SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Vectra AI comparison

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and Vectra AI based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs. Vectra AI Report (Updated: May 2024).

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs. Vectra AI

May 2024

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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

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (5th)

Vectra AI

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (2nd), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (2nd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (9th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (5th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (5th)

Mindshare comparison

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and Vectra AI aren’t in the same category and 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.
Vectra AI, on the other hand, focuses on Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS), holds 11.9% mindshare, up 9.9% since last year.

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)

Featured Reviews

Dr. SureshHungenahally

Chief Executive Officer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

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.

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Mohammad Alkurdi

Owner at Fortibits

Innovative detection features enhance monitoring

The advantages of the integration are not entirely out-of-the-box. You have to do it manually. When I'm doing tier response, an out-of-the-box solution is not available. You need to have a Linux server, and from the Linux server, you must perform AI tasks, and there is a lot to be handled in the back end. This is a major consideration about them. The recall feature, if it can be placed in some areas instead of the cloud, and charged for, would be better. Recall the storage where you watch all the traffic, and you can recall it and try to analyze it in the back end. It’s cloud-based. If they offer it on-prem, it would be better. I think they have a solution, but I have never tested it, to be honest with you.

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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

"The most helpful feature of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is bandwidth analysis, which lets you see who's hogging your network."

"This solution gives us important information about the utilization of protocols, particularly in terms of how often they are used."

"It doesn't cost too much."

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

"The program is scalable enough for our usage."

"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."

"As it offers enterprise solutions, it has all the essential features for business."

"It is great at telling you if your devices are working and it keeps an eye on your network's overall performance."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pros

"The solution is currently used as a central threat detection and response system."

"Vectra AI helped our team be more productive and save time. We have less work thanks to it."

"Scalability wise, we have many sensors, and Vectra AI seems to handle them all very well."

"It provides various dashboards that facilitate the identification of connections and can detect data exfiltration, meaning data sent from your environment to another."

"What I like best about Vectra AI is that it alerts you about suspicious activities."

"Most of their use cases, including deployment, are managed by the tool itself, requiring less manual input from our team."

"I like the way that Vectra AI focuses on the internal network. Nowadays, most of the attackers are already inside, and they can be inside for many years before they start attacking. With normal monitoring, it's quite difficult to find them."

"The dashboard gives me a scoring system that allows me to prioritize things that I should look at. I may not necessarily care so much about one event, whereas if I have a single botnet detection or a brute force attack, I really want to get on top of those."

More Vectra AI pros

Cons

"It does not flow. It cannot do our metric performance monitoring. So it is very limited. They can do it but in a very limited fashion. It is only good for SNMP-based alerts."

"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."

"I'm expecting to see a little bit more artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. They need a bit more sophistication in that."

"Technical support could be improved with quicker response times."

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

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

"The price of the solution is a bit high for our clients. They should consider adjusting their price model."

"It's scalable, but it could be simplified because it's not completely easy."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer cons

"One thing which I have found where there could be improvement is with regard to the architecture, a little bit: how the brains and sensors function. It needs more flexibility with regard to the brain. If there were some flexibility in that regard, that would be helpful, because changing the mode of the brain is complex. In some cases, the change is permanent. You cannot revert it."

"You are always limited with visibility on the host due to the fact that it is a network based tool. It gives you visibility on certain elements of the attack path, but it doesn't necessarily give you visibility on everything. Specifically, the initial intrusion side of things that doesn't necessarily see the initial compromise. It doesn't see stuff that goes on the host, such as where scripts are run. Even though you are seeing traffic, it doesn't necessarily see the malicious payload. Therefore, it's very difficult for it to identify these type of host-driven complex attacks."

"In education as a sector, we are looking at AI a lot in terms of how it can be used as part of the teaching and learning side of things. It would be great to have Vectra AI look at a better way to enhance the security posture related to the AI tools in our portfolio."

"We are using SMB 3.0, which is an encrypted protocol. When we get some alerts or something, we cannot go deep into the protocol to see what's wrong because it's encrypted. We need to decrypt the protocol in another way, which is quite difficult. We might go back to SMB 2.0 just for this reason, but that's not a good solution."

"It would be commercially beneficial if Vectra AI had something like Darktrace's Antigena Email or something similar to email protection."

"We have had a few issues with the integration of Vectra AI with EDR. Some filters have not been working. We've also had issues with the brain not being powerful enough."

"Vectra Recall could be utilized much more, and I'm seeing some indications of that today with the investigative components. I use the Visualize feature to visualize components and dashboards a lot. I'm interested in new ways to build automated searches or having them leveraged already from Vectra."

"There could be an option where Vectra manages the solution remotely, and when there is an attack, there could be a notification center to give us information about the attack."

More Vectra AI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."

"The pricing is really good."

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

"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."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"The solution's licensing is high-priced."

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

"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."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pricing and cost advice

"Cost is a big factor, as always. However, I think we have a very good price–performance ratio."

"Its cost is too much. It's an investment that we can afford. It's a lot, but it's worth it."

"Vectra is a bit on the higher side in terms of price, but they have always been transparent. The reason that they are this good is that they invest, so they need to charge accordingly."

"The solution's pricing was 50 percent lower than the other vendors shortlisted."

"It's relatively on the pricier side, but when compared to other solutions. It's not the most budget-friendly option, but it can be considered somewhat more cost-effective in comparison to other alternatives."

"Their licensing model is antiquated. I'm not a fan of their licensing model. We have to pay for licensing based on four different things. You have to pay based on the number of unique IPs, the number of logs that we send through Recall and Stream, and the size of our environment. They need to simplify their licensing down to just one thing. It should be based on the amount of data, the number of devices, or something else, but there should be just one thing for everything. That's what they need to base their licensing on. Cost-wise, they're not cheap. They were definitely the most expensive option, but you get what you pay for. They're not the cheapest option."

"We have a desire to increase our use. However, it all comes down to budget. It's a very expensive tool that is very difficult to prove business support for. We would like to have two separate networks. We have our corporate network and PCI network, which is segregated due to payment processing. We don't have it for deployed in the PCI network. It would be good to have it fully deployed there to provide us with additional monitoring and control, but the cost associated with their licensing model makes it prohibitively expensive to deploy."

"Vectra AI's pricing is cheaper than that of Darktrace."

More Vectra AI pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

71%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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 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 ...

What do you like most about Vectra AI?

The solution is currently used as a central threat detection and response system.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vectra AI?

Vectra is cheaper in terms of pricing and features compared to Darktrace.

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Comparisons

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 7% of the time

LiveAction LiveNX vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 3% of the time

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Compared 35% of the time

ExtraHop Reveal(x) vs Vectra AI

Compared 12% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Vectra AI

Compared 6% of the time

Arista NDR vs Vectra AI

Compared 5% of the time

Corelight vs Vectra AI

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

December 2024

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer report

Download SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer product report

Download Vectra AI product report

December 2024

Also Known As

Netflow Traffic Analyzer

Vectra Networks, Vectra AI NDR

Learn More

SolarWinds

Overview

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.

Vectra AI is used for detecting network anomalies and potential malicious activities, providing visibility into network traffic and enhancing threat detection across environments.

Organizations deploy Vectra AI mainly on-premises with additional cloud components. It helps with compliance, incident response, security monitoring, detecting insider threats, and correlating network events. Vectra AI captures and enriches network metadata, provides detailed dashboards, reduces false positives, and supports cross-environment behavioral analysis to enhance threat detection and prioritization. While valued for its high accuracy and alert aggregation, it has room for improvement in UI/UX, packet management, and integration with SIEMs and other tools. It is noted for expensive pricing and limited proactive threat response features.

What are Vectra AI's most valuable features?

High accuracy in identifying threat locations
Aggregation of alerts into single incidents
24/7 threat detection
Visibility into the entire attack lifecycle
Risk score aggregation
Effective triaging of alerts
Integration with other tools

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Enhanced threat detection and prioritization
Comprehensive network visibility
Reduction in false positives
Better incident response capabilities
Improved compliance monitoring

In specific industries, Vectra AI is deployed to monitor complex networks and alleviate challenges in threat detection. It is particularly effective in sectors requiring stringent compliance and security measures, offering insights and capabilities crucial for protecting sensitive data and maintaining operational integrity.

Sample Customers

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

Tribune Media Group, Barry University, Aruba Networks, Good Technology, Riverbed, Santa Clara University, Securities Exchange, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association