WhatsUp Gold vs vRealize Network Insight comparison

Broadcom and Progress Software are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Broadcom is ranked #36 with an average rating of 8.0, while Progress Software is ranked #22 with an average rating of 8.0. Broadcom holds a 0.8% mindshare in NMS, compared to Progress Software’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Broadcom users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

vRealize Network Insight

Read 47 vRealize Network Insight reviews

4,479 Views
3,314 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

WhatsUp Gold

Read 25 WhatsUp Gold reviews

11,469 Views
6,537 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

vRealize Network Insight

WhatsUp Gold

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

WhatsUp Gold and vRealize Network Insight are competing network monitoring solutions. vRealize Network Insight seems to have an edge in feature depth, which makes it suitable for complex environments, while WhatsUp Gold's affordability and support appeal to budget-conscious buyers.

Features: WhatsUp Gold provides comprehensive network monitoring, intuitive maps, and customizable dashboards. Conversely, vRealize Network Insight provides deep visibility into virtualized environments, advanced analytics, and security insights.

Room for Improvement: WhatsUp Gold could enhance advanced analytics, expand support for virtual environments, and improve integration with third-party tools. vRealize Network Insight may benefit from simplification of its user interface, reduction of deployment complexity, and more cost-effective pricing options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WhatsUp Gold is known for its easy installation and configuration, supported by efficient customer service. On the other hand, vRealize Network Insight involves a more substantial initial setup and configuration but is backed by strong technical support.

Pricing and ROI: WhatsUp Gold offers a competitive pricing structure, delivering favorable ROI with fast implementation and lower initial costs. vRealize Network Insight, while requiring more investment upfront, provides a comprehensive feature set that offers longer-term ROI in complex environments.

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

Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold vs. vRealize Network Insight

June 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

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

WhatsUp Gold

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

22nd

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

18th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (29th), Server Monitoring (14th), Configuration Management (20th), Log Management (39th), Cloud Monitoring Software (23rd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of vRealize Network Insight is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 2.2%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
WhatsUp Gold	2.2%
vRealize Network Insight	0.8%
Other	97.0%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

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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Erik Cheng

Technical Manager at Quan Hung Gourmet

Efficient monitoring with detailed customization, yet complexity remains

The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless. I have used the automated device discovery with this topology feature. The interactive map feature helps me manage the topology because sometimes we cannot draw the topology correctly, so we need to manually edit the connections. The alerting system is very tunable and customizable, but it's a little complicated to use. Many customers cannot manage it by themselves and need support from us, the provider. We always use the dashboards in the SOC, where we constantly display a dashboard or multiple dashboards. This allows us to know immediately if the connection or bandwidth is full or if the connection is broken.

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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

"Whenever we say "valuable" with respect to the network, it's more towards the security. The firewall rule issues it shows us and the recommendations that we get from vRNI are the most valuable features because they are actually making our network more secure."

"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."

"The most valuable feature is the visualization, as it is really handy to be able to classify network objects with applications and see the interaction between them."

"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."

"We haven't had any complaints about the stability of the solution or heard of any issues. None of our clients have mentioned running into bugs or glitches. There haven't been crashes."

"This tool is critical because from a VMware perspective, it's really the only tool that does application rationalization."

"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, and 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 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

"This is a good, stable network monitoring solution for devices."

"The visual map and email alerts are very useful to have in real time so we always know the state of our network."

"The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless."

"You have to invest a few days to become an expert in this solution, but after that, it's possible to do almost anything with it."

"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery function."

"I use it on premises to monitor my network database. We monitor the link up/down and use the SNMP traps as well."

"The most important features of WhatsUp Gold are the server health and uptime it provides. Additionally, WhatsUp Gold is a Windows-based solution which is a benefit."

"The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"I want to see more in terms of microsegmentation. As of now, I can see the rules, but they are not in a readable format that I can convert to microsegmentation and can fit into NSX Manager."

"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."

"The solution is very much viewer centric and it would be nice if it would transcend just the virtual infrastructure."

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

"It needs improvement in terms of its efficiency."

"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."

"It's pretty much user-friendly, but it could always be friendlier."

"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."

More vRealize Network Insight cons

"The product is old and not updated."

"There are some subscription charges that are quite heavy. I need to pay for support every year and these charges can be quite expensive."

"I haven't had any issue with stability, except during the upgrade to 2017 when we encountered slow responses."

"The price could be improved. When we first started using this product, the company was new. The prices were very low then, in comparison with HP OpenView or IBM, but now the policy is too high, relative to the number of devices we have."

"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."

"This product should add other options for monitoring. It does not currently meet the broader needs of the banking industry in the version we have deployed."

"There is a very big gap in the support."

"I might like to see a better interface in the future. It's not necessarily easy to integrate the product with other vendors."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"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."

"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 has brought more money into our company."

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

"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."

More vRealize Network Insight pricing and cost advice

"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."

"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."

"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."

"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."

"There are some subscription charges that are quite heavy. I need to pay for support every year and these charges can be quite expensive. Aside from the initial cost for the tool, you need to pay additionally for support."

"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."

"It is per device, per year. The pricing is very clear. If you have a service agreement, you get all of your major upgrades and minor upgrades. It was under $10,000 to go all-in with all of the different add-ons for it."

"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."

More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

11%

Construction Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	14

Questions from the Community

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

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WhatsUp Gold?

Clients find the licensing calculator confusing, but we simplify this for them by collecting relevant information first. The licensing is based on devices, providing better cost-effectiveness than ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with WhatsUp Gold?

It would be great if WhatsUp Gold could add features that simplify management with AI, as it is currently too complicated to manage.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for WhatsUp Gold?

My use case for WhatsUp Gold includes all device availability checks, bandwidth usage, CPU, and memory usage, as well as alarm notifications.

See all answers

Comparisons

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

VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs vRealize Network Insight

Compared 3% of the time

More vRealize Network Insight Competitors

LibreNMS vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

SCOM vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

NinjaOne vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

ScienceLogic vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

May 2026

Download vRealize Network Insight product report

Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold

May 2026

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Also Known As

Arkin

No data available

Overview

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

WhatsUp Gold stands out with its comprehensive network monitoring, dynamic mapping, and real-time alerts, offering essential tools for managing extensive IT infrastructures.

WhatsUp Gold provides robust capabilities in network visibility through dynamic mapping and NetFlow analysis. The platform's interactive topology aids in pinpointing issues effectively. Auto-discovery ensures complete network device tracking. While offering an intuitive interface and integration with Cisco ServiceNow, users find server performance monitoring useful for incident handling. However, improvements are anticipated in application monitoring and Active Directory integration. The pricing model and customization options leave room for enhancement. Despite these, users benefit from its integrated dashboards for immediate device health checks and network updates, making it beneficial for large-scale infrastructure management.

What features does WhatsUp Gold offer?

Network Monitoring: Provides continuous oversight of network components
Dynamic Mapping: Offers visual representation of network topology
NetFlow Analysis: Delivers insights into bandwidth utilization
Threshold Alerts: Notifies users upon reaching set performance thresholds
Auto-Discovery: Detects devices automatically for complete network coverage

What benefits should users expect from reviews?

Comprehensive Visibility: Enhanced understanding of network elements
Real-Time Monitoring: Immediate insights into network and device status
Cost-Effectiveness: Competitive solution suitable for expansive networks
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies the management of complex networks

Organizations in sectors like telecommunications, education, and healthcare utilize WhatsUp Gold for their network monitoring needs. Telecom companies track switches and routers, educational institutions manage bandwidth usage, and healthcare facilities monitor device availability to ensure seamless operations.

Progress Software

Sample Customers

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

Artoni Trasporti, Austin Independent School District, Banca Marche, Burke County North Carolina, Cambridge University School of Clinical Medicine, Clayco, Community Integrated Care, Desca, Deutsche Bergbau, Flexi-Van, Gropper, Hamleys, Hammonds Furniture, Knowledge IT, Idras S.P.A., Sibeg, Swann Engineering, Trivium Lindenhof

Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold vs. vRealize Network Insight

June 2026

Free Report: WhatsUp Gold vs. vRealize Network Insight

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