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As one of the most recent members of the omics family, large‐scale quantitative metabolomics data are currently complementing our systems biology data pool and offer the chance to integrate the metabolite level into the functional analysis of cellular networks. Network‐embedded thermodynamic analysis (NET analysis) is presented as a framework for mechanistic and model‐based analysis of these data. By coupling the data to an operating metabolic network via the second law of thermodynamics and the metabolites' Gibbs energies of formation, NET analysis allows inferring functional principles from quantitative metabolite data; for example it identifies reactions that are subject to active allosteric or genetic regulation as exemplified with quantitative metabolite data from Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Moreover, the optimization framework of NET analysis was demonstrated to be a valuable tool …