Icinga vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

Icinga and Broadcom are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Icinga is ranked #48, while Broadcom is ranked #41 with an average rating of 8.0. Icinga holds a 1.5% mindshare in IM, compared to Broadcom’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Icinga users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Icinga

Read 17 Icinga reviews

6,705 Views
4,492 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

Read 47 vRealize Network Insight reviews

4,479 Views
2,284 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Icinga

vRealize Network Insight

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

```html

Icinga and vRealize Network Insight compete in network monitoring and management. Icinga is preferred for its cost-effectiveness and support, while vRealize Network Insight offers extensive features that justify its higher price, giving it an edge for comprehensive network insights.

Features: Icinga supports numerous plugins allowing monitoring of infrastructure and services, providing significant flexibility and robust community backing. Its integration capabilities ensure seamless operations with existing systems. vRealize Network Insight provides advanced analytics and detailed network troubleshooting abilities. Its features include deep insights into network flow and performance, network visualization, and capacity planning which cater to enterprises with complex networks.

Room for Improvement: Icinga could enhance its user interface for a more intuitive experience, offer more detailed documentation, and improve scalability for large-scale deployments. vRealize Network Insight might integrate more third-party tools, streamline its installation process, and reduce its overall operational costs for better access to smaller enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Icinga offers straightforward open-source deployment, supported by a responsive community. It integrates well with existing tools but requires technical expertise. vRealize Network Insight provides cloud-based deployment, easing complexities with professional support and managed services, ideal for enterprise environments seeking simplified setup processes.

Pricing and ROI: Icinga's implementation costs are minimal, enhancing cost-efficiency and ROI for small to mid-sized businesses due to its open-source nature. vRealize Network Insight, while having a higher initial setup cost, offers substantial ROI through advanced insights and automation, positioning it as a preferred choice for large enterprises requiring comprehensive network visibility.

```

To learn more, read our detailed Icinga vs. vRealize Network Insight Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Icinga vs. vRealize Network Insight

June 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 900,747 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

Icinga

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

37th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

48th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (16th), Cloud Monitoring Software (34th)

vRealize Network Insight

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

36th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

41st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.5%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
vRealize Network Insight	0.8%
Icinga	1.5%
Other	97.7%

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

reviewer2292201

Innovation Service Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have but average multi-tenancy aspect

It's supported by the community. We use Icinga, which is not part of the Open-Source platform but is wrapped into a commercial solution from another provider, a local provider in Italy. Icinga is an open-source platform, so it is supported by the community. It's quite easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have. So it's not expensive, and it's quite a general purpose. We can easily monitor any kind of infrastructure we encounter. The ability to customize scripts and build your own queries to request information from the infrastructure elements you want to monitor. This level of personalization and customization is highly appreciated. The alerting is the same as any other monitoring platform. It's not a "wow" feature that has changed our lives, but it's perfectly adequate.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."

"Icinga has multiple automation and integration features. There is an API for everything and a web UI for configurations. The APIs enable you to automate tasks in Icinga. We can also use plugins to talk to the API. The Icinga Director talks to a database in the background, and you can import settings from the CMDB to all systems in Icinga."

"The most valuable feature is one that not many are even aware of, as Icinga has a self-healing event handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted, and you can configure the handler to take action after the critical alarm without human interaction."

"We monitor all, starting from UPS to international mail chains."

"People should know that it is simple and advanced."

"An affordable solution for small organizations to do basic network monitoring."

"There's a module called Icinga Director, which helps us configure the product using an intuitive interface through clicks instead of creating a text configuration. It's very helpful for us."

"Icinga does the job and is fairly stable."

More Icinga pros

"The initial setup was straightforward."

"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 most valuable features are the monitoring and tracking. It's also intuitive and user-friendly. The screen looks exactly the same as the other appliances for VMware, so it's easy to navigate."

"If we deploy NSX it shows us how the workflow will flow in the organization, what the roadblocks are, and what we need to do to overcome those hurdles. When we run this product, it gives us reports which describe problems with physical switches. We work with the network team to get them all resolved."

"Technical support is great. They do excellent work."

"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."

"If you are going to implement NSX, it's a great tool."

"I would recommend the product."

More vRealize Network Insight pros

Cons

"In general, the product does not look good. However, it does what it is supposed to do. So, the improvements should focus on usability and UI."

"At this time, the layout of the website is a bit difficult. It should be more user-friendly for changing the background and logos."

"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."

"It is not really adequate for our current needs. It causes additional issues which we have to work around and takes us time that a better solution would not."

"Icinga’s automation could be improved."

"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."

"Scalability is problematic. If you have a stable environment it's good, but if the environment is growing, I had some problems with Icinga."

"Network Discovery capabilities would be extremely helpful."

More Icinga cons

"It can be a bit painful to deploy."

"I'd like to see better support for being able to search the hardware NetFlow data."

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

"It just needs to be more reliable and more accurate. At some point, there are some things where it does not match properly."

"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."

"After you use it for a little while you become accustomed to it but the layout doesn't feel very intuitive. You have to dig around and find the exact place where you can find the information, where you can actually see your east-west traffic, etc. I would like them to bring that information more to the forefront, instead of having to find it."

"After Broadcom acquired VMware, I would rate their support at five or less in many cases. It's difficult to find necessary documentation, open tickets, and get support."

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is free to use."

"It's an open-source solution."

"This is an open-source solution with paid support."

"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."

"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."

"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."

"We're using the free version of Icinga."

"The solution is cheap."

"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."

"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."

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

"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Infrastructure Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

11%

University

Manufacturing Company

11%

Construction Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	43

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

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

Comparisons

Zabbix vs Icinga

Compared 11% of the time

Checkmk vs Icinga

Compared 7% of the time

Nagios XI vs Icinga

Compared 5% of the time

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Icinga

Compared 5% of the time

Nagios Core vs Icinga

Compared 5% of the time

More Icinga Competitors

Kentik vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 12% of the time

Nmap vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 8% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 6% of the time

Datadog vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 5% of the time

Zabbix vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 4% of the time

More vRealize Network Insight Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Icinga

June 2026

Download Icinga product report

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

May 2026

Download vRealize Network Insight product report

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring

Arkin

Overview

Icinga is a robust tool for monitoring IT infrastructure, known for its distributed monitoring capabilities and seamless integration with multiple platforms. It efficiently observes servers, network devices, and environments like Linux and Windows, enabling proactive issue identification and resource management.

With a focus on task delegation and clustering, Icinga offers an intuitive interface through its GUI and Icinga Director, simplifying configuration. The extensive plugin library supports diverse technologies, while the API allows automation with tools like Terraform and Ansible. Despite its strengths, users report challenges with data display in the GUI, a need for improved dashboards, and complex configuration processes. Users benefit from its SNMP alerts, email notifications, and automated incident handling, making it essential for managed service environments and enterprises.

What are the key features of Icinga?

Task Delegation: Streamlines monitoring tasks across distributed systems.
Event Handler: Enables automatic service recovery with minimal intervention.
Plugin Library: Offers extensive support for integrating diverse technologies.
API Accessibility: Facilitates automation with popular tools like Terraform.
Custom Plugins: Allows easy creation and personalization for monitoring needs.

What benefits should you consider in Icinga reviews?

Flexibility: Tailors monitoring to specific requirements with community support.
Scalability: Successfully manages growing infrastructure demands.
Proactivity: Enhances issue identification and resource allocation.
Integration: Seamlessly works with existing IT operations platforms.

Icinga is widely adopted in IT environments for monitoring servers, networks, and applications across industries such as finance, healthcare, and technology. Its ability to integrate with various operating systems and automation platforms makes it a versatile choice for industries prioritizing comprehensive surveillance and proactive management of their infrastructure.

Icinga

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

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre

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

Buyer's Guide

Icinga vs. vRealize Network Insight

June 2026

Free Report: Icinga vs. vRealize Network Insight

Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. vRealize Network Insight and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Icinga vs. vRealize Network Insight report.

See our list of best IT Infrastructure Monitoring vendors and best Network Monitoring Software vendors.

We monitor all IT Infrastructure Monitoring reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.