A cross sectional study was conducted to examine the nature of insight in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as well as compare it between the two disorders. Forty patients with schizophrenia and forty patients with bipolar disorder matched on age, age of onset of illness and duration of illness, were recruited consecutively from the outpatient clinic of a psychiatric hospital. The patients had to be clinically stable on follow-up treatment for at least three months. Insight was measured using Schedule for Assessment of Insight- Extended Version (SAI-E) and Scale of Unawareness of Mental Disorders (SUMD). Both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder had modest level of insight as measured on both the instruments. There was no qualitative difference in insight between the two disorders. However, patients with bipolar disorder had significantly better awareness of illness than patients with schizophrenia. This was evident on both the instruments that showed significant concordance on the items of insight for both the disorders.