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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 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 Wireshark is 13.2%, up from 12.2% 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

"I find Auvik's intuitive interface a welcome change from the complex network management platforms I've used."
"Among the most valuable features are the hardware life cycle and configuration backups, when applicable... When it does show you the hardware life cycle for, say, a Cisco device and the configuration backup, that's the most useful aspect for me as a network engineer."
"All of the features are valuable, but the ability to remote into anything, whether it's a terminal or a browser, is really big for us. It makes things a lot easier day-to-day."
"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."
"The switch backups are great. If a switch goes down or gets fried, we can just plug in a new switch and be good to go."
"A simple site view with the associated devices populating as things to add to or remove from the network is valuable. It's also nice to have it integrated with our ticketing system to create tickets in certain cases for devices that go down or have some high-level alerts, such as high CPU or overtemperature."
"The traffic insights feature shows us our network bandwidth usage without the need for expensive inline traffic decryption. It's very important to us. Knowing exactly what's going on, what traffic is flowing over my network is very much an important thing for me to know. We know that policies and procedures are being followed. And so we know that nobody is doing anything that they shouldn't be doing on a company network."
"It is useful for configuration management and automated backup. It is one of my favorite features because it is low-hanging fruit, and it is easy to accomplish, but on a network where we've got infrastructure devices in hundreds, it is an arduous task to keep on top of. Auvik does it all automatically, so that's probably one of my favorites because it is important, and it just does it automatically. I don't even have to think about it."
"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"The session-level filtering features are valuable."
"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."
"I use the filters very often, to determine what type of traffic I am looking for. The use of filter allows traffic to be segmented so that a value can be looked at individually apart from the other traffic."
"It gives us the ability to pinpoint problems and to communicate network problems with software and hardware vendors."
"It has good basic features."
"It's easy to troubleshoot issues because there's a large online community."
"Setup is very easy. It's also possible to change source code and compile if you want to change something in the code, because it's free."
 

Cons

"I found the search feature somewhat frustrating. For example, let's say I'm searching for an IP address. Even though this thing exists, it doesn't do a good job of showing it to me."
"Configuring alerts is pretty tedious. It would be nice if they had a wizard who walked you through instead of having everything turned on or off from the start."
"Auvik's network map, while helpful, could benefit from improved clarity."
"Scheduling maintenance would be much easier if there was a dedicated section readily visible on each client's main page."
"The search could be slightly more intelligent. If I type in "Dell" and put an extra "L," Auvik doesn't give a suggestion, "Did you mean 'Dell?'" I have to fix that."
"It's rare, but sometimes the actual application itself can be a little slow. That's because of the amount of data that it is pulling from remote networks. That has been my only complaint with it and it's really not even a complaint. But if the speed of the application were to improve, it would help a lot."
"If the out-of-the-box price was about 30% lower, I think it would have allowed us to purchase it sooner. It definitely costs more than some of the competitors that are out there. It's also better, so I understand why it's a little bit more expensive."
"I want to see improvement around backups; we had a case where we created a ticket for online support, and they were able to set up backups for one of our devices, but they were unwilling to do the same backup script with a different device. The script uses the same code, just a different model number, and the engineers weren't willing to add it to the other model."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"The system could be improved upon by adding a better and more powerful data processing engine."
"Wireshark could be improved with a delay option when getting data automatically."
"It is difficult to scale this solution."
"Big trace files (more than 1,000,000 packets) can be slow, but then you can use "TraceWrangler" (also free) to help with slicing and dicing the data."
"With Wireshark, you cannot download and utilize the packet in automation."
"The product is great but I wish there were more of an emphasis on the command line tools."
"You need good network connectivity to download during the setup, otherwise, it might take a while."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Auvik charges based on the number of network devices being used."
"Auvik's pricing is fair overall, but some advanced stuff is a little expensive. I like that the licensing model is based on switches instead of endpoints. We don't use some of the more advanced features because they're a little beyond our price range. We're using the tool internally, but the expense is passed on to the customer, and the advanced features aren't something that most customers are willing to pay for."
"The price of Auvik is okay. It is appropriate for the market."
"Auvik's pricing is very competitive compared to other network management solutions."
"Its licensing is very fair. The devices that stand to gain the most benefit from this product are the ones that are billed. In the case of routers, switches, and firewalls, I won't necessarily have the ability to put a management agent on them to gather errors and activity logs. This type of solution is a requirement for me to properly monitor and manage these devices. The devices that aren't being billed are workstation servers, etc. For those devices, I can put agents on them to monitor their health. It has a fair billing structure."
"The pricing is good for what it does. It has been a few months, so I do not remember exactly how much it was. I believe for our network here, it was about 2,000 a year, so the pricing was good. A lot of printers and things of that nature are not one of the charged devices."
"I'm not on the procurement side, but I understand that the license is based on devices, not sensors. If you have 10 switches and one firewall, you count per device. You'll have 100 devices if there are 10 sites with the same setup. I think it's a lot more expensive to monitor 100 sensors in PRTG."
"Auvik is billed by network device. They bill our firewalls and networks. However, there are devices that are not subject to billing in our environment, such as PCs, phones, and printers."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
"It is an open-source solution."
"It is free."
"It's free."
"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"The tool is free."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
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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%
University
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
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: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.