Corelight vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer comparison

Corelight and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category. Corelight is ranked #7, while SolarWinds is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.8. Corelight holds a 7.7% mindshare in NTA, compared to SolarWinds’s 5.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Corelight users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Corelight

Read 5 Corelight reviews

2,148 Views
1,396 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Read 43 SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer reviews

2,260 Views
791 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Corelight

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and Corelight compete in the network analysis and monitoring category. Corelight appears to have the upper hand due to its superior features, despite its higher price.

Features: SolarWinds users highlight its strong reporting and traffic monitoring capabilities. Corelight's users value its robust security features and comprehensive visibility. The primary difference is SolarWinds focuses on traffic analysis, while Corelight emphasizes security and network visibility.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest SolarWinds could enhance its scalability and integration capabilities. Corelight users seek improvements in its user-friendliness and reporting options

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds is praised for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Corelight, while also straightforward, tends to require more initial configuration and users note varying customer support experiences.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds users find it reasonably priced with good ROI. Corelight, despite higher costs, is considered worth the investment due to its advanced features.

To learn more, read our detailed Corelight vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Corelight vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

December 2025

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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

Corelight

Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

7th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Detection and Response (NDR) (12th)

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

3rd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category, the mindshare of Corelight is 7.7%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is 5.8%, up from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer	5.8%
Corelight	7.7%
Other	86.5%

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

Featured Reviews

HamadaElewa

Technical Sales Manager at Spire Solutions

An expensive solution to monitor internet traffic with multiple dashboards

The huge library especially the open source link, makes it the main engine for Corelight with some enhancements in the commercial version. It has a very powerful level, such as signature-based attacks or behavioral attacks, with enhancements in the design. It is very flexible for intelligent implementations like IPs, especially between big companies and banks. Corelight is easy to understand and monitor what is going on behind the team. The solution is already integrated with other systems like Suricata, Elastic, and Microsoft tools. It's very easy to integrate signature-based or behavior-based engines. You can use Elastic for the dashboards to get it from Corelight, along with all the benefits and expandability.

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Raja Xabi

Technical Manager at APRAL

Improved bandwidth management and network visibility have resulted in financial benefits and streamlined operations

There is always room for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, such as implementing instant reporting based on business intelligence reports and more granular filters in their dashboard to improve the GUI view and reporting. The licensing model of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is always an issue for users because competitors offer unlimited and perpetual licenses, and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's model is quite costly compared to other brands. If users are comfortable with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, they have to make the hard decision to invest, and it's suggested from a user's perspective that SolarWinds should improve their financial model and licensing to become competitive, especially for small to medium businesses.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's easy to create additional dashboards specific to supporting specific tasks."

"It is easy to deploy and easy to handle."

"Corelight is easy to use."

"It's an easy way for us to get visibility in a client's environment."

"The most valuable feature is the embedded IDS from Suricata."

"I can point out the exact root cause 'why.' If there is a slowness, I can point out what was before the issue or before the slowness, what it is, and what is now."

"In terms of the implementation, we've actually used SAM, the server and application monitoring tools. The network configuration tools are very useful in terms of bulk upgrading switches and infrastructure. Also, the Network Traffic Analyzer was extremely useful to track down errant users soaking up bandwidth."

"The most valuable features are the bandwidth analyzer, the monitoring, the network analyzer, it has overall good performance, and an easy deployment."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to look for any increases in bandwidth over time so that we can plan before it becomes critical."

"The monitoring is perfect, showing you the details for the utilization of resources and network bandwidth."

"The integration with other SolarWinds products is good."

"What people found most valuable in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is its report customization feature."

"The initial setup was straightforward."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pros

Cons

"Machine learning could be a good improvement, but it's very costly."

"The solution’s architecture is complex and difficult to understand. There are multiple machines and VMs."

"In the next release, building a graphical user interface would be helpful."

"Corelight hasn’t added features in a long time."

"They can enhance the interface of the product. They can make it more interactive and also easier to use for feature access."

"The problem is that SolarWinds is trying to bolt in too much and that can leave bugs, which you have to then sort out, leaving the product unstable. SolarWinds needs to try and slow down and improve the stability of the product, as opposed to bringing out more and more features."

"It is a scalable solution, but it is costly to scale. Therefore, I would rate scalability at eight out of ten."

"The Atlas module that is used for building the network map is very bad."

"It is very slow to pick the dynamics of the network."

"This solution does not do a very good job when I am trying to look deeper into my internal network, in particular with respect to individual ports."

"The tool itself is very complicated, so training is required to handle it effectively."

"It's not a cheap product, so the pricing could be improved."

"I would like to see more artificial intelligence capabilities."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a yearly fee and depends on what you are looking for."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"The licensing for this solution is based on the number of nodes."

"Licensing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is paid yearly, and there are no additional costs that you need to pay apart from the standard licensing fees because you don't need to purchase another solution to make SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer work. Pricing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is more expensive than other solutions."

"For our environment, we pay approximately $25,000 USD yearly."

"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."

"Pricing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is very high. I have a customer that needs the solution but doesn't have the budget for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer because the problem is that you can't use the solution only. You have to buy requirements such as the SolarWinds NPM first, and some companies don't have the budget for all the required components and modules. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer can cost up to $10,000, and some customers don't have that budget. Another product has all the modules that SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer has, with a very low price, that can be a replacement, which is ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer. PRTG is another solution that can replace SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer."

"While the pricing is fair, it could be better."

"We have licenses for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. In terms of pricing, its license is not that expensive versus other tools such as HP."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

11%

Computer Software Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Healthcare Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	26

Questions from the Community

What is the biggest difference between Corelight and Vectra AI?

The two platforms take a fundamentally different approach to NDR. Corelight is limited to use cases that require the eventual forwarding of events and parsed data logs to a security team’s SIEM or ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Corelight?

It's easy to create additional dashboards specific to supporting specific tasks.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Corelight?

The solution is too expensive compared to others. If you have the technical knowledge, it's good. Corelight is a very big gap between you and others if you’re new.

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all kind of software in monitoring from infra to end to end, it depends on the funct...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?

The licensing model of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is always an issue for users because competitors offer unlimited and perpetual licenses, and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's model i...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?

Regarding improvement, the application monitoring capabilities are not exceptional. If SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer could improve in that area, it would be helpful. It is less AIOps driven a...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Network Detection and Response (NDR)

January 2026

Download Corelight product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

January 2026

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer report

Download SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer product report

Also Known As

No data available

Netflow Traffic Analyzer

Overview

Corelight is the most powerful network visibility solution for information security professionals. We provide real-time data that organizations use to understand, detect, and prevent cyber attacks. Our solution is built on Zeek, the powerful and widely-used open source monitoring framework.

Corelight

SolarWinds Netflow Traffic Analyzer enables you to capture data from continuous streams of network traffic and convert those raw numbers into easy-to-interpret charts and tables that quantify exactly how the corporate network is being used, by whom, and for what purpose.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Education First

Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori

Buyer's Guide

Corelight vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

December 2025

Free Report: Corelight vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

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