SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Wireshark comparison

"It provides proactive monitoring, rather than waiting for applications to go down due to heavy bandwidth or latency."

"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."

"What the network team found most valuable in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is that it helps them to troubleshoot or analyze the issue. For example, traffic that comes from our location: India, goes to the US, so for the network team to analyze where the traffic comes from and where it is directed, and whether the packets are being dropped, they use SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. The network team also likes that through the solution, they can analyze the complete traffic utilization and how they're going to use it. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is user-friendly. The team finds it comfortable to use."

"The dashboard alerts me when a critical device goes off the network."

"The program is scalable enough for our usage."

"The initial setup was straightforward."

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

"With SolarWinds, we are now able to accurately gauge bandwidth consumption."

"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."

"Wireshark's best feature is that it's adaptive, which means it's the go-to tool for network-related developers."

"Wireshark is very user-friendly; even someone with basic IT knowledge can use it."

"I like the filtering feature as we can filter data easily. This feature is also available in tcpdump, but it's a simple piece of software. Wireshark is more advanced and has many features. It allows you to filter a lot of things. The output can be filtered easily. The most important feature is colorization. If I say, "Okay, this particular SMB protocol in red, it will show me red." It's easy to identify that protocol or capture data."

"I have found the most valuable feature you can design your sniffer the way you want to."

"The transmission and reception issues are valuable."

"It has a good syntax to put the commands in and get information out of."

"The best part about Wireshark, in my opinion, is its ability to analyze packet capture files."

"Customer Support is quite complex."

"The licensing should be more realistic so that we can adjust the number of nodes according to my needs, rather than in fixed increments."

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

"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."

"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."

"They should work on the configuration of the Log Analyzer feature."

"This solution would benefit from having more security-based communications between the actual devices and the software itself."

"NTA's documentation for the implementation phase needs some enhancement."

"I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated."

"There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain."

"Sometimes I need to use tcpdump when I need to check the packets on CLI."

"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."

"The initial setup depends upon the basics. You need to have a clear understanding of the basics."

"DNS could be improved."

"The system could be improved upon by adding a better and more powerful data processing engine."

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

"The licensing for this solution is based on the number of nodes."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"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."

"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."

"While the pricing is fair, it could be better."

"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."

"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'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 are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."

"We're using the free version of Wireshark."

"The tool is free."

"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."

"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."

"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."

"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."