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Nmap 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

Nmap
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
15th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 Nmap is 0.6%, down from 0.7% 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

AntoSebastin - PeerSpot reviewer
Scans the network and identifies vulnerabilities on each machine
Nmap is mostly helpful during compliance checks. We run the scanner to see how many devices are on our network and find vulnerabilities in those that aren't compliant. We also use it monthly to scan our network and identify devices that aren't connected properly. This helps us detect any issues related to the operating systems of these devices. The tool's most valuable feature is its vulnerability scanning. It allows us to scan a specific range of IP addresses and discover devices within that range. This makes it easy to identify devices and view their details. Port scanning is crucial for network management tasks. It helps us identify vulnerabilities by finding open ports that may be unused or misconfigured. This tool makes it easy to detect such issues. The OS detection feature is great. Unlike other tools, Nmap provides accurate information about asset vulnerabilities, helping us easily detect and address them. Using Nmap provides value to the company, especially during compliance audits. It helps generate reports on assets, updates on workstations, and insights into network activities and potential attacks. Additionally, Nmap detects vulnerabilities and provides port details, allowing us to close unused ports on the client machines.
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

"From a functionality standpoint, it's robust and straightforward to comprehend."
"The best feature of Nmap is that it lets me see useful information about each endpoint in my entire network environment. For example, I can see every single connection of the network as well as each and every port."
"It enables us to delve deeper and identify the services and open ports on the system and visualize this information on a dashboard automatically."
"Nmap has a powerful command line tool and a set of diagnostic features."
"The most valuable feature of the solution for security audits stems from the fact that it serves as a powerful tool with the ability to scan a large number of ports."
"Nmap is mostly helpful during compliance checks. We run the scanner to see how many devices are on our network and find vulnerabilities in those that aren't compliant. We also use it monthly to scan our network and identify devices that aren't connected properly. This helps us detect any issues related to the operating systems of these devices."
"Nmap's performance is great, and I've never noticed any issues in this respect. It really doesn't put a heavy load on the machine when using it."
"The scanning procedure includes UDP ports which sets it apart from competitors."
"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 best feature of this application is its ability to capture everything within the same application, as well as capture all the traffic."
"It's a very powerful, very manageable product."
"What's valuable to us is the ability to get a view into the virtual space, which is something we haven't had before. Before, it was done by collecting from network endpoints and extrapolating into the virtual environment. Now it's coming directly from the virtual environment."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"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."
"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 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."
 

Cons

"The tool's license limits the number of scans it can perform. Improving the license model could benefit customers by allowing more scans for compliance and other purposes."
"Nmap needs to improve its scanning speed."
"The challenge often lies in finding suitable courses and professional resources."
"Customization is not very user-friendly in Nmap."
"It takes a bit of time to get familiar with the solution and its options."
"The solution should increase the number of features under a free license."
"Since I started using Nmap, it has been completely based on the command prompt and I think it would help other users if they implemented a decent GUI as well."
"Nmap major operates through the CLI; there's no GUI component, and that's where the challenge is."
"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 IT infrastructure industry is expected to evolve towards a hybrid cloud model in the next five to ten years. In this model, most of the customer's resources reside on-premise within a private cloud setup, such as VMware. Another segment operates within public cloud environments like Azure and AWS, and a portion remains in traditional data centers. There should be seamless interoperability between public and private clouds. AWS and VMware need to work together to make it possible. Whether users interact with on-premise infrastructure or configure resources in the public cloud, the user experience must be seamless."
"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."
"In a very general way, I would like to see an improvement in interoperability with third-party product, from other vendors."
"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."
"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."
"It just needs to be more reliable and more accurate. At some point, there are some things where it does not match properly."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's an open-source solution. Commerically, only the support service is available."
"Nmap is an open-source product. You don't need a license to install it."
"The solution is free of cost."
"I am using the free version of Nmap."
"Nmap is an open-source and free product."
"Nmap is open source software, which suits us well because we are a manufacturing company and not an IT company, for example. If we were an IT company, we would probably need to pay for extra support or instead go for another software solution. But as it is, we don't have any need for high-end troubleshooting tools."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"The solution is free of cost, but there are specific services that we have to buy."
"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."
"I rate vRealize Network Insight's pricing a seven point five out of ten."
"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."
"They should include the product in NSX because it's important to have it for deployment."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
University
8%
Government
8%
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 Nmap?
Nmap is mostly helpful during compliance checks. We run the scanner to see how many devices are on our network and find vulnerabilities in those that aren't compliant. We also use it monthly to sca...
What is your primary use case for Nmap?
Nmap is used for network scanning to map the network, identify devices, and assess their status. It helps determine open ports and services running on a particular endpoint or server within an ente...
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

No data available
Arkin
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lockheed Martin, Eastern Bank Boston, Perspecta, Harris Corporation, Discovery Communication
NTTi3, VCIX-NV, VMware Networking and Security Business Unit, Illumio, CompuNet
Find out what your peers are saying about Nmap vs. vRealize Network Insight and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.