SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Wireshark comparison

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

"The solution's most valuable feature is its traffic analysis."

"The most valuable feature is the alarm that is set up to trigger based on bandwidth utilization."

"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."

"The most valuable features are the bandwidth analyzer, the monitoring, the network analyzer, it has overall good performance, and an easy deployment."

"It helps us know when a branch is down because it has a graphic presentation of all the locations a node represents."

"It doesn't cost too much."

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

"I use the filters very often, to determine what type of traffic I am looking for. The use of filter allows traffic to be segmented so that a value can be looked at individually apart from the other traffic."

"You can use Wireshark to see the traffic packet format, the IP layers, the fields, and the enabled flags."

"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 transmission and reception issues are valuable."

"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."

"The drill-down available for packet analysis is great. It gives a network security engineer insight into what is going on at the packet level and enables better troubleshooting."

"The filter option provided by Wireshark is its most valuable feature...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"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."

"It can be complex to set up and configure."

"The solution should improve its automation feature. It's quite limited compared to other products."

"The tool itself is very complicated, so training is required to handle it effectively."

"I would like to see better customization capabilities."

"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."

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

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

"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. SolarWinds doesn't have the tools to be able to handle this kind of situation. You can just notice through your network device that the traffic is becoming overwhelming or heavy, but you cannot go inside and get more details related to the endpoint where it is happening. We would like SolarWinds to be able to handle this kind of situation and even manage the traffic inside a network from the endpoint to the network device. These would be good enhancements. It is mostly stable. The problem comes only when we want to add another SolarWinds model. SolarWinds has so many models, and sometimes when we want to add other models on the platforms that are reserved for our firm, it freezes. When this happens, we have to create a new VM for that model."

"Wireshark is restricted when any sort of encryption is involved, such as XSL encryption or DLX."

"I have not used Wireshark to an advanced point where I could provide a detailed opinion on improvements needed."

"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."

"You need good network connectivity to download during the setup, otherwise, it might take a while."

"This product needs to improve the UI."

"The only thing that I don't like is sometimes there is an update, and something that I was using is either no longer there or it has changed."

"Whenever we select one of the packets, in terms of the number of bytes, for example, there are three planes, and in the detailed plane, I have to count the number of bytes manually."

"I would like to see Wireshark improve the ease of application of the command. The command is very powerful, but not easy to apply."

"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."

"The pricing is really good."

"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 solution's licensing is high-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."

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

"The pricing is reasonable."

"The tool is free."

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

"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."

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

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