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SolarWinds NPM vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (5th)
SolarWinds NPM
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
157
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (4th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is designed for Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) and holds a mindshare of 7.7%, down 10.3% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NPM, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 5.2% mindshare, down 6.1% since last year.
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Dr. SureshHungenahally - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for capacity planning and handles a variety of protocols with easy setup
We conduct network traffic analysis for a couple of key reasons. First, we look for traffic anomalies, such as unexpected increases or decreases in network traffic within specific segments. This helps us determine if the network needs to be re-architected. We also analyze peak bandwidth and bandwidth consumption across various network segments, which is crucial if someone is planning to transition to software-defined networks. The network traffic analyzer tool allows us to simulate scenarios and compare before-and-after results. Additionally, it supports traffic sources like NetFlow and SFlow, and we regularly check the quality of service using NetFlow. The tool handles a variety of protocols, such as NetFlow version 5 and version 9, JFlow, and SFlow, making it independent of the underlying technology.
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

"It allows us to pinpoint which protocol is overloading the link."
"The performance analysis is a valuable feature. With the performance analyzer, we can see the realtime monitoring, the realtime performance, and historical performance on specific components like virtualization storage, CPU, servers and network equipment."
"For managing the traffic, it provides you a response about whether the traffic is down, up, or heavy, which is a very powerful feature. It has a good response time. We have been using this solution for many years, and we don't have any problem with this solution."
"The most helpful feature of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is bandwidth analysis, which lets you see who's hogging your network."
"The most valuable features are the bandwidth analyzer, the monitoring, the network analyzer, it has overall good performance, and an easy deployment."
"The software management tools are very useful for our customers."
"The monitoring is perfect, showing you the details for the utilization of resources and network bandwidth."
"The most valuable feature is the alarm that is set up to trigger based on bandwidth utilization."
"SolarWinds' network and server application monitoring features are strong."
"This has helped us to monitor the availability of our routers, switches, servers, and virtual environments."
"From web interfaces to custom monitors and alarms, this product has a high level of flexibility that can be molded to suit your business needs, regardless of the size of your organization."
"I love the GUI. Almost everything is accessible through the web interface. It is very user-friendly. It is easy to drag and drop resources wherever you want them."
"The solution is user-friendly and has many options for customized monitoring that other tools don't have."
"SolarWinds NPM provides an overview of network monitoring, extending its capabilities to cover other aspects, such as virtual machines and servers. The platform has features like NetPath, which is particularly beneficial for end-users, offering insights into issues like latency, packet loss, and connectivity problems with routers, switches, or servers."
"As we look to add more servers to our virtual environment and to understand the impact, the solution allows us to dig into the historical charts related to capacity planning."
"It's a very good tool and a very stable tool."
 

Cons

"The pricing is expensive."
"An area for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is application visibility because some applications aren't being recognized correctly. You can see applications such as Facebook and YouTube, but SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer needs to have more visibility into more applications. Currently, SolarWinds fails to detect more powerful applications, such as Zoom and Teams. If SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer can recognize every application and be able to report on each in terms of bandwidth, then that would be good. This is what I'd like to see in the next release of the solution."
"It is very slow to pick the dynamics of the network."
"Technical support could be improved with quicker response times."
"Customer Support is quite complex."
"It's not a cheap product, so the pricing could be improved."
"I would like to see better customization capabilities."
"They should work on the configuration of the Log Analyzer feature."
"SolarWinds NPM offers limited customization options. Users and developers may find restrictions in modifying or customizing the dashboard and adjusting monitoring features such as polling intervals or SLAs for different nodes."
"If they’re going for a “cover everything” approach, then they need to do so and enable a bit more of the "cover everything approach" within every one of the tools."
"I would like to have a Syslog server module for this product. That would make the solution better."
"The reporting is good, but I want it to be a little easier when creating custom reports. The reports are all on the website now, but it takes some know how to get some to display the way you would like."
"An area for improvement would be the use of modular licenses, which are not practical for big clients."
"The dashboard of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"The price could be better."
"The solution does not offer much customization so is somewhat inflexible."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay yearly, and we are happy with its price."
"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."
"The price of this solution is exceptional."
"While the pricing is fair, it could be better."
"The pricing is really good."
"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."
"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."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
"When I compare the cost of CA Spectrum to that of SolarWinds NPM, the cost of CA Spectrum is way too high, and the cost of SolarWinds NPM is pretty low."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"We have a perpetual license for this solution, and my impression is that this solution is cheap."
"Price could be improved on"
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
"I’d suggest that people be aware that licensing has tiers."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) solutions are best for your needs.
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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
Educational Organization
71%
Computer Software Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Government
2%
Educational Organization
58%
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 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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?
The product is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing as one out of ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer could improve its flexibility and integration with AI to provide analytics beyond just showing up/down statuses and traffic volumes.
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

Netflow Traffic Analyzer
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds NPM vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and other solutions. Updated: September 2020.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.