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Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs NetBrain comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 11, 2024

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

Auvik Network Management (ANM)
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
186
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (2nd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (3rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (3rd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (2nd)
NetBrain
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
13th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Automation (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of Auvik Network Management (ANM) is 3.4%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetBrain is 2.7%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Jeremy Campbell - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables us to get on top of issues before they become an outage
When I change IP addresses on a device or on a server, I have to wait for Auvik to figure out that change. It will tell me the device is offline until Auvik scans the whole subnet again and finds it. If I change 25 devices, I'll get 50 emails in a short time because they've gone offline. I'd love the ability to change that where I can update that device with the IP address without it going offline. That goes against the idea of a system that dynamically scans. It's information overload sometimes when you need to change a bunch of factors. You get inundated with emails. I would almost love a button whenever you first log in that says maintenance window, and then it would maybe take some of those alerts away. It's fairly intuitive but sometimes you have to search for things because it's hidden in the user interface, so I think that could be improved a little bit. The search could be better because they have these strange search terms. Instead of being able to look for what you want, you have to lay out the query in a specific way to get results. We've also been dealing with some weird bugs lately. We get alerts on miscellaneous items that go offline and online all the time. I've reached out to support, and they said that they've got a fix that they rolled out. However, we're still experiencing the issue, so I've got to work with them to fix that. They seem to be on top of the support.
Deborah Gamelin - PeerSpot reviewer
Good monitoring and troubleshoot capabilities, improves overall network traffic visibility
In my organization, we had 130,000 network devices that needed to be brought into the solution and mapped. NetBrain can handle the scale but the engineers that manage those devices have to go in and update all of them to allow NetBrain permission to poll them. It can get a little stressful for everybody when you're trying to roll out new stuff when you've got other issues that have to be addressed with other devices. In some cases, our devices had no automation at all. One example is the Cisco 3650. Right now, if you went through the inventory list, you see that we have different versions running. Some are on one version, whereas others are on another version. The problem with upgrading them is that they need to be done overnight because we don't want to disrupt any network traffic during business hours. Consequently, it could take us years to upgrade the versions before we can even get them onto these new tools. This may be an internal issue but it's a big one when you have a lot of devices. Even if you had 10,000 devices, it's still an issue. You have to consider the compatibility of the device against the tool, and being able to use certain commands to upgrade it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the notification that alerts us to an offline server, whether the server is rebooting, resetting, or if we have network issues with the internet service provider."
"In my experience as an MSP, Auvik stood out for its ease of deployment."
"One of the most valuable features is the remote monitoring. It monitors the egress and ingress bandwidth and you can add custom rules to monitor if something is wrong. You can also add your own metrics if needed."
"I like the information Auvik provides you about switches that helps you troubleshoot connectivity issues between clients and switches. It's much easier to locate where the problem is on the network. We were using N-central for our RMM. Unfortunately, that doesn't map out the switches. It tells us what is up or down but doesn't do a good job of network troubleshooting like Auvik does."
"The network mapping is an excellent feature, as each device is represented by a different shape or object, which is great for helping us, our staff in training, and our customers understand how the network is structured. Seeing the bigger picture helps immensely, as we provide remote support; we're not boots on the ground."
"I like the ability to remotely access devices securely. The multi-site setup has also been useful. Once we learned how to set that up, we could customize each site and push out common information like SNMP credentials from the parent site to other multi-sites. The automatic network layout is excellent, and the overall monitoring is also beneficial."
"One of the best things about Auvik, and it's why it's one of my go-to products, are the remote access capabilities. Without a VPN and without any other way in, I'm able to get in and work on and troubleshoot my devices through the remote access console. It has multiple options for that and has been very useful and a huge time-saver. That's one of the killer features. It's one of my must-haves and that's why I like it so much."
"I like Auvik's alerts. We can configure the alerts for a specific timeframe, i.e., we can set it to alert us when devices have been offline for a specific amount of minutes. If a device or port is flapping, we can ignore it or allow only the first alert to come in and mute the subsequent alerts."
"A reliable, time-saving tool for providing accurate layer 2 and layer 3 network mappings."
"NetBrain is a very simple tool."
"Chain management is a good feature. I don't get it on other solutions."
"Enables maps to be drawn out."
"This product has good network monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities."
 

Cons

"Auvik could include more customization options and the ability to efficiently manage additional features like printer monitoring."
"Implementing a configurable dashboard for the network map would enhance user experience in this regard."
"The ability to subcategorize our inventories, between physical and VM servers, for example, would be a welcome addition."
"There's room for improvement in the interface."
"More capabilities in terms of default OIDs, so we can leverage more of the information from SNMP would be good to see. It's been a while since I messed with the OIDs, but the last time I was trying to get additional information from printers, such as the model number. I was able to find that information, but it took a good amount of research to figure out how. I want to see more default capability regarding what information gets spit out from SNMP."
"The visualization of network mapping is good. The only complaint would be that VLANs don't necessarily show up as a regular LAN does. They do show up, but there is some manual tuning you have to do to make that look perfect."
"The solution's interface isn't the most user friendly, however, once you get used to it and once you get into the groove and have a little bit of experience, it's pretty nice."
"The deployment of the probe onto a particular device could be improved. That usually requires one of our level-two people to step in from the help desk team. It would be much better if it were a click-and-go deployment. What I would like to see in particular is the ability to download an MSI builder for a probe for a particular building. We would simply double-click and install it onto the machine and have it work. Having to roll through with the entire API key is a little time-consuming."
"Each device needs to be configured to allow NetBrain to poll for the information it needs, which can be very time-consuming for a large network."
"Support needs to improve for the installed product and some of the reporting could be more flexible to provide more complete cataloging."
"The solution could integrate more automation."
"It would be nice if the setup was a little simpler. Also, if the solution could provide more training materials for new people coming into our company so they can quickly learn how to use the functionalities."
"The IP interface brief isn't consistent."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It turns out they only charge for routers and switches!"
"Auvik is probably one of the more expensive options on the market for what it does. But if, as a managed services provider, you are working with clients that have large networks with large numbers of network devices, you can find efficiency to be gained that will make that value up."
"The price is reasonable."
"Its pricing is a little on the high end. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. It is more expensive than other solutions, but their per-device model is very fair. Anything other than the networking gear is monitored by Auvik at no charge."
"The pricing is very good."
"I believe the product is fairly priced, but I would consider it a better value if it were improved in certain areas."
"Its pricing is very reasonable. We had looked at other solutions where you pay based on the amount of traffic that was filtered through and analyzed. With Auvik, we pay by a billable device. We're not paying based on every single device we have. For one of the locations I have, one network element would likely be a billable device. So, every billable device has a network element, but not every network element is a billable device. If I have a location that has 50 network elements, then maybe 30 of them are billable devices. PCs, VoIP phones, and access points are monitored at no charge."
"We have a lot of problems with licensing in many other solutions, but I've never run into a problem with Auvik licensing. That's a pretty good vote of confidence."
"The product is expensive, but less expensive than some of the competition and worth the price."
"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Auvik?
The most valuable feature for us in Auvik is the network topology.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Auvik?
Auvik is pricey, and we were paying a lot for it, especially when compared to SolarWinds.
What needs improvement with Auvik?
The network maps can be confusing due to the wide scope of the network, making it difficult to find specific details. Improvements in the network exclusions part would be helpful, as well as enhanc...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
CompuCon, TD Ameritrade, Move Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs. NetBrain and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.