Azure Network Watcher vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

Microsoft and Broadcom are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Microsoft is ranked #42 with an average rating of 8.5, while Broadcom is ranked #35 with an average rating of 8.0. Microsoft holds a 0.5% mindshare in NMS, compared to Broadcom’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Azure Network Watcher

Read 13 Azure Network Watcher reviews

1,676 Views
1,626 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 47 vRealize Network Insight reviews

4,017 Views
2,973 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: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. vRealize Network Insight

April 2026

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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

42nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

35th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (41st)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Azure Network Watcher is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
vRealize Network Insight	0.8%
Azure Network Watcher	0.5%
Other	98.7%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Bijoyendra Roychowdhury

Program Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

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

"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."

"This is a stable system providing stable performance."

"It provides good visibility."

"Azure Network Watcher provides valuable features based on your specific requirements and use cases, helping you monitor network bandwidth, throughput, data flow consumption, and control costs by giving insight into egress and ingress traffic, total input and output operations, bandwidth, and threats through IP identification."

"My advice to others looking into using Azure Network Watcher is to go for it, as you'll have the tool by default when you're subscribed to Azure VNet."

"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."

"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."

More Azure Network Watcher pros

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

"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."

"By doing dependency mapping, it makes migrations more efficient. There are less outages that require engineers to spend additional hours troubleshooting the migration failures."

"The automation collects all the relationships between servers, allowing us to visualize these relationships and organize the migration into waves."

"It allowed us to set up NSX and to do microsegmentation, without all of the pain points of having to determine each port and each IP address that needed to have access, and which ones needed to be blocked."

"It has enabled us to set up and do application discovery, as far as network traffic is concerned, and set up the appropriate rules that we need to make sure we're compliant with our security frameworks."

"I love what we can do with this and I love everything it gives to us."

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

More vRealize Network Insight pros

Cons

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

"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."

"There are some occasional downtimes, but these were based on Azure-specific issues."

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

"User experience could be improved."

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

"It's not the most friendly or straightforward to set up. I don't see the value versus the way you have to set it up at first."

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

More Azure Network Watcher 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."

"It can be a bit painful to deploy."

"I rate it a seven out of ten, only because it doesn't have all the vendors - at least the switch vendors - in there."

"Support could be much better. They do not do a good job of finding issues."

"I'd like to see better support for being able to search the hardware NetFlow data. It ingests fairly well, but you can't tell, in a lot of cases, what source the data came from. I'd like to see more support for picking specific sources. That way you could really make a compelling use case. There are also some difficulties where it can't exactly trace the path between source and destination but if you hit the reverse flow on the same search it shows the entire path."

"I would like to see more interoperability on the firewall and low balancer sides."

"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."

"However, stability is still in question because I don't think we have tested it to the core."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit expensive."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

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

"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."

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

"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."

"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."

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Construction Company

10%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	41

Questions from the Community

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

I do not have the exact setup cost information on hand, but it is available in the public Azure portal. You can access the calculator there to get detailed pricing information.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Network Watcher?

The main area for improvement is AI-based features. Currently, many intelligent tools are coming from third parties, and Azure Network Watcher needs to improve in this area. The focus should be on ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Azure Network Watcher?

Azure Network Watcher is used for monitoring network traffic. It provides insight into egress and ingress traffic, which helps determine whether consumption can be controlled. Most Azure services c...

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

What is your primary use case for vRealize Network Insight?

We have Tanzu, and we also work with multiple Kubernetes services such as Nutanix and Google. We are working on these Kubernetes services on the operations side. For Tanzu, we have several componen...

See all answers

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher

May 2026

Download Azure Network Watcher product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

April 2026

Download vRealize Network Insight product report

Also Known As

No data available

Arkin

Overview

Azure Network Watcher provides advanced network monitoring capabilities including packet capture, cloud-native firewall, and traffic diagnosis, aiding in VPN troubleshooting and security enforcement with enhanced visibility and alerting features.

Azure Network Watcher is essential for monitoring, diagnosing, and analyzing network traffic. It efficiently handles VPN connection issues and enhances network security by capturing and analyzing traffic to assess performance or latency problems. The tool facilitates traffic flow control, security rule verification, and bandwidth monitoring. Users benefit from its capabilities in diagnosing service connections, offering insights into network activity, and identifying potential threats, crucial for maintaining compliance and efficient network management.

What are the key features of Azure Network Watcher?

Packet Capture: Enables detailed network traffic inspection to troubleshoot issues.
Cloud-Native Application Firewall: Provides enhanced protection for applications running in the cloud.
Traffic Monitoring: Allows for real-time analysis and troubleshooting of network traffic.
NSG Flow Logs & AI-Based Monitoring: Enhances flow control and threat detection.
Alerting & Threshold Configuration: Offers customizable alerts via Azure Monitor for proactive management.

What benefits can users look for in reviews?

Improved Network Security: Helps in identifying and mitigating threats efficiently.
Enhanced Visibility: Provides clear insights into network operations and potential issues.
Compliance Support: Assists in maintaining regulatory compliance with thorough monitoring capabilities.
Effective Bandwidth Management: Facilitates control and optimization of network bandwidth.

In industries like finance and healthcare, Azure Network Watcher is implemented to ensure robust security and compliance, crucial for safeguarding sensitive data. It aids retail and manufacturing sectors in optimizing network performance and maintaining seamless connectivity, supporting their digital infrastructure needs.

Microsoft

vRealize Network Insight provides deep visibility into network flows, intuitive visualization, and real-time monitoring. It identifies communication patterns and offers insights into east-west traffic within data centers, simplifying complex network analysis and troubleshooting.

This platform enhances efficiency in firewall management and supports microsegmentation with an intuitive interface. Its integration with VMware products and natural language querying adds value. Users use it for optimizing network flows, planning NSX deployments, and visualizing traffic. It assists in applying security policies, tracking data center flows, and building network architecture by providing advanced insights for policy refinement, ensuring network performance and compliance.

What are the key features of vRealize Network Insight?

Deep Network Visibility: Offers detailed insights into network flows and communication patterns.
Intuitive Visualization: Simplifies monitoring with clear, real-time graphics.
User-Friendly Interface: Facilitates easy navigation for complex network analysis.
Integration with VMware: Seamless alignment with existing VMware products.
Natural Language Querying: Offers insights with easy-to-use query capabilities.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Efficiency in Firewall Management: Streamlines and optimizes firewall operations.
Supports Microsegmentation: Enhances security through improved policy enforcement.
Advanced Network Insights: Provides valuable data for performance optimization.
Compliance Assurance: Ensures adherence to security and performance standards.

In specific industries, vRealize Network Insight is implemented to optimize network architecture, manage application dependencies, and enhance security measures. Companies utilize its analytical capabilities to refine policies and ensure robust network performance and security compliance, particularly in complex and hybrid cloud environments.

Broadcom

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

April 2026

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