Cisco Intersight vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

Cisco and VMware are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Cisco is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.0, while VMware is ranked #41 with an average rating of 8.7. Cisco holds a 1.9% mindshare in IM, compared to VMware’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Cisco Intersight

Read 15 Cisco Intersight reviews

2,339 Views
1,477 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 46 vRealize Network Insight reviews

785 Views
117 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Cisco Intersight

vRealize Network Insight

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

vRealize Network Insight and Cisco Intersight compete in the enterprise network management and cloud management categories. While vRealize is noted for its strong network insight capabilities, Cisco Intersight appears to have an advantage in comprehensive cloud management with its hybrid capabilities.

Features: vRealize Network Insight provides comprehensive log analysis across hypervisors and virtual servers, network visualization, and aids in network troubleshooting and microsegmentation. It excels in tracking data flows and optimizing firewall rules. Cisco Intersight integrates cloud management with hybrid capabilities, supports Kubernetes, and offers detailed insights into data center operations.

Room for Improvement: vRealize Network Insight needs better integration, more intuitive interfaces, and improved support for third-party products, with pricing and advanced analytics being areas of concern. Cisco Intersight users desire expanded automation, improved hybrid cloud management, and deeper integration with non-Cisco products.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: vRealize Network Insight is primarily deployed on-premises, praised for intuitive setup with strong VMware technical support, though initial challenges are noted. Cisco Intersight supports on-premises, public, and hybrid clouds, providing flexibility. Its technical support is well-regarded but could benefit from more in-depth assistance across platforms.

Pricing and ROI: vRealize Network Insight is considered costly but offers significant ROI through reduced troubleshooting and optimized deployments. Cisco Intersight, while expensive, provides value with competitive pricing and no extra fees for basic monitoring, ensuring efficient data center management and streamlined operations.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Intersight vs. vRealize Network Insight Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Intersight vs. vRealize Network Insight

June 2025

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Helped 860,592 peers since 2012

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 Intersight

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (13th)

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

41st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (38th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco Intersight is 1.9%, down from 2.1% 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

ItzikLiberman

System Presale at Bezeq

Provides data center management and full infrastructure visibility

Cisco Intersight is a very effective tool for data center infrastructure management. It provides visibility into other products and storage, and is beneficial for environments where Cisco and other vendors coexist, allowing full visibility of the entire infrastructure. We have visibility to other products and storages, some networking. It is also valuable for its integration capabilities with other products.

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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

"I like Intersight because of the integration with HashiCorp, Kubernetes, and each cloud because Intersight is the IO module."

"Our organization uses Cisco Intersight since it helps manage our physical infrastructure."

"The tool helps to manage Cisco servers."

"Cisco Intersight is a very effective tool for data center infrastructure management."

"The product has good integration."

"This solution has provided time savings and required fewer people to operate this tool."

"What I like most about Cisco Intersight is its manageability."

"Provides an overall view using a single portal."

More Cisco Intersight pros

"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 best feature of this application is its ability to capture everything within the same application, as well as capture all the traffic."

"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."

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

"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."

"The most valuable feature for us is that insight into what our network is really doing - it's a fairly complex network. Not having to go through thousands of lines of network configuration to find firewall ports that were open or closed, for various ports, was very valuable. It went out and found everything we need very quickly."

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

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight pros

Cons

"Cisco Intersight needs some improvement in terms of stability. Hybrid cloud management and proper hyperscaler tie-up are other areas for improvement."

"The product could be easy to use."

"Technical support from Cisco has been mixed. For complex issues, it's challenging to get the right engineer quickly unless you have a specific contract like CX."

"More products should be made compatible with iWORK, including more software and hardware."

"I would like AI to be more integrated into Cisco Intersight."

"The unique problem with Cisco Intersight is that it's not supporting some players."

"In the future, the solution needs to plan on an extension to cover a broader range of objects since, at present, there are some Cisco devices within the range of Intersight UCS that it can't manage."

"An area for improvement in Cisco Intersight is automation. It needs more automation capabilities. Apart from enhanced automation, I want Cisco Intersight to integrate with third-party monitoring tools in its next release."

More Cisco Intersight cons

"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."

"I would like to see them expand the capabilities to infrastructure types other than just VMware."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"It needs to be a little easier to use and to understand the information it's putting out. That would make it more helpful. If you're not a network person you need to understand things like network policies and concepts. If you gave it to a regular admin, it would be nice if it were easier for them to pick up what is going on, understand the flows and whether or not stuff should be talking to each other, as opposed to just port groups and IP addresses."

"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

"You can get a free license for monitoring but need to purchase a license if you need extra control."

"The product is cost-effective."

"Cisco Intersight is not cheap, but it's not the most expensive product either."

"It's just the standard licensing cost. There are no additional fees."

"Cisco Intersight has competitive pricing. On a scale of one to five, my rating for its pricing is four."

"They should include the product in NSX because it's important to have it for deployment."

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

"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 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."

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

"It has brought more money into our company."

"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

33%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Intersight?

Intersight can validate our environment.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Intersight?

I would like AI to be more integrated into Cisco Intersight. It would be great to have a chat session mode AI so that when I am on standby and encountering issues, I could engage with it, much like...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cisco Intersight?

We use Cisco Intersight ( /products/cisco-intersight-reviews ) for operational tasks. We run patches and import firmware updates from the Cisco site. In the event of a component failure, such as a ...

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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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Intersight

June 2025

Download Cisco Intersight product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

June 2025

Download vRealize Network Insight product report

Also Known As

Intersight

Arkin

Overview

Cisco Intersight is Cisco’s systems management platform that delivers intuitive computing through cloud-powered intelligence. This platform offers a more intelligent level of management that enables IT organizations to analyze, simplify, and automate their environments in ways that were not possible with prior generations of tools. This capability empowers organizations to achieve significant savings in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and to deliver applications faster, so they can support new business initiates. The advantages of the model-based management of the Cisco UCS platform plus Cisco Intersight are extended to Cisco UCS servers and Cisco HyperFlex and Cisco HyperFlex Edge systems. Cisco HyperFlex Edge is optimized for remote sites, branch offices, and edge environments.

Cisco

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

EXMAR, RapidScale

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

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Intersight vs. vRealize Network Insight

June 2025

Free Report: Cisco Intersight vs. vRealize Network Insight

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Intersight vs. vRealize Network Insight and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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