PRTG Network Monitor vs Plixer Scrutinizer comparison

Plixer and Paessler GmbH are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Plixer is ranked #54 with an average rating of 8.0, while Paessler GmbH is ranked #5 with an average rating of 7.7. Plixer holds a 0.4% mindshare in NMS, compared to Paessler GmbH’s 4.2% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Plixer users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Paessler GmbH users who would recommend it.

Plixer Scrutinizer

Read 15 Plixer Scrutinizer reviews

1,401 Views
967 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

PRTG Network Monitor

Read 102 PRTG Network Monitor reviews

8,952 Views
6,177 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Plixer Scrutinizer

PRTG Network Monitor

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

PRTG Network Monitor and Plixer Scrutinizer are leading solutions in network monitoring and analysis. PRTG Network Monitor is favored for fast deployment and customizable sensors, while Plixer Scrutinizer is recognized for in-depth network traffic analysis and advanced reporting. PRTG seems to have an edge in ease of setup and cost-effective entry, although Scrutinizer’s data insights are crucial for complex environments.

Features: PRTG Network Monitor stands out with rapid deployment, innovative customizable sensors, and cost-effective licensing. It supports versatile deployment in Private, Public, and Hybrid Cloud environments. Plixer Scrutinizer excels in network traffic analysis offering in-depth insights and advanced reporting capabilities, enhancing its utility in complex IT environments.

Room for Improvement: PRTG could benefit from more flexible templates, improved application monitoring, and enhanced dashboards. Plixer Scrutinizer needs advancements in data visualization tools, user interface, and cloud integration to keep pace with evolving demands.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both solutions are praised for easy on-premise deployment, with PRTG additionally offering cloud options. PRTG provides comprehensive documentation but relies on email-based support. Plixer Scrutinizer offers reliable assistance through online resources and ticketing systems, although it lacks direct engagement.

Pricing and ROI: PRTG uses a pay-per-sensor model, offering affordable entry and scaling well for smaller deployments, providing a robust ROI. Plixer Scrutinizer features competitive per-device pricing without per-interface charges. Despite higher initial costs, its network insights drive substantial ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed PRTG Network Monitor vs. Plixer Scrutinizer Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

PRTG Network Monitor vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 861,524 peers since 2012

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

Plixer Scrutinizer

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

54th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (11th)

PRTG Network Monitor

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

102

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Plixer Scrutinizer is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 4.2%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Ira Mulyanti

Sales Director at ARGA SOLUSI

An affordable product with great integration capabilities

Plixer Core Platform is a valuable feature and a good software. Plixer Scrutinizer uses NetFlow analysis to monitor whatever is there in a network. Price-wise, Plixer Scrutinizer is not an expensive product. Basically, Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that can integrate with any other brand or product in the market, so it is not an area of concern.

Read full review

Noman-Saleem

Network Support Officer at Habib Metropolitan Bank Ltd

Detects suden changes but significant pricing concerns affect the effectiveness of network traffic troubleshooting

We use PRTG Network Monitor for monitoring traffic on interfaces and the behavior of network traffic. If there are sudden changes in traffic or any configuration issues, we can sort them out using PRTG. It's very helpful for troubleshooting and monitoring traffic utilization on our interfaces…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer are its ease of use, accessibility, and UI."

"The reporting and generating troubleshooting reports would be the best feature; our host-to-host conversation reporting."

"It's agnostic as far as what your network gear is. As long as it supports an sFlow, JFlow, NetFlow, some kind of flow monitoring, Plixer will support it very well."

"There are other tools out there that will do what Scrutinizer does. But what I have found with Scrutinizer is that it does it very quickly. I've taken 25 million individual data fragments from the different sensors, and it has graphed that and mapped it and presented a picture within 30 seconds. It has a very efficient database algorithm that I am really impressed with."

"As a network engineer, the ability to identify what traffic on the link is consuming all the bandwidth at any given time, and provide immediate feedback to the business, is the most valuable feature."

"We didn't experience any bugs."

"It shows us the saturation of the network of devices. It gives us a clear view of the flows in the network to understand, for instance, planning upgrades in the network to get an idea of what's going on the network on traffic flows. It gives us insight, for instance, on what's going on on our VPN Client. There are a lot of things where it provides very helpful information. It also gives us our security reports with quite detailed information on what's going on in the network, and whether there are data exfiltrations and so on."

"The most valuable features of the solution are the ability to track what a device is doing and to go back historically. It is also able to go down to, and identify, very low levels of traffic."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pros

"PRTG Network Monitor helps us quickly and easily discover a large number of sensors, so we can spend minimal time monitoring customer sites."

"The Slack integration is fantastic, and I've actually found it to be very useful recently."

"The remote probes are very useful. They allow us to provide a reference across different areas in the network. In trying to localize issues, that's very useful."

"The solution provides us with needed feedback on our IT infrastructure. It gives us really good quality of service when it comes to monitoring of available space and available resources. It allows us to preempt issues before they become a problem for the business."

"It has made our infrastructure more reliable."

"This solution provides us with the needed feedback on our IT infrastructure. It allows us to grab all the information from a single point of view."

"It is able to satisfy all our requirements in terms of email notifications and specific errors on the devices."

"I can create my own program sensor. This means I can add extra monitoring capabilities into the already fundamentally strong foundation."

More PRTG Network Monitor pros

Cons

"In Plixer Scrutinizer, scalability is an area with minor concerns where improvements are required."

"They're working on the security areas, so it can provide more insight. What they have is still pretty much IP-concentric. If they were to make it IP and URL, they'd be a little bit ahead on that."

"The solution creates a visual map of a particular location and how the network flows. You need to spend time to generate all those maps. If they could figure out a way to reduce the time needed to generate the maps, that would be great."

"For updating the Scrutinizer platform, when we have the actual data, it never happens in one day. Every time we have the data, we are obliged to install a new server in order to integrate the old data, and every time it has a problem. Most of the time, we were obliged to scrap all the data because we couldn't transfer it to the new server. So, it would be very good if they could improve this part."

"From what I understand it is that the solution is not very scalable in a high volume traffic environment with a large number of flows."

"Knowing that they're coming out with a new user interface, that is an area where there is room for improvement. There are so many variables. They should limit the variables in the user interface and create some classes, like "simple," "novice," and "expert" to narrow down the variables within it."

"Data retention needs improvement. Data retention is a thing where we are looking for a better way to collect flow data for a longer time to do forensic research on security incidents. By default, data retention is quite low. We need detailed data in safe storage for a longer time, e.g., for a couple of months. An improvement would be a way to export data into a secure long-term storage."

"There was a price lift because previously the product was privately owned, and now there is some external capital in the organization, so pricing could be lower, though, for Plixer Scrutinizer, there is almost no competition at this price point."

More Plixer Scrutinizer cons

"Their penetration within the market could be much better. If their pricing was lower, even though it's reasonable now, it might help them achieve this."

"PRTG Network Monitor should improve the NetFlow dashboard, there is no flexibility, and the NetFlow is not meeting the business needs. Additionally, they are missing part of the configuration management."

"I wouldn't mind better categories for the sensors. When I go to add a new sensor for a new device, there are some categories in there already, and they can be filtered out, but there's quite a large pool of sensors... When I want to go in and find something quite specific, I have got to scroll down and scroll down to find what I'm actually looking for,"

"The desktop app is the one area where it do with some improvement. From a user's perspective, I would like to be able to get more out of the desktop app as opposed to where we are now with it."

"The inventory of the device should be improved."

"Sometimes, our PRTG Network Monitor system crashes and a lot of sensors go down."

"Maybe in the future there will be room for improvement, but currently, there is nothing pressing that I can think of"

"The technical support from PRTG needs significant improvement."

More PRTG Network Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a recurring maintenance fee after the initial purchase or if we want the license upgrade."

"We pay our one-off cost for the licenses, per device, in blocks of 50. And then we pay an annual maintenance fee of about $15,000 Australian, which is, at this point in time, about $9,000 US, for those 250 devices. The upfront costs for the 250-license use, were about $50,000 Australian, which is about $32,000 US."

"It's about €10,000 a year for initial license and yearly maintenance costs. In addition, the hardware costs are about €10,000 once every five years."

"I rate Plixer Scrutinizer's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price or affordable, and ten is high price or expensive."

"There are no extra costs. It's about $8,000 a year. The bang for the buck (cost) is definitely a plus."

"We recently bought a license upgrade, so we will integrate more exporters. We upgraded from a 25 exporter license to a 50 exporter license. Therefore, there will be more flows, and this will be an extension. I don't know when we will purchase a faster server, because the server that we have is quite new."

"We have increased the license over time. We have added more licenses as the network has grown."

"The license is per device. We have 50 devices."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pricing and cost advice

"The price of PRTG is reasonable. PRTG's competitors like SolarWinds and ManageEngine charge more for the same functionality."

"The pricing for PRTG in our case is reasonable because we have a lot of applications to monitor within PRTG. It is not that expensive."

"The price was pretty good, very competitive."

"The scalability is there, but smaller companies might need CAM software to be able afford the product."

"PRTG Network Monitor is cheap."

"If you are not too sure about it, try the free version. Then, if you like it, you can go to the paid version and roll it out."

"Licenses are very expensive, so I would like to see cheaper licensing."

"The licensing fees are billed annually and there are no costs in addition to this."

More PRTG Network Monitor pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user174738

IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Plixer Scrutinizer?

Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Plixer Scrutinizer?

I rate Plixer Scrutinizer's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price or affordable, and ten is high price or expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Plixer Scrutinizer?

I don't have deep enough knowledge to comment on what requires improvements in Plixer Scrutinizer. In Plixer Scrutinizer, scalability is an area with minor concerns where improvements are required.

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...

See all answers

What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?

The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?

The pricing is in the middle. It's not too high, nor too low, but it's reasonable.

See all answers

Comparisons

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 23% of the time

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 22% of the time

Kentik vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 16% of the time

LogicMonitor vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 12% of the time

ExtraHop Reveal(x) for IT Operations vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 10% of the time

More Plixer Scrutinizer Competitors

Zabbix vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

PRTG Enterprise Monitor vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

LibreNMS vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Centreon vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

More PRTG Network Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer

June 2025

Download Plixer Scrutinizer product report

Buyer's Guide

PRTG Network Monitor

June 2025

Download PRTG Network Monitor product report

Overview

The Scrutinizer incident response system leverages network traffic analytics to provide active monitoring, visualization, and reporting of network and security incidents. The system quickly delivers the rich forensic data needed by IT professionals to support fast and efficient incident response.

Plixer

PRTG Network Monitor runs on a Windows machine within your network, collecting various statistics from the machines, software, and devices which you designate. PRTG comes with an easy-to-use web interface with point-and-click configuration. You can easily share data from it with non-technical colleagues and customers, including via live graphs and custom reports. This will let you plan for network expansion, see what applications are using most of your connection, and make sure that no one is hogging the entire network just to torrent videos.

To monitor a large IT environment, it's important to be able to scale PRTG up. Paessler PRTG Enterprise Monitor includes all the proven capabilities of PRTG Network Monitor, which are enhanced by exclusive ITOps Board for a service-oriented, central overview of multiple PRTG servers.

Paessler GmbH

Sample Customers

Oxford Networks, Squaw Valley Ski Holdings, UltiSat, Wipro, West Aurora School District 129, SUNY Geneseo College, Bloomington Public Schools, First National Bank of Pennsylvania, Kitsap Credit Union, Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County Houston Texas, Carilion Clinic, Banner Health, IDEXX Laboratories, Phibro Animal Health Corporation, Goodwill Industries, Parmalat, Armstrong Coal Company, Flybe, James Walker

Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank

Buyer's Guide

PRTG Network Monitor vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

July 2025

Free Report: PRTG Network Monitor vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

Find out what your peers are saying about PRTG Network Monitor vs. Plixer Scrutinizer and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our PRTG Network Monitor vs. Plixer Scrutinizer report.

See our list of best Network Monitoring Software vendors.

We monitor all Network Monitoring Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.