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Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs Wireshark 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)
Wireshark
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of Auvik Network Management (ANM) is 3.1%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wireshark is 13.1%, down from 13.2% 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.
DonniUgalde - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides visibility into the network, and the GUI is easy to use
I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated. It would have been easy to hit a drop-down and select a filter. If I only wanted to look at DCP, UDP, or IP, it would be easy to filter it out. Advanced network knowledge is required to get a lot out of the tool. However, it's very easy to install and deploy. It would be nice if there were some handheld Android devices with a Wireshark-specialized application that would allow us to mirror a Cisco port. Then, we can just plug into the port and click the green start button, and it will start ingesting the packet capture. Then, we won’t be using a laptop. The only downside is that we must have a laptop and connect a network cable. Some new laptops don't have network ports, so we have to get another adapter. Having an all-in-one device, like NetAlly or Fluke, and some of their network devices would be cool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The alerting is fantastic; if something goes offline, we're notified right away. It gives us a lot of peace of mind knowing the solution will alert us to issues automatically 24/7."
"Auvik's cloud SaaS model saves money because we don't need to maintain devices or pay for overhead on our end."
"It's very intuitive. It does a good job of showing you individual nodes on the network and their relative positions to one another, with pertinent details on each node, all in one location."
"The automated mapping or alerting has impacted our daily operations since now we receive alerts directly to email. We don't have to wait to to get a notice from the clients."
"It's all intuitive and straightforward. The out-of-the-box alerts provided everything I needed, but I've made a couple of additional alerts. You can schedule maintenance windows in Auvik, and the solution won't send any alerts during that time."
"That network visualization is really cool. I've been working here for a year now, and the first time I saw it I said, "Whoa, this is so cool"... With Auvik, the map is accurate. It is great and always updating. That's definitely one of the best features of Auvik."
"The automated network topology map is excellent; it shows connected networks, where they're going, and what they're visible on."
"Auvik stands out for its user-friendly interface and its comprehensive configuration management features."
"Wireshark has a lot of features. It's a powerful tool if you're familiar with it. You can see everything on the network with it."
"It's easy to troubleshoot issues because there's a large online community."
"The ability to decrypt traffic and the abundance of filters available are both valuable features."
"I like the filtering feature as we can filter data easily. This feature is also available in tcpdump, but it's a simple piece of software. Wireshark is more advanced and has many features. It allows you to filter a lot of things. The output can be filtered easily. The most important feature is colorization. If I say, "Okay, this particular SMB protocol in red, it will show me red." It's easy to identify that protocol or capture data."
"The best part about Wireshark, in my opinion, is its ability to analyze packet capture files."
"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"The options that are required to get the details for the packet drops are good."
"The initial setup is simple."
 

Cons

"I'd like to be able to deep dive more into the reporting. The reporting is still being scaled and built out and I would love to see some additional products being added to the stack. For example, Auvik covers certain types of firewalls, but I would like to see more enterprise stuff added to the stack."
"The network map and dashboard can be difficult at times because they do not scale very well. You have to either view the map itself or the dashboard itself."
"It is amazing in keeping device inventories up-to-date. It mostly keeps them up to date as things change. There were a couple of hiccups where a device would get replaced and the mapping would break, and we'd have to go in and fix the mapping. It was with devices that Auvik couldn't fully discover or devices that would change frequently, such as cell phones or other devices on the network that are dynamic and change all the time. The integration would just show up with an IP address and a MAC address. There was no other information in them, which wasn't very helpful. They were the devices that Auvik wasn't able to discover fully. If they had full SNMP or SSH credentials and Auvik knew what the device was and it was matched correctly in Auvik, then Auvik could push it through."
"Auvik Network Management needs to improve its operational technology coverage."
"I'd like to see an improvement in how we target individual devices."
"There have been times when our SNMP community strings were incorrect or weren't updated for whatever reason, and Auvik kept trying to scan them. Changing it was a pain, and there wasn't a way to extract that from Auvik. I understand there are valid security reasons why we wouldn't want to do that sometimes. In those situations, we had to recreate those community strings and reapply them to various devices."
"There is room for improvement in the reporting aspect."
"Network setups take time regardless of the tool you use. It will always take time to build. I wish you could order Auvik to rescan the network on demand when I make changes. Sometimes, I want the network to scan immediately instead of waiting for it to detect the changes."
"Wireshark's UI isn't easy to handle and doesn't have as nice a view as Omnipeek."
"The decryption of encrypted packets could be better."
"Wireshark could be improved by adding more monitoring features."
"This product needs to improve the UI."
"The Wireshark search function shows green for a correct search and red for an incorrect search. If there were a way to provide a description about what a search - and the similar ones which are available - can do, while a person is typing it, it would make the product easier to use and simultaneously decrease the learning curve."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"The average person would probably find Wireshark hard to use. When I first installed it, I was overwhelmed by all the data it was shooting out. It doesn't make sense until you start doing some research and figure out what everything means. It isn't the most user-friendly tool. It just provides so much information."
"In the future, it would be nice to see color coding. It is just black and white."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For us, it has been good. I do not get too much into the pricing side. We are an MSP, so we have a number of clients, and we are utilizing Auvik as a way for us to be able to better manage and support our clients. The more clients we bring into Auvik, the better the pricing, so we have been happy with how it is."
"The billing is excellent. The way they bill it, in most environments, it's not that expensive. The billing is very cost-effective."
"The pricing could be tiered so that you get a discount for more devices. We're fairly early on in the billing process, but it could be slightly cheaper."
"It can get expensive quickly if we monitor a lot of devices, which is unfortunate because we have a lot of devices to monitor."
"The price is reasonable."
"I love the pricing. It makes a lot of sense. It allows you to use your own metal, which is great because it enables us to go higher-end for some clients and lower-end for others... Even having the flexibility to switch clients between the Performance (expert) and the Essentials (simple) version of Auvik, on the fly, is really unheard of."
"Auvik is a cost-efficient solution for the applications we use it for."
"The pricing is kind of steep, but it's worth the price. There's no beating around the bush. It's an expensive solution, but it's really the best solution there is for us."
"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
"The tool is free."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"It is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Wireshark?
Wireshark is priced at a medium range, not too high, not too low. The pricing could be more flexible, and they might make it more expensive. That said, compared to other products, it is competitive.
What needs improvement with Wireshark?
The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance. Performance can sometimes be a challenge due to numerous factors.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
Find out what your peers are saying about Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs. Wireshark and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.