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Cisco Secure Network Analytics 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

Cisco Secure Network Analytics
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
23rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (3rd), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th)
vRealize Network Insight
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
21st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is 1.5%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Rainier S. - PeerSpot reviewer
You are able to drill down into a center's utilization, then create reports based on it
In the last year or two, we have been working with our Cisco NAS engineers to improve our security posturing. It is more our being proactive rather than reactive. While Stealthwatch and Lancope have this ability to look inside and give you visibility (a great feature), follow-up is the rule. We would like filters that you can put into place to tap onto certain types of behaviors, alerts out, and/or hopefully a block. This is sort of what we are looking for. I might be speaking too early, because we are not down this path yet. We know the feature set is there, we just do not know yet how to achieve it. That is proactive rather than more reactive. For Lancope Stealthwatch, we would like to see it more on the ASA Firewall platform. While this might already be available, this is more a failing of Cisco to inform us if it is there. For example: * Are we on the right or wrong version of the code? * What does the code look like? * Are we are really looking at firewalls? Or is it more about the foundation and route switches that we are seeing? It is about visibility.
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

"I value the feature which enables me to detect devices talking to suspect IPs."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the logging, keeping threats under control, and keeping our data and environment secure."
"Ease of deployment, once you get your ducks in a row."
"The most valuable features are encrypted threat analysis and the ability to run jobs on entire flows."
"Being able to identify specific date closed across the network is invaluable."
"Using the Cognitive Analytics feature, we have complete visibility that we didn’t have before."
"StealthWatch lets me see the ports running in and out and the country. It has excellent reporting, telemetry, and artificial intelligence features. With the telemetry, I can set thresholds to detect sudden changes and the alarms go through the PLC parts. I can see all the ports running on that trunk."
"It's a dependable product that is able to pinpoint where we have vulnerabilities if they occur."
"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."
"We're a smaller company so it automates a lot of the tasks and lets us focus in on building out our own solution. It's quicker, there is less building of manual solutions, and less downtime. It allows our developers to quickly develop, get provisioning done, de-provisioning, etc; the stuff that you would expect to be able to make it streamlined."
"The initial was straightforward. You can have it up and running in one hour."
"The most valuable feature for me is the different views that you can get when selecting an application or a VLAN. It shows you the traffic flows. It gives you a visual representation of something that, in text, just may not make as much sense."
"The solution has helped improve our organization by directing the network traffic using SDN."
"The most valuable feture is NetFlow to help us understand how VMs communicate with each other over ports that are known and ports that are also unknown to us. Our company is a security company, so it's very important for us to know exactly which VMs are doing what at all times."
"The solution is extremely intuitive and user-friendly. When you log in to the application you are presented with a dashboard that is very reasonable for an initial user, and you can then customize it to your specific needs. But for all the data that we've found, we've only had to go through two or three drill-downs to get into that information."
"It provides deep visibility into what is happening with traffic and helps us manage our network."
 

Cons

"Its granularity for RBAC roles-based access control needs improvement."
"The initial setup was straightforward but required a lot of data entry, to begin with building out the server types and network types."
"The configuration of the solution was quite complex."
"Initially, I felt Cisco Secure Network Analytics lacked integration with Splunk."
"Many of these tools require extensive on-premises hardware to run."
"One thing I would like to see improved is if it could automatically be tied through ISE, instead of you having to manually get notifications and disable it yourself."
"We need to be able to filter out internal IPs as non-threats."
"It's not great as a standalone solution."
"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."
"The virtual appliance has rebooted."
"The solution can be improved by making it more compatible with other brands, allowing for better integration."
"I want to see more in terms of microsegmentation. As of now, I can see the rules, but they are not in a readable format that I can convert to microsegmentation and can fit into NSX Manager."
"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."
"The solution is very much viewer centric and it would be nice if it would transcend just the virtual infrastructure."
"I want to be able to monitor a network flow that is approximately two weeks back, but I haven't found an easy way to do this."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is not cheaply priced."
"Licensing is done by flows per second, not including outside>in traffic."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"There are additional licenses needed for the number of so-called network flows. It's hard to plan the number of flows you need in the network, this is a problem. The price of the Cisco Stealthwatch is relatively inexpensive"
"NetFlow is very expensive."
"Pricing is much higher compared to other solutions."
"It has a subscription model. There is yearly support, and there is also three-year support. It depends on what the customers want."
"We have spent less time investigating network flows, so it is absolutely cost-effective."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
30%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Stealthwatch?
The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is the Threat Intelligence integration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Stealthwatch?
The tool is not cheaply priced. In cybersecurity, you want an extra layer of security in your organization. Some sectors want NDR solutions, so you cannot deploy such tools everywhere, as they are ...
What needs improvement with Cisco Stealthwatch?
The expensive nature of the tool is an area of concern where improvements are required.
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?
The sales team often complains about the cost whenever we need to quote vRealize Network.
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...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco Stealthwatch Enterprise, Lancope StealthWatch
Arkin
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Edge Web Hosting, Telenor Norway, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Webster Financial Corporation, Westinghouse Electric, VMware, TIAA-CREF
NTTi3, VCIX-NV, VMware Networking and Security Business Unit, Illumio, CompuNet
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. vRealize Network Insight and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.