Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
190
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 May 2025, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of Auvik Network Management (ANM) is 3.6%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wireshark is 13.9%, up from 11.9% 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.
Vijay Duggal - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides detailed traffic analysis and helps troubleshoot issues
There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. While the solution supports sampling as fine as one millisecond, it requires a copy at that interval. My Python script allows me to achieve a granularity of up to ten microseconds, but I can't go beyond that. When dealing with provisioning on both issues, it would be beneficial if I could go down to the microsecond level, if not the nanosecond. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Auvik automatically updates network topology. Since it automatically updates the topology, we proactively know what is happening in a country or our branch offices. It also alerts us if there is a topology change, e.g., if it discovers anything new in that country. So, it has reduced the number of failures in our operations. We went from being reactive to proactive. So, we are no longer reacting to what is happening and others are doing. This has saved us about two to three hours a day. We used to spend two to three hours every morning checking the firewall and router logs for malicious behavior."
"I've found the topology mesh graph helpful, and I like the other features that factor into my work with Kubernetes."
"Auvik is easy to use. The first thing you see when you open it up is a map of the United States or wherever you are, and it shows the locations of all of your network endpoints. For discovery, you set credentials and manage the credentials and it tells you when it needs a new credential. So you just click the "Manage Credentials" button and it takes you to the right spot. You enter in a new credential and then it starts looking closer at the device. It can give you all kinds of information from inside the device's log. We use it for CIS logs and we use it for just regular logging. The CIS log was something I was looking for in the other products, just so we have a place for the CIS logs to congregate so we can look them up."
"Auvik seamlessly integrates with our ticketing system ConnectWise, which provides a basic alert via email. I also like how it automatically draws the network map and how you can easily filter by the alerts. If you click on the type of alert, it'll show you all the other alerts of that same type."
"The network map is fantastic. The backup of configs is also valuable. It does SSH into each network device and retains a copy of the configs on the machines as well as the change logs. So, when something suddenly stops, you can compare the configs to see what happened. You can do a side-by-side comparison of the configs to see exactly what changed. That's fantastic."
"We like the alerts, the network mapping, and the backup of configurations."
"It is pretty responsive to whether things are up or down."
"What I find most valuable about Auvik Network Management is the statistics it provides over the months, which are valuable to consumers. I use reporting every month for reporting to the institutions, so for me, that's the most beneficial."
"The drill-down available for packet analysis is great. It gives a network security engineer insight into what is going on at the packet level and enables better troubleshooting."
"Wireshark is a good tool to start with network analyzing and packet capturing."
"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."
"The solution is easy to install and use."
"It gives us the ability to pinpoint problems and to communicate network problems with software and hardware vendors."
"Wireshark saves a lot of time, especially with network troubleshooting."
"You can use Wireshark to see the traffic packet format, the IP layers, the fields, and the enabled flags."
"What's best about Wireshark is that it doesn't require installation. It supports cards and monitoring permissions and is sufficient for appending and capturing activities. You won't need to install other tools to use Wireshark, so this saves you time. You can capture packets at any time from your laptop through Wireshark."
 

Cons

"One main feature I would like to see in Auvik is the ability to generate alerts based on specific events appearing in syslog messages."
"I don't know if it has integrations with ticketing systems so that alerts would get to the ticketing system right away. That would be a good feature to add."
"I want to see improvements to the interface, as it's data-heavy and challenging to navigate. This makes it harder to delegate and have junior staff look around and figure out the solution. A more straightforward interface would be a welcome improvement, whether by making it cleaner or more intuitive."
"Recently, the map performance has become incredibly slow, even for small maps. For example, simply changing a device type can take up to five or ten minutes to reflect the change."
"Auvik's network map is easy to use for someone who is experienced, but if someone is not too experienced with it, they might be overwhelmed, especially if they run a really big client network with hundreds of devices. At the same time, Auvik does a good job of nesting those devices."
"Although the network topology is excellent, it has a hard time picking up some devices on the network. A device might not be fully supported, or Auvik is unable to pull all the information from it."
"Auvik could have better compatibility with more devices. The devices that we're using are essential within our network infrastructure. It would be great to access the full range of features that some of the other ones do, such as the device configuration backups and the configuration change alert."
"I'm still undergoing the trial period. My only complaint is that I still don't understand what the license cost will be. More transparent pricing would be massive."
"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."
"A room for improvement in Wireshark is its ease of use for beginners. It could be better. Another room for improvement in the tool is for it to provide more details about the traffic load. At the moment, Wireshark is adequate for me, so there isn't anything I'd like added to it in its next version."
"I have not used Wireshark to an advanced point where I could provide a detailed opinion on improvements needed."
"Wireshark's UI isn't easy to handle and doesn't have as nice a view as Omnipeek."
"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."
"It would be better if they offered a hybrid version like My Cloud Control."
"The solution has a steep learning curve. There are so many filters and features that are frequently being updated, it takes research, experience and familiarity to be able to use them. It could be a lot more user-friendly."
"Wireshark could make the filtering rules easier to apply and offer a drag-and-drop option as opposed to type and text."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe that our bill is somewhere around the $600 range per month. We're monitoring about 63 machines. Most of them are servers. So, $10 to monitor it for an entire month is amazing. You couldn't get somebody in India for that cheap."
"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 price is a little high, and the product could be more cost-friendly. We work with many small and medium-sized businesses, so the cost can be hard to justify. We try to work around that, but it would be nice if Auvik were more cost-effective. Most enterprise-level businesses we work with have their own internal monitoring solutions, whether Nagios or SolarWinds."
"The initial offer was high, but I was able to negotiate it down."
"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."
"I can't speak to the cost; I'm an engineer. Auvik has a subscription-based pricing option, and the other solution we evaluated had high upfront costs."
"Auvik isn't cheap. There are two tiers: Essentials and Performance. We're still on the Essentials plan, but we may upgrade to Performance, which is double the price."
"For the size of our school, it is expensive, but I understand the reason behind the pricing."
"It's free."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."
"It is an open-source solution."
"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."
"I've never personally had to pay for it, making it a highly valuable internet resource that's accessible for use. While they offer some paid versions, our firm has utilized the free version for the past three years."
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Troubleshooting solutions are best for your needs.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
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: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.