Elastic Observability vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

Elastic and VMware are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Elastic is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.1, while VMware is ranked #23 with an average rating of 8.8. Elastic holds a 4.0% mindshare in IM, compared to VMware’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Elastic users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Elastic Observability

Read 26 Elastic Observability reviews

5,029 Views
4,376 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 46 vRealize Network Insight reviews

885 Views
526 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Elastic Observability

vRealize Network Insight

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

vRealize Network Insight and Elastic Observability compete in the network management and monitoring category. vRealize Network Insight might have the upper hand due to its network visualization capabilities, although Elastic Observability is robust in log collection and search functionalities.

Features: vRealize Network Insight offers network visualization capabilities, manages logs centrally, and simplifies complex network configurations. Elastic Observability offers powerful search functionality, provides an open-source option for flexibility, and emphasizes integration capabilities with various platforms.

Room for Improvement: vRealize Network Insight can improve integration with third-party vendors, enhance application awareness for deeper analytics, and adjust its pricing model. Elastic Observability needs better visualization features, more predictive analytics, and improved pricing transparency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: vRealize Network Insight is typically deployed on-premises and has competent technical support, with reliance on VMware professional services. Elastic Observability offers flexible deployment options including hybrid and cloud environments, but faces challenges with technical support.

Pricing and ROI: vRealize Network Insight is expensive but provides ROI through efficient management. Elastic Observability is cost-effective with its open-source version, offering value despite its high price for small enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed Elastic Observability vs. vRealize Network Insight Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. vRealize Network Insight

April 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

Elastic Observability

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (7th), Log Management (15th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

23rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (23rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 4.0%, down from 4.8% 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

Adelina Craciun

Product Owner at Swisscom

Customization enables tailored monitoring and alerting across departments

The possibility to customize it has been quite useful. Whatever the other departments want to dream up, we implement. Whatever they want to monitor, the granularity of it, the changes in the threshold, and the anomalies that they want reported all require some development. So far, every single request has been fulfilled.

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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

"The solution has been stable in our usage."

"It is a powerful tool that allows users to collect and transform logs as needed, enabling flexible visualization and analysis."

"Good design and easy to use once implemented."

"Elastic APM has plenty of features, such as the Elastic server for Kibana and many additional plugins. It's a comprehensive tool when used as a logging platform."

"The product has connectors to many services."

"The most valued feature of Elastic is its log analytics capabilities."

"I have built a mini business intelligence system based on Elastic Observability."

"It is scalable and supports multitenancy, which is beneficial for MSPs."

More Elastic Observability pros

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

"I find it user-friendly and intuitive. With the GUI interface that we do use on a regular basis, it's easy to navigate, it's easy to see, easy to query. We get reports. It's easy to use."

"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."

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

"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."

"The initial setup was straightforward."

"The most valuable features are the packet trace flow and that the view of the whole environment is deep."

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight pros

Cons

"When opening tickets, we cannot use our team mailbox."

"The interface could be improved."

"It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like network observability, package flow analysis, and device performance data on the infrastructure side."

"There is room for improvement regarding its APM capabilities."

"The cost must be made more transparent."

"If we had some pre-defined templates for observability that we could start using right away after deploying it – instead of having to build or to change some of the dashboards – that would be helpful."

"Elastic Observability needs to have better standardization, logging, and schema."

"One example is the inability to monitor very old databases with the newest version."

More Elastic Observability cons

"While it's not exactly a feature, what normally happens when we are trying to look at the VM flow portion is - although Network Insight does have options to integrate a few physical switches into it - we can't really get an end-to-end flow of the network. We might be using a few switches that are not supported by Network Insight. That is where they can improve, in the support for more physical switches and network devices."

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

"Support could be much better."

"The virtual appliance has rebooted."

"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."

"If it were more application-aware, more descriptive; if it were able to determine the application that is actually doing the communication, that would be easier. More application information: which user or account it's accessing, is it accessing this application, doing these calls, if it is accessing a script, what script is it accessing. Things like that would provide deeper analytics so I can track what's going on. It would not just be, "These people shouldn't be talking," but who is actually doing these calls."

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

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product’s pricing needs improvement."

"There are two types: cloud and SaaS. They charge based on data ingestion, ingest rate, hard retention, and warm retention. I believe it costs around $25,000 annually to ingest 30GB of data daily. That is the SaaS version. There is also a self-managed license where the customer manages their own infrastructure on-prem. In such cases, there are three license tiers that respectively cost $5,000 annually per node, $7,000 per node, and $12,500 per node."

"Elastic Observability's pricing could be better for small-scale users."

"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."

"We will buy a premium license after POC."

"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."

"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."

"So far, there are just the standard licensing fees. Several of the components are embedded in the license or are even open source. They're even free depending on what you use, which makes it even more appealing to someone that is discussing pricing of the solution."

More Elastic Observability pricing and cost advice

"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'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."

"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."

"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."

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

"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

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 Elastic Observability?

Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?

Elastic Observability is cost-efficient and provides all features in the enterprise license without asset-based licensing. However, sizing and licensing information could be clearer.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?

Of course, maintenance is necessary, as with any software, requiring updates with the latest features and security enhancements. It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like netw...

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?

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Compared 13% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

AppNeta by Broadcom vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 10% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability

April 2025

Download Elastic Observability product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

March 2025

Download vRealize Network Insight product report

Also Known As

No data available

Arkin

Overview

Elastic Observability is primarily used for monitoring login events, application performance, and infrastructure, supporting significant data volumes through features like log aggregation, centralized logging, and system metric analysis.

Elastic Observability employs Elastic APM for performance and latency analysis, significantly aiding business KPIs and technical stability. It is popular among users for system and server monitoring, capacity planning, cyber security, and managing data pipelines. With the integration of Kibana, it offers robust visualization, reporting, and incident response capabilities through rapid log searches while supporting machine learning and hybrid cloud environments.

What are Elastic Observability's key features?

Economic licensing: Offers cost-effective plans.
Extensive metrics tracking: Helps in comprehensive system monitoring.
Comprehensive logging: Centralizes log data efficiently.
Performance Monitoring: Provides robust APM capabilities.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other solutions.
Kibana visualization: Facilitates data visualization and reporting.
Machine learning support: Enables advanced data analysis.
Flexible deployment: Supports various deployment environments.
Rapid log searches: Enhances quick incident response.
Accessibility: Offers extensive online documentation and connector support.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in Elastic Observability reviews?

Stability: Look for consistent performance and reliability.
Compliance: Effective monitoring aids in regulation adherence.
System Security: Enhanced system monitoring and alert management.
Cost-Effectiveness: Evaluate the economic pricing models.
Scalability: Adequate scalability options for growing needs.

Companies in technology, finance, healthcare, and other industries implement Elastic Observability for tailored monitoring solutions. They find its integration with existing systems useful for maintaining operation efficiency and security, particularly valuing the visualization capabilities through Kibana to monitor KPIs and improve incident response times.

Elastic

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

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank

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

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. vRealize Network Insight

April 2025

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