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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

"I like that it is able to monitor multiple devices and it's vendor-agnostic."
"What people found most valuable in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is its report customization feature."
"The support is excellent."
"It doesn't cost too much."
"The most helpful feature of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is bandwidth analysis, which lets you see who's hogging your network."
"We were previously using Zabbix, we also looked at alternative products such as Nagios, but SolarWinds was actually decided on only because it's got a lovely graphical interface, it's easy to use, has powerful reporting features, and excellent support."
"The performance analysis is a valuable feature, and 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."
"The most valuable features are the bandwidth analyzer, the monitoring, the network analyzer, it has overall good performance, and an easy deployment."
"Wireshark saves a lot of time, especially with network troubleshooting."
"Wireshark is very user-friendly; even someone with basic IT knowledge can use it."
"Wireshark is incredibly powerful, user-friendly, and a free tool, which is capable of live capture and offline analysis of traffic on any size network."
"I find Wireshark a very useful tool. Its best feature is that it allows me to deeply understand what's going on at the packet level, as well as any adverse signatures that I can analyze. When I need to create an IPS rule, I need to check the traffic deeply to get more insights about the actual traffic, what's the name of certain flags, etc., and I'm able to do all that through Wireshark. The tool is also user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature is the traffic gate, which shows which IPs are getting more bandwidth or traffic."
"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."
"Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature."
"Wireshark is a network analytic tool which provides such intelligent information in a network."
 

Cons

"I wouldn't recommend SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer to others, unless pricing is lowered."
"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."
"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."
"An area for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is application visibility because some applications aren't being recognized correctly."
"One thing I have noticed is that it is very slow to pick the dynamics of the network, so that is something that could be improved."
"It's not a cheap product, so the pricing could be improved."
"They should work on the configuration of the Log Analyzer feature."
"NTA's documentation for the implementation phase needs some enhancement."
"I would like better control of bandwidth from the service provider."
"One con is that this software is only an observer, not an interactive component of the network, meaning you cant change anything with it."
"Its user interface was a little less friendly. They can make its user interface a little bit more friendly."
"Great scalability, but they are beginning to sacrifice ease of use for complexity."
"Wireshark could make the filtering rules easier to apply and offer a drag-and-drop option as opposed to type and text."
"It is difficult to scale this solution."
"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."
"Bigger memory footprint."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"While the pricing is fair, it could be better."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The price of this solution is exceptional."
"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."
"We pay yearly, and we are happy with its price."
"The licensing for this solution is based on the number of nodes."
"We have licenses for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. In terms of pricing, its license is not that expensive versus other tools such as HP."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
"It is free."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"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."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."
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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.