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Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Network Analytics
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
24th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (3rd), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
157
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is 1.5%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 5.2%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Rainier S. - PeerSpot reviewer
You are able to drill down into a center's utilization, then create reports based on it
In the last year or two, we have been working with our Cisco NAS engineers to improve our security posturing. It is more our being proactive rather than reactive. While Stealthwatch and Lancope have this ability to look inside and give you visibility (a great feature), follow-up is the rule. We would like filters that you can put into place to tap onto certain types of behaviors, alerts out, and/or hopefully a block. This is sort of what we are looking for. I might be speaking too early, because we are not down this path yet. We know the feature set is there, we just do not know yet how to achieve it. That is proactive rather than more reactive. For Lancope Stealthwatch, we would like to see it more on the ASA Firewall platform. While this might already be available, this is more a failing of Cisco to inform us if it is there. For example: * Are we on the right or wrong version of the code? * What does the code look like? * Are we are really looking at firewalls? Or is it more about the foundation and route switches that we are seeing? It is about visibility.
MohitKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface
The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market. The solution supports many vendors by default and just included Meraki SDN with the new release, but continued expansion is important. We created a custom method to pair with unsupported vendors but that can produce a lag in performance so future releases should expand SDN support. The solution does a good job of automating features but could expand that even more.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The fact that it can identify down to an IP address of a system that is causing problems, or potentially causing problems, is very valuable."
"If you are using Darktrace or NAC solutions you can integrate Stealthwatch."
"Using the Cognitive Analytics feature, we have complete visibility that we didn’t have before."
"It provides good visibility to the customers. People are still evaluating it, but it provides visibility and helps them to take action to remediate and mitigate the issues that are highlighted on the dashboard. It has good integration with the Cisco switching platform."
"Most of the engineers I've worked with have been really good. Very knowledgeable and easy to work with."
"From what I understand, you can encrypt and unencrypt traffic moving in transit. This is one of the features that we liked about it."
"The solution reduces the amount of time it takes to detect and remediate threats."
"From a security standpoint, it is just seeing pockets as well. Visibility is very key for us."
"The ability to customize the views and dashboards is nice. SolarWinds also allows us to access the data via the API. That's probably the feature I liked the most."
"For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We deployed the solution from new and completed the upgrades."
"Provides a good level of tools and covers essential components."
"We don't have any issues with the stability of SolarWinds NPM."
"The benefit of this solution is the reporting. We're able to report on and see our network in a graphical form. We are able to detect when a device is added to a network."
"It is considerably cheaper compared to other tools."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the monitoring capabilities."
 

Cons

"We would like the solution to make more advances in the way that Extreme Networks has been doing."
"It's not great as a standalone solution."
"I would like to see better filters."
"We've run into some issues with the configuration."
"If they can make this product more web-based, that would be amazing."
"There could be better integration on the programming side, which uses Python. StealthWatch could provide a template for Python to manage the switches. For example, it would be nice if StealthWatch bounced a port automatically it detected something anomalous."
"The initial setup was complex."
"Its granularity for RBAC roles-based access control needs improvement."
"SolarWinds could offer more support and insights for a broader range of devices. Currently, it focuses on routers, switches, and some load balancers. However, it lacks an out-of-the-box dashboard for monitoring firewalls and some other modern network security devices. We have to customize it a lot."
"I think Solar Winds NPM needs to create a profile with documentation responsibility."
"SolarWinds NPM could improve by adding the deepest inspection, performance networking, and IP address discovery."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"The solution is not always good with new features, so it's take a long time."
"We'd like to see a bit more automation in the future."
"Complex and overly detailed setup."
"If they did some type of synthetic monitoring, it would have been better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is worth the cost."
"Licensing is done by flows per second, not including outside>in traffic."
"There are additional licenses needed for the number of so-called network flows. It's hard to plan the number of flows you need in the network, this is a problem. The price of the Cisco Stealthwatch is relatively inexpensive"
"The licensing costs are outrageous."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"Today, we are part of the big Cisco ELA, and it is a la carte. We can get orders for whatever we want. At the end of the day, we have to pay for it in one big expense, but that is fine. We are okay with that."
"Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"On a yearly basis, licensing is somewhere around $30,000."
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
"I believe the original setup cost was around $3500 with an annual cost of around $1200-$1500 to renew the support license. This would bring the average day-to-day cost of around $5-$6 over three years."
"It is not an expensive product."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"SolarWinds is expensive. That's why it's primarily banks using the solution. Small businesses can't afford it. Due to its pricing, most smaller enterprises like manufacturing companies are not interested. For example, we have a client who is also interested in traffic monitoring, but they are not purchasing SolarWinds because of the cost."
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"The pricing needs to be improved. It is too high. One full engine costs around $10 000, which is why we don't have high availability right now."
"The licensing model is such that you can purchase only what you need; and then grow into the next level by paying only the difference in price and the associated maintenance costs."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
30%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
57%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Stealthwatch?
The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is the Threat Intelligence integration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Stealthwatch?
The tool is not cheaply priced. In cybersecurity, you want an extra layer of security in your organization. Some sectors want NDR solutions, so you cannot deploy such tools everywhere, as they are ...
What needs improvement with Cisco Stealthwatch?
The expensive nature of the tool is an area of concern where improvements are required.
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco Stealthwatch Enterprise, Lancope StealthWatch
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Edge Web Hosting, Telenor Norway, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Webster Financial Corporation, Westinghouse Electric, VMware, TIAA-CREF
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
823,875 professionals have used our research since 2012.