OP5 Monitor vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer comparison

"With limited hardware or a virtual machine, you can address a huge network, hundreds of thousands of elements that need to be monitored. Other commercial software is not on that level."

"We can also observe whatever we want, and there are no limitations."

"The monitoring in OP5 Monitor is very easy because we can directly use custom plugins; we can write custom scripts and use those scripts directly, it's very low cost, open, and the dashboards are easy to see."

"Its open-source environment is accessible to everyone."

"The API makes it pretty easy to integrate with any system."

"Especially with the API, where I can use the data with many other systems, it's great."

"Instead of checking the logs each Monday, or checking that applications are running, and checking your ticketing system for angry users, you put this system in place and it monitors and continuously tests everything that is of importance to you and your users."

"The best feature is that it is very relatable, stable, and scalable."

"The program is scalable enough for our usage."

"What the network team found most valuable in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is that it helps them to troubleshoot or analyze the issue. For example, traffic that comes from our location: India, goes to the US, so for the network team to analyze where the traffic comes from and where it is directed, and whether the packets are being dropped, they use SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. The network team also likes that through the solution, they can analyze the complete traffic utilization and how they're going to use it. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is user-friendly. The team finds it comfortable to use."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its traffic analysis."

"For managing the traffic, it provides you a response about whether the traffic is down, up, or heavy, which is a very powerful feature."

"Overall, for my use cases, this product is very good and I recommend it."

"So far, it is a very stable product."

"NTA's most valuable feature is traffic analysis and visibility."

"I find this tool very helpful in identifying the top traffic paths from source to destination, and determining which routes are consuming the most resources."

"The user interface is not what we are used to these days, and should be improved."

"The solution is useful for tweaking. However, there have been some negative experiences, such as limited report capabilities. The only report available is in PDF format, making it difficult for teams managing multiple servers to extract data in Excel format. The speaker recommends that the team improve the report capabilities to better serve users."

"OP5 Monitor could include application monitoring in addition to infrastructure monitoring. If application business transactions were monitored, it would be helpful."

"IT environments today are in constant flux. This is driven by the newer cloud technologies such as Kubernetes and Docker, etc. The whole Nagios-based monitoring system that OP5 is created on top of, is based on a host-service model. There is a need for a strategy on what to do with more dynamic environments."

"They need to improve the dashboard interface."

"The user interface is not what we are used to these days, and should be improved."

"We do not get performance reports properly."

"IT environments today are in constant flux. This is driven by the newer cloud technologies such as Kubernetes and Docker, etc. The whole Nagios-based monitoring system that OP5 is created on top of, is based on a host-service model. There is a need for a strategy on what to do with more dynamic environments. There is some cool stuff going on in that direction."

"There is room for improvement when it comes to the traffic generated by the analyzer and the analysis of that traffic."

"The pricing is expensive."

"If your network is on SolarWinds, and you notice that the traffic is bad because it says "user downloading a heavy file," it doesn't indicate which endpoint is downloading those heavy files. SolarWinds doesn't have the tools to be able to handle this kind of situation. You can just notice through your network device that the traffic is becoming overwhelming or heavy, but you cannot go inside and get more details related to the endpoint where it is happening. We would like SolarWinds to be able to handle this kind of situation and even manage the traffic inside a network from the endpoint to the network device. These would be good enhancements. It is mostly stable. The problem comes only when we want to add another SolarWinds model. SolarWinds has so many models, and sometimes when we want to add other models on the platforms that are reserved for our firm, it freezes. When this happens, we have to create a new VM for that model."

"What needs improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is performance because sometimes, my team struggles too much for the solution to perform correctly for a specific deployment in my organization."

"The solution needs better log management and log coordination with tools."

"I would like to see more training videos and additional material for learning how to use this solution."

"Customer support is quite complex."

"I would like to see better customization capabilities."

"The cost of the license and support are separate. If you want platinum call support, it will cost more than a regular call. I did not opt for it, as it is an additional cost."

"OP5 has a very low price as a solution, compared to many other solutions out there."

"It was not expensive. And because it's less demanding in terms of hardware, you don't have to pay for another SQL or other database license, and you can have a huge installation on one machine..."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"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."

"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."

"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."

"The pricing is really good."

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

"SolarWinds' pricing structure is the primary reason why some customers opt for another solution such as ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer. In NTA, you are charged per port, meaning that if you have a 24-port switch you will be charged for 24 individual nodes. ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer, on the other hand, charges per switch, such that if you add a switch, the entire switch will count as one single node."

"I don't have information on the licensing cost for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer because it's bundled with another SolarWinds solution. My organization has seven different models and pays for the license yearly. My organization also had to deploy additional pollers, but the cost wasn't very expensive, though I can't give the exact numbers."