Plixer Scrutinizer vs Zabbix comparison

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Plixer Scrutinizer

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Zabbix and Plixer Scrutinizer compete in the network monitoring solutions category. Zabbix appears to have the upper hand in overall feature set due to its comprehensive monitoring capabilities, while Plixer Scrutinizer is stronger in network traffic analysis.

Features: Zabbix is known for its automated network discovery, SMS alerts, and customizable dashboards, integrating with tools like Grafana. Plixer Scrutinizer is distinguished by NetFlow analysis, real-time network insights, and traffic data visualization.

Room for Improvement: Zabbix could enhance reporting, expand predictive analytics, and improve UI ease-of-use for non-technical staff. Plixer Scrutinizer can work on update processes, increase scalability, and improve configuration complexity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zabbix offers flexible deployments across different environments with a supportive open-source community and professional support options. Plixer Scrutinizer is noted for its straightforward on-premises setup but may require additional customer support investment.

Pricing and ROI: Zabbix's open-source approach eliminates licensing fees, providing significant savings. Plixer Scrutinizer has tiered pricing based on device and network flows, offering competitive pricing for its network-focused capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Plixer Scrutinizer vs. Zabbix Report (Updated: March 2025).

Plixer Scrutinizer vs. Zabbix

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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

Plixer Scrutinizer

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

57th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)

Zabbix

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

105

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (8th), Server Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 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 Zabbix is 12.6%, up from 11.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Ronald Jansen

Owner/President at Abraxax

Reporting is extensive, flexible, and can be custom-made in just a short time

In terms of additional features I'd like to see in the next release of Plixer Scrutinizer, I can't think of any because you can do some integration with other monitoring tools that are not strong in NetFlow or don't have NetFlow at all. There are also some integration possibilities in the product, plus there are alerts, too. Plixer Scrutinizer is a pretty complete product. 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.

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ASM Naushad Alam

Network Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes

We have not yet purchased the commercial version so have a lack of technical ability. We do not yet fully know the key points or key features of the solution. We just use what we use along with WhatsUp Gold. Based on our use only, stability is rated a seven out of ten.

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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

"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."

"One of the most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer is the reporting, particularly how easy it is to drill down into the reports. Another valuable feature of the solution is its overall visibility. It's great. I also liked Plixer Scrutinizer in terms of deployment time and that it's very simple to set up. Once you get the appliance set up and connected, the customer starts to see results immediately, versus other solutions where that could take a while."

"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."

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

"It helps us determine what is going on with our Internet and who is hogging it all up. If we get a real high throughput or a throughput that's going over and getting dropped fairly quickly, we can tell who (or what device) is consuming that traffic."

"The ability to view the status of the top-10 at a glance is helpful. We immediately know which link is over-utilized or heavily used... and it's all in real-time."

"We didn't experience any bugs."

"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."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pros

"The best feature is that Zabbix can report everything, and everything in Zabbix is free."

"Like other common Linux distributions, some of the most valuable features of this solution are the ease of use and deployment. It's simple and has a lot of packages and a lot of software."

"The flexibility of this solution is amazing."

"The solution allows you to configure and customize how you want to collect information from servers or other systems."

"We have found that Zabbix is more easy to use than other applications."

"The pricing of the product is reasonable."

"The most valuable features are the monitoring and the ease with which we can set it up at customer sites with our custom Zabbix proxy and tools."

"Zabbix can use old data to current data to set the threshold. We can use previous data to set the threshold."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"It would be useful if there was a way to back up the configuration information. E.g., if you wanted to deploy a new instance or disaster recovery, you could quite easily deploy and restore the config, as opposed to having to restore all the NetFlow data. If there was just a button that said "backup config information", that would be good."

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

"I wish the reporting side was easier to work with, but it does a decent job. I also wish the reporting side was a little more intuitive or they offered more reporting examples."

"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."

"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."

"We couldn't get it set up properly."

"There is room for improvement around the data that they have on the website about solutions... they should have more templated solutions on their website. Going out and identifying how to do RTP performance with a Cisco router, or how to do application response times in an Arrista data center deployment was where most of the work was... They should spend some more time documenting solutions and putting together white papers."

"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."

More Plixer Scrutinizer cons

"I want Zabbix to improve the UX/UI. Zabbix doesn't use a JavaScript chart for images, and I want them to improve this."

"The reporting features need improvement, especially detailed inventory reporting. Since it's freeware, reporting may not be a major focus."

"The integration of the product is not so easy, especially when it comes to the application database."

"I'm using the free version of Zabbix, and I'd like to see more customization options, especially for setting trigger thresholds."

"We would like to see the addition of automatic push functionality to this product. This would save time when monitoring our servers and networks as, at present, we have to manually install the Zabbix agent on any hardware to be monitored."

"I think the reporting part of Zabbix can be improved in terms of more user-friendly graphics to display the collected data. Many simple users who don't know how to use Zabbix properly might get confused by the reporting, although at the same time it is very versatile for my company."

"There are not too much documentation or manuals. We found the tutorials very easy to understand but do not go deep enough in the use of Zabbix. We need more manuals, proper use, documentation, etc."

"In terms of user-friendliness, large maps could be more interactive. We should be able to click on some areas and move some objects. It would make it simpler to see things while analyzing some dedicated parameters."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our entire solution, amortized over five years, is in the vicinity of $40,000 to $50,000 a year."

"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."

"We just renewed. The pricing is 5,000 euro per year. This is the final price. All tax (20 percent) is included."

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

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

"Compared to some of the other tools we have, it's incredibly reasonably priced."

"Currently, the license for Plixer Scrutinizer is subscription-based and at a yearly fee. The price would depend on the amount of traffic you pull in. For example, there are several blocks from a 10K flow, a 40K flow, and a 100K flow, and based on the number of devices that you receive the flows from, that's the license, and it is not a per-interface pricing model, so that is a very strong, very competitive pricing feature of Plixer Scrutinizer. Licensing for the product is also not based on the number of storage, compared to some competing products that are priced based on the amount of storage you need, particularly based on the retention and the amount of data. Plixer Scrutinizer licensing is based on the device, and it's more in the direction of $10,000 because, with just $1,000, you don't have anything."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pricing and cost advice

"My manager is very happy because it doesn't cost anything."

"There are no licenses."

"This solution is open-source and free to use."

"It is free, which allows us to reduce costs."

"It is a true open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."

"It's free software released under the GNU/GPL license."

"This is an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"Zabbix is a free solution but the support contact costs money."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

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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

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Educational Organization

37%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

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.

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.

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.

What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

The cost is minimal. It is literally free.

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

For me, Zabbix is very straightforward. I cannot think of any improvements needed. It's a very mature product. The only issue I can note is that it's Linux-based, and Linux documentation is not the...

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Plixer Scrutinizer

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Product Reports

Plixer Scrutinizer

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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

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

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

1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba

Plixer Scrutinizer vs. Zabbix