Azure Network Watcher vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

Microsoft and VMware are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Microsoft is ranked #51 with an average rating of 8.3, while VMware is ranked #40 with an average rating of 8.3. Microsoft holds a 0.4% mindshare in NMS, compared to VMware’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Azure Network Watcher

Read 12 Azure Network Watcher reviews

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698 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 47 vRealize Network Insight reviews

1,734 Views
1,248 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Azure Network Watcher

vRealize Network Insight

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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vRealize Network Insight and Azure Network Watcher compete in network management and monitoring. vRealize Network Insight appears to hold the upper hand in visualization and intuitive querying, while Azure Network Watcher is favored for its cloud-native integration and connectivity troubleshooting.

Features: vRealize Network Insight provides comprehensive network flow visualization, enhances microsegmentation, and assists in capacity management with natural language queries that simplify application migrations and firewall management. Azure Network Watcher focuses on packet capture, topology visualization, and connectivity troubleshooting, with strong cloud-native technology integration and Azure service alignment.

Room for Improvement: vRealize Network Insight requires better VRB integration and a more streamlined user interface, along with enhanced third-party vendor support and microsegmentation. Pricing and complex setup also need attention. Azure Network Watcher should improve documentation and user experience, strengthen security features, and integrate seamlessly with tools like Wireshark, with a focus on richer visualization and simplified setup processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: vRealize Network Insight is mostly deployed on-premises and receives positive feedback for its technical support, although communication issues persist. Azure Network Watcher, a public cloud solution, is easier to deploy in Azure settings, with users praising its responsive technical support, despite facing initial setup challenges and a learning curve.

Pricing and ROI: vRealize Network Insight is seen as pricey but justified by its features, providing ROI through labor savings and efficient network management. Azure Network Watcher, also on the higher side cost-wise, is valuable for large enterprises, with costs more aligned in Azure-based contexts. Both products enhance cost efficiencies, with Azure favoring cloud-native applications.

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To learn more, read our detailed Azure Network Watcher vs. vRealize Network Insight Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. vRealize Network Insight

July 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

Azure Network Watcher

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

51st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

40th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (42nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Azure Network Watcher is 0.4%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.6%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Bijoyendra Roychowdhury

Program Manager at Capgemini

Network monitoring provides comprehensive analytics while the interface requires further development

The quality of Azure Network Watcher is quite good in terms of the in-depth analysis you can create from these matrices. There are other monitoring tools such as New Relic, AppDynamics, and Dynatrace which provide very detailed network tracing. Cloud providers such as Azure or AWS do not have that kind of GUI-based capability at this point, but using PowerShell or Python, you can develop it yourself. From the GUI perspective, it still needs to evolve in terms of quality and standard, though overall, it is quite good for troubleshooting. Regarding areas for improvement, when comparing to other network tools beyond Azure Monitor or Azure Network Watcher, those tools can identify single failed packets. This level of granularity is not currently possible with cloud providers as they only go to a certain level rather than the granular level needed for deep troubleshooting, though they do provide hints with available matrices.

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Shaijith KB

Senior System Specialist at General Directorate of Residence and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA)

Comprehensive management and detailed reports benefit operations while improvements are needed in support and maintenance

We have Tanzu and OpenShift. We have OpenShift, Canonical, and the Tanzu one. The Tanzu platform from VMware is a Kubernetes platform. We haven't completely installed Tanzu yet; we installed the vROps part. vRealize Network Insight is beneficial because you can control the East-West traffic. vRealize has a component called NSX, which has East-West traffic controlling and micro-segmentation, that is one of the best options, and we have the layer extension, layer 2 extension possible through NSX. If you have anything accountable in any business, even in a candy business, having proper accountability on what you are selling and buying will save a lot. If you don't know what you're selling and buying, you will end up with a loss. My team does not use the flow analytics feature; we have a security and network monitoring team, which is a different SOC team. I am using it as an administrator internally. We perform different tasks including costing analysis, capacity management, and many other things. vRealize Network Insight has a concern about the maintenance part, as it requires a person to monitor it completely. It's not something you install and your report will be generated automatically. You have to work on this properly to get the insights. vRealize Network Automation, vRealize Operations, and vRealize Network Insight are completely related to the network. I cannot say much about these network aspects because I am on the operations side, but overall, the vRealize suite is good for reporting perspective or any ISO-related documentation; this is very helpful. The product is called vRealize Operations Manager, and now it is referred to as Aria or vAria. I am now a Senior System Specialist. We use different metrics because we have multiple departments, and we can monitor utilization and comparisons with the previous year. On a scale of one to ten, I rate this solution a seven.

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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

"It provides good visibility."

"I like the visibility."

"The solution is good for monitoring device behavior."

"We use the solution to monitor network services. It helps to capture any network issues."

"The stability is very good. I rate it a ten out of ten."

"The most valuable features I have found are typology, visualization, and capture."

"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."

More Azure Network Watcher pros

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

"It's user-friendly. It's similar to the GUI that most VMware products are moving to, and the consistency across those makes it easy to switch from one product to another. Also, the search bar at the top is plain text and it helps you, it guides you along with your search query, so that helps. The first day you're in there you can start building actual queries."

"A lot of time is saved when you use this type of software solution for the network. We have moved systems into the new data center and the servers and systems are much faster because of the very low latency between virtual machines."

"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."

"It helps a lot because, until now, we didn't have the tools to figure out the micro level, VM-to-VM kind of traffic; that was not in the current environment. We could not figure out VM-to-VM communication from the other tools. This is the tool which gives us end-to-end transparency."

"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."

"The ability to use the natural language query and see the visualization is quickly intuitive, and it works very well."

"The most valuable feature is being able to easily see the path that the VM traffic is taking, what ports are in use."

More vRealize Network Insight pros

Cons

"The initial setup and initial learning curve could be improved to be easier."

"Azure is good, however, the Fortinet GUI is more intuitive and I like it more than anything else."

"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."

"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."

"Azure Network Watcher could improve by having other built-in applications. For example, an application to log activities for in and outbound traffic."

"Technical support from Microsoft needs significant improvement compared to other product vendors."

More Azure Network Watcher cons

"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."

"I would like to see application identification. That would be cool."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The product is slightly complex use, while still being user-friendly. It could use more training modules, as it is not a straightforward product."

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

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

"The pricing is good. It's not too expensive."

"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit expensive."

"Price-wise, I have no information on how much Azure Network Watcher costs."

"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'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 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."

"I rate vRealize Network Insight's pricing a seven point five out of ten."

"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 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."

"It has brought more money into our company."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

11%

University

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure Network Watcher?

I like the visibility.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Network Watcher?

It is affordable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Network Watcher?

User experience could be improved.

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?

In VMware you have to buy a separate license for it. We have VVF and VCF-type of licenses, and if you want to go with this NSX and sort of higher-end professional services, you need to go with VCF....

See all answers

What needs improvement with vRealize Network Insight?

There is room for improvement as not all cases are getting resolved, and we often do not get L3 support directly, having to go through L1 and L2, resulting in delays that usually are a headache for...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 23% of the time

ThousandEyes vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 23% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 18% of the time

Nmap vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 18% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 18% of the time

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Alluvio AppResponse vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 18% of the time

DX NetOps vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 13% of the time

VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 10% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 9% of the time

Datadog vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 8% of the time

More vRealize Network Insight Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher

August 2025

Download Azure Network Watcher product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

July 2025

Download vRealize Network Insight product report

Also Known As

No data available

Arkin

Overview

Azure Network Watcher is a comprehensive network monitoring and diagnostic service offered by Microsoft Azure. It provides a range of tools and capabilities to help users monitor, diagnose, and gain insights into their Azure network infrastructure. With Network Watcher, users can capture and analyze network traffic, monitor network performance, troubleshoot connectivity issues, and gain visibility into network topology. It also offers features like packet capture, flow logs, connection monitoring, and VPN diagnostics to ensure the smooth operation of Azure networks. Network Watcher enables users to proactively identify and resolve network issues, optimize network performance, and enhance the overall reliability and security of their Azure network environment.

Microsoft

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

Information Not Available

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

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. vRealize Network Insight

July 2025

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