No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.8
Nmap offers cost savings and efficiency for businesses, despite limitations, with users noting significant financial benefits like bug bounty earnings.
Sentiment score
1.0
vRealize Network Insight improved efficiency and reduced costs, achieving labor and hardware savings and enhancing problem-solving and network mapping speed.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Nmap users benefit from community support and online resources, seldom needing formal technical support due to its robust functionality.
Sentiment score
4.0
vRealize Network Insight's customer support is generally praised but noted for delays and challenges, especially post-Broadcom acquisition.
I have never reached out to customer support because Nmap never gave me any troubles.
Student at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
It's difficult to find necessary documentation, open tickets, and get support.
Virtualization Specialist at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
We are paying too much for technical support from VMware.
Senior System Specialist at General Directorate of Residence and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA)
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Nmap is renowned for scalability, handling vast networks efficiently, praised for adaptability despite lacking cloud capabilities.
Sentiment score
7.6
vRealize Network Insight is scalable, adaptable, and efficient, praised for ease of expansion and varied organizational adaptability.
Nmap's scalability is of a gold standard.
Student at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Nmap is highly rated for stability and reliability, though some Windows users report issues after long-term use.
Sentiment score
1.0
vRealize Network Insight is praised for stability, with rare minor Web UI glitches, staying robust during upgrades and deployments.
Nmap has never crashed, and it is an amazingly optimized tool.
Student at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
We are managing that one but usually we have an API connector between our firewall vendor and our VMware NSX.
Senior System Specialist at General Directorate of Residence and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA)
 

Room For Improvement

Nmap requires a GUI, faster scans, enhanced reporting, vulnerability assessments, advanced features, and improved stability for better usability.
vRealize Network Insight requires enhanced integration, user-friendly features, better support, intuitive reports, and improved interoperability for complex cloud deployments.
Nmap could potentially become a GUI and provide automatic reports with one-click downloads.
Student at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Broadcom should improve by going back to what was working before, offering the suite of tools that clients actually use, and allowing clients to decide the best options for them.
Virtualization Specialist at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Setup Cost

Nmap offers a free version and paid options for enterprises needing enhanced features and commercial support flexibility.
vRealize Network Insight is valued for features and stability but seen as costly, especially in larger or bundled setups.
Broadcom is known for increasing product prices, making them expensive compared to what people used to pay.
Virtualization Specialist at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Valuable Features

Nmap's powerful features offer comprehensive network analysis, vulnerability identification, and flexibility, making it essential for security audits and bug bounty projects.
vRealize Network Insight provides comprehensive network visualization, monitoring, automation, and security enhancement with user-friendly interfaces and customization.
Nmap will be a little difficult for beginners because of the learning curve and the CLI-based system, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes very powerful.
Student at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
One of the biggest problems with VMware NSX is logging, and vRealize Network Insight helps by providing comprehensive logs.
Virtualization Specialist at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Nmap
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
30th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
23
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
47
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (41st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nmap is 0.9%, up from 0.5% 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
ProductMindshare (%)
Nmap0.9%
vRealize Network Insight0.8%
Other98.3%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Sai Aditya Panda - PeerSpot reviewer
Student at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Penetration testing has become efficient as I identify open ports and security risks with confidence
Nmap could potentially become a GUI and provide automatic reports with one-click downloads. For example, the report could show all the open ports for an IP address with a professionally formatted report. This is a far-fetched suggestion and not really required, but it could make the work a little better. On a scale of one to ten, I give Nmap a solid nine. I mean, how can you fix something that is not broken? Nmap is already the best, and I do not think there are any other features that can be added. Its job is reconnaissance, so I do not think there is more to add to it. However, if I get any ideas, I will let them know about this.
Shaijith KB - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
10%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise41
 

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?
My main use case for Nmap is reconnaissance, so identifying open ports or running services and ultimately finding the security risks or vulnerabilities in a system. OS detection is the most importa...
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....
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...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Arkin
 

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: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.