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SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Wireshark comparison

The compared SolarWinds and Wireshark solutions aren't in the same category. SolarWinds is ranked #4 in NTA , with an average rating of 7.7, and holds a 6.1% mindshare in the category. Wireshark is ranked #4 in NT , with an average rating of 9.2, and holds a 14.3% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Wireshark users who would recommend it.
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...
Read 43 SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer reviews
  • 2,434 Views
  • 876 Comparison Views
83% willing to recommend
Wireshark
Read 63 Wireshark reviews
  • 3,127 Views
  • 1,407 Comparison Views
98% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary
We performed a comparison between SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and Wireshark based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Darktrace, Auvik, Cisco and others in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA).

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To learn more, read our detailed Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Report (Updated: March 2026).
Buyer's Guide
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
March 2026
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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
6.7
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (4th)
Wireshark
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (4th)
 

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 6.1%, up 5.5% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 14.3% mindshare, up 12.9% since last year.
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer6.1%
Darktrace18.0%
Cisco Secure Network Analytics11.2%
Other64.7%
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark14.3%
AirMagnet Survey PRO10.3%
LinkRunner8.1%
Other67.3%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Raja Xabi - PeerSpot reviewer
Raja Xabi
Technical Manager at APRAL
Improved bandwidth management and network visibility have resulted in financial benefits and streamlined operations
There is always room for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, such as implementing instant reporting based on business intelligence reports and more granular filters in their dashboard to improve the GUI view and reporting. The licensing model of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is always an issue for users because competitors offer unlimited and perpetual licenses, and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's model is quite costly compared to other brands. If users are comfortable with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, they have to make the hard decision to invest, and it's suggested from a user's perspective that SolarWinds should improve their financial model and licensing to become competitive, especially for small to medium businesses.
Read full review
DonniUgalde - PeerSpot reviewer
DonniUgalde
Senior I.T. Systems Engineer at Pro Techs MSP
Provides visibility into the network, and the GUI is easy to use
I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated. It would have been easy to hit a drop-down and select a filter. If I only wanted to look at DCP, UDP, or IP, it would be easy to filter it out. Advanced network knowledge is required to get a lot out of the tool. However, it's very easy to install and deploy. It would be nice if there were some handheld Android devices with a Wireshark-specialized application that would allow us to mirror a Cisco port. Then, we can just plug into the port and click the green start button, and it will start ingesting the packet capture. Then, we won’t be using a laptop. The only downside is that we must have a laptop and connect a network cable. Some new laptops don't have network ports, so we have to get another adapter. Having an all-in-one device, like NetAlly or Fluke, and some of their network devices would be cool.
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 are the bandwidth analyzer, the monitoring, the network analyzer, it has overall good performance, and an easy deployment."
"For stability, I would give SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer a rating of ten out of ten."
"This tool provides insights into top utilization applications or it identifies which circuit or application is consuming the most on the complete one-gig circuit traffic path."
"This solution gives us important information about the utilization of protocols, particularly in terms of how often they are used."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its traffic analysis."
"It provides proactive monitoring, rather than waiting for applications to go down due to heavy bandwidth or latency."
"I can point out the exact root cause 'why.' If there is a slowness, I can point out what was before the issue or before the slowness, what it is, and what is now."
"The bandwidth indicates the utilization of the devices; if any issue occurs, it triggers an alert for me."
More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pros
"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"Packet-capture files can be hard to use due to their size. Wireshark has a tool called tshark that can parse the files with out opening them so that you can take large captures, say 2-10GB, and return only relevant information."
"I have found the most valuable feature you can design your sniffer the way you want to."
"The feature to incorporate Voice over IP (VoIP) incidents into network traffic analysis is valuable. Capturing voice or SIP communication allows for examination of interactions between SIP clients and SIP servers. This helps the team investigate or analyze issues related to call center servers and operators."
"If you're dealing with troubleshooting network, voice issues, or network operations, having a tool like Wireshark to dive into packet details is important. The initial setup is straightforward. Anyone starting out or looking to deploy it on your personal PC or machine can do it easily."
"What's best about Wireshark is that it doesn't require installation. It supports cards and monitoring permissions and is sufficient for appending and capturing activities. You won't need to install other tools to use Wireshark, so this saves you time. You can capture packets at any time from your laptop through Wireshark."
"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."
"The session-level filtering features are valuable."
More Wireshark pros
 

Cons

"This solution would benefit from having more security-based communications between the actual devices and the software itself."
"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."
"They should work on the configuration of the Log Analyzer feature."
"An area for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is the dashboarding. The user interface also has room for improvement because it's currently clunky."
"I would like to see better customization capabilities."
"It is a scalable solution, but it is costly to scale. Therefore, I would rate scalability at eight out of ten."
"The pricing is expensive."
"The analysis can utilize algorithms like K-means clustering or associative neural networks for predictions rather than relying on generative AI, which is more suited for text."
More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer cons
"Wireshark could be improved by adding more monitoring features."
"Big trace files (more than 1,000,000 packets) can be slow, but then you can use "TraceWrangler" (also free) to help with slicing and dicing the data."
"We'd like to be able to extract the output into an Excel table."
"I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated."
"The system could be improved upon by adding a better and more powerful data processing engine."
"With Wireshark, you cannot download and utilize the packet in automation."
"Wireshark is restricted when any sort of encryption is involved, such as XSL encryption or DLX."
"Its user interface was a little less friendly. They can make its user interface a little bit more friendly. It is for technical people, and most of the technical people would be able to figure it out, but it would be good to improve its user interface. They can maybe build artificial intelligence into it. Currently, it takes a lot of manpower to analyze and dissect all the data."
More Wireshark cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For our environment, we pay approximately $25,000 USD yearly."
"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably 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."
"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."
"The pricing is really good."
"The solution's licensing is high-priced."
"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."
"The licensing for this solution is based on the number of nodes."
More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pricing and cost advice
"I've never personally had to pay for it, making it a highly valuable internet resource that's accessible for use. While they offer some paid versions, our firm has utilized the free version for the past three years."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
More Wireshark pricing and cost advice
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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
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Healthcare Company
7%
University
6%
University
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise27
 

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...
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?
The licensing model of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is always an issue for users because competitors offer unlimited and perpetual licenses, and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's model i...
See all answers
What needs improvement with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?
Regarding improvement, the application monitoring capabilities are not exceptional. If SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer could improve in that area, it would be helpful. It is less AIOps driven a...
See all answers
What do you like most about Wireshark?
The GUI is easy to use.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Wireshark?
Wireshark is priced at a medium range, not too high, not too low. The pricing could be more flexible, and they might make it more expensive. That said, compared to other products, it is competitive.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Wireshark?
The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance. Performance can sometimes be a challenge due to numerous factors.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Compared 8% of the time
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Darktrace vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
Compared 7% of the time
Nagios Network Analyzer vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Logo
Nagios Network Analyzer vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
Compared 5% of the time
Plixer Scrutinizer vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Logo
Plixer Scrutinizer vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
Compared 5% of the time
ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Logo
ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
Compared 5% of the time
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Microsoft Network Monitor vs Wireshark Logo
Microsoft Network Monitor vs Wireshark
Compared 10% of the time
SolarWinds NPM vs Wireshark Logo
SolarWinds NPM vs Wireshark
Compared 9% of the time
Colasoft Capsa vs Wireshark Logo
Colasoft Capsa vs Wireshark
Compared 7% of the time
AirMagnet Survey PRO vs Wireshark Logo
AirMagnet Survey PRO vs Wireshark
Compared 7% of the time
ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer vs Wireshark Logo
ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer vs Wireshark
Compared 5% of the time
More Wireshark Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
February 2026
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer reportDownload SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer product report
Buyer's Guide
Wireshark
February 2026
Wireshark reportDownload Wireshark product report
 

Also Known As

Netflow Traffic Analyzer
No data available
 

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.
SolarWinds
Wireshark is the world's foremost network protocol analyzer.
Wireshark
 

Sample Customers

Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
Buyer's Guide
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
March 2026
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