Intersight can validate our environment.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Intersight?

I do not have notes for improvement.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cisco Intersight?

I use it mostly for managing servers and updating their hardware licenses to get the hardware status in the cloud. Mostly, my customers develop Intersight on-premises because there are many restric...

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?

The sales team often complains about the cost whenever we need to quote vRealize Network.

See all answers

What needs improvement with vRealize Network Insight?

Since Broadcom acquired VMware, it has been experiencing challenges. Many sales processes are not well defined. They can show a little bit more information because vRealize Network Insight is virtu...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 7% of the time

Dell CloudIQ vs Cisco Intersight

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Intersight

February 2025

Download Cisco Intersight product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

February 2025

Download vRealize Network Insight product report

Also Known As

Intersight

Arkin

Overview

Cisco Intersight is Cisco’s systems management platform that delivers intuitive computing through cloud-powered intelligence. This platform offers a more intelligent level of management that enables IT organizations to analyze, simplify, and automate their environments in ways that were not possible with prior generations of tools. This capability empowers organizations to achieve significant savings in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and to deliver applications faster, so they can support new business initiates. The advantages of the model-based management of the Cisco UCS platform plus Cisco Intersight are extended to Cisco UCS servers and Cisco HyperFlex and Cisco HyperFlex Edge systems. Cisco HyperFlex Edge is optimized for remote sites, branch offices, and edge environments.

Cisco

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

EXMAR, RapidScale

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

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Intersight vs. vRealize Network Insight

January 2025

Free Report: Cisco Intersight vs. vRealize Network Insight

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