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SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Wireshark 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
6.7
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (4th)
Wireshark
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (2nd)
 

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 6.5%, up 5.2% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 18.4% mindshare, up 14.3% since last year.
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer6.5%
Darktrace15.7%
Cisco Secure Network Analytics9.0%
Other68.8%
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark18.4%
AirMagnet Survey PRO9.1%
DX Spectrum7.0%
Other65.5%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

RK
Manager Observability at ICE
Comprehensive monitoring is effective with attention to proactive alerting
The dashboards of the NTA module are very interactive and precise. It provides detailed information with drill-down facility. We can check issues from a subnet to a particular location, to a specific website. To that level, we can drill down in the dashboard. The dashboard output is good, and we can create modern dashboards. We can leverage the SolarWinds Query Language (SWQL), which is an out-of-the-box SolarWinds language to create modern dashboards. The dashboard features I personally appreciate the most in the SolarWinds module. Regarding alerting, it has many out-of-the-box alerts configured, such as device down, SNMP not responding, CPU or memory usage. These alerts can be customized as per requirements. It has excellent alerting features and reporting capabilities. We can create reports based upon alerts or events. Many out-of-the-box reports are present in SolarWinds which we can leverage. For alerts, the dashboards are excellent, allowing us to segregate alerts based upon groups, location, or specific device type. These options are available within SolarWinds, and we can customize them as per requirements. It provides proactive monitoring, rather than waiting for applications to go down due to heavy bandwidth or latency. We can identify issues ahead of time and resolve them before they become critical situations. This module is particularly helpful in identifying issues before they turn into significant problems.
reviewer2837244 - PeerSpot reviewer
It System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Packet analysis has improved real-time troubleshooting and simplifies mapping complex data flows
The best features that Wireshark offers are everything. Every time I look into Wireshark, I find something new. The ability to capture real-time packets and understand how the packet is working and moving through how many hops and to how many points it reaches makes it a wonderful tool. The specific feature I use most is capturing packets of real-time communication and seeing how the packet is working. I rely on all the filters it has to check the protocols and see the communication between one end and another end and what the hops in between are, and if there is a proxy, how it behaves. Everything helps us check out the issue and troubleshoot it. I do not have anything additional to add about the features; everything looks really fine. The graphics are also good, and you can change its graphical features, making it a pretty nice tool. You can also use it with the PCAP file, which is really nice. Wireshark has positively impacted my organization by giving us the ability to capture packets and see into the network how it is working and what we can clarify about the network, specifically how we can remove many hops in the communication channels. A specific example of a measurable outcome is that we have a few switches in our network that, when we use Wireshark analysis, we find should not be needed or can be replaced with automatic switches instead of manual switches, such as switches which do not have any active features and only passive switches. That has saved us a lot of time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The dashboard alerts me when a critical device goes off the network."
"The monitoring is perfect, showing you the details for the utilization of resources and network bandwidth."
"The program is scalable enough for our usage."
"The support is excellent."
"The bandwidth indicates the utilization of the devices; if any issue occurs, it triggers an alert for me."
"The integration with other SolarWinds products is good."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its traffic analysis."
"I like the solution because it has good documentation and training online."
"It gives us the ability to pinpoint problems and to communicate network problems with software and hardware vendors."
"Wireshark is more advanced and has many features."
"Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature. Such a feature is pretty helpful for an ongoing forensic investigation or when there is a potential insider threat that you are trying to investigate. It allows you to see the network activity of the users you are investigating. It also gives you more visibility into your network. It was very easy to set up. There is a lot of information out there on Google and YouTube about how to use it. There is also community support. If you have any trouble, it is pretty easy to find an answer online. You will have to do some digging only if you have a very specific use case."
"The best network analyzer tool out there in the market."
"It's easy to troubleshoot issues because there's a large online community."
"The best thing about Wireshark is the community/ecosystem."
"Wireshark's best feature is that it's adaptive, which means it's the go-to tool for network-related developers, as when the new protocol comes up, it's rapidly applied to the system, so I can just look into the packet."
"It has a good syntax to put the commands in and get information out of."
 

Cons

"Technical support is fine but they need to improve their response time."
"The tool itself is very complicated, so training is required to handle it effectively."
"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."
"If your network is on SolarWinds, and you notice that the traffic is bad because it says "user downloading a heavy file," it doesn't indicate which endpoint is downloading those heavy files."
"Deployment needs improvement. The process is complicated, requiring attention to infrastructure settings and installation of components like the origin application server, platform, close storage, and policy agents."
"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."
"One area that we struggle with is the price. Because the price of this solution is so high, we are largely unable to introduce it into the local market, and only the banking sector has the means to afford it."
"NTA's documentation for the implementation phase needs some enhancement."
"The product is great but I wish there were more of an emphasis on the command line tools."
"It is difficult to scale this solution."
"Wireshark is similar to an OS defense tool, meaning that it runs on an OS such as Ubuntu and Fedora, but I'm unsure if it's compatible with Windows or if it's a straightforward process to run it on Windows. Right now, my team needs to run Wireshark from a dongle to use it, so it's an OS-dependable tool, and that's an area for improvement. I was unable to use Wireshark on Windows, and I couldn't capture it, as I'm unsure how to configure the wireless card into monitoring mode on Windows. The process was straightforward on Linux, but it wasn't the case on Windows OS. It seems Wireshark isn't compatible with all OS. For example, you can analyze the log, and you can analyze it on the Windows server, but you can't do a capture in Windows. Configuring Wireshark for Windows isn't as easy as configuring it for Linux."
"DNS could be improved."
"Great scalability, but they are beginning to sacrifice ease of use for complexity."
"In the future, it would be nice to see color coding. It is just black and white."
"I was unable to use Wireshark on Windows, and I couldn't capture it, as I'm unsure how to configure the wireless card into monitoring mode on Windows."
"Wireshark does not allow you to make any changes relevant to the network; in other words, you can only observe the network."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I don't have information on the licensing cost for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer because it's bundled with another SolarWinds solution. My organization has seven different models and pays for the license yearly. My organization also had to deploy additional pollers, but the cost wasn't very expensive, though I can't give the exact numbers."
"The licensing for this solution is based on the number of nodes."
"The pricing is really good."
"For our environment, we pay approximately $25,000 USD yearly."
"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The solution's licensing is high-priced."
"It is an open-source solution."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"It is free."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Healthcare Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
University
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 Enterprise29
 

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 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...
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...
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.
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.
What is your primary use case for Wireshark?
We are using Wireshark for inspecting the vertical line to know the data flow in and out of the cables. This is to determine if there is real traffic flow through the physical connections or not. A...
 

Also Known As

Netflow Traffic Analyzer
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
Find out what your peers are saying about Darktrace, Auvik, Cisco and others in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA). Updated: May 2026.
896,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.