SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Wireshark comparison

"What I like about SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is that it's useful for analyzing traffic. It also has an application visibility feature that lets you control applications."

"What my organization likes best about SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is its easy deployment. It's also well-integrated in terms of monitoring because my organization also uses a SolarWinds solution for monitoring. You can connect SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer directly to that monitoring tool to get information. My organization also finds the default graphs that appear before the configuration in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer very useful."

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

"The program is scalable enough for our usage."

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

"What I like the most is the bandwidth assessment."

"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."

"I find this tool very helpful in identifying the top traffic paths from source to destination, and determining which routes are consuming the most resources."

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

"The product is simple to implement."

"The session-level filtering features are valuable."

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

"The initial setup is simple."

"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."

"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."

"The GUI is easy to use."

"There are some areas for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. There are some challenges with the solution when compared to other monitoring tools such as difficulty in operations and difficulty with backup installation. My team is currently trying out different solutions but would need to see how it goes."

"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."

"It is very slow to pick the dynamics of the network."

"It's not a cheap product, so the pricing could be improved."

"There is room for improvement when it comes to the traffic generated by the analyzer and the analysis of that traffic."

"Currently, it shows only the top ten applications or ports in use, while the remaining data appears as 'remaining traffic,' causing confusion."

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

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

"The solution’s user interface could be improved."

"Wireshark could make the filtering rules easier to apply and offer a drag-and-drop option as opposed to type and text."

"Wireshark could be improved with a delay option when getting data automatically."

"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."

"The product is great but I wish there were more of an emphasis on the command line tools."

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

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

"This product needs to improve the UI."

"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."

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

"The pricing is really good."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"We pay yearly, and we are happy with its price."

"The tool is free."

"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."

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

"It is an open-source solution."

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

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

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