SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Wireshark comparison

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Read 63 Wireshark reviews

2,723 Views
1,116 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and Wireshark based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Darktrace, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA).

To learn more, read our detailed Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Report (Updated: January 2026).

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

Download the complete report

Helped 881,665 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (3rd)

Wireshark

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Troubleshooting (4th)

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 5.8%, up 5.4% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 12.3% mindshare, down 13.1% since last year.

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer	5.8%
Darktrace	17.9%
Cisco Secure Network Analytics	10.5%
Other	65.8%

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

Network Troubleshooting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Wireshark	12.3%
AirMagnet Survey PRO	10.0%
LinkRunner	9.4%
Other	68.3%

Network Troubleshooting

Featured Reviews

Raja Xabi

Technical Manager at APRAL

Improved bandwidth management and network visibility have resulted in financial benefits and streamlined operations

There is always room for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, such as implementing instant reporting based on business intelligence reports and more granular filters in their dashboard to improve the GUI view and reporting. 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. If users are comfortable with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, they have to make the hard decision to invest, and it's suggested from a user's perspective that SolarWinds should improve their financial model and licensing to become competitive, especially for small to medium businesses.

Read full review

DonniUgalde

Senior I.T. Systems Engineer at Pro Techs MSP

Provides visibility into the network, and the GUI is easy to use

I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated. It would have been easy to hit a drop-down and select a filter. If I only wanted to look at DCP, UDP, or IP, it would be easy to filter it out. Advanced network knowledge is required to get a lot out of the tool. However, it's very easy to install and deploy. It would be nice if there were some handheld Android devices with a Wireshark-specialized application that would allow us to mirror a Cisco port. Then, we can just plug into the port and click the green start button, and it will start ingesting the packet capture. Then, we won’t be using a laptop. The only downside is that we must have a laptop and connect a network cable. Some new laptops don't have network ports, so we have to get another adapter. Having an all-in-one device, like NetAlly or Fluke, and some of their network devices would be cool.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

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

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

"It doesn't cost too much."

"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."

"The performance analysis is a valuable feature. 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."

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

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pros

"It gives us the ability to pinpoint problems and to communicate network problems with software and hardware vendors."

"The solution is easy to install and use."

"The most valuable feature of Wireshark is the ability to choose a destination of flow that has not been working as expected."

"The initial setup is simple."

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

"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."

"The product is simple to implement."

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

More Wireshark pros

Cons

"I would like to see more artificial intelligence capabilities."

"It does not flow. It cannot do our metric performance monitoring. So it is very limited. They can do it but in a very limited fashion. It is only good for SNMP-based alerts."

"It is a scalable solution, but it is costly to scale. Therefore, I would rate scalability at eight out of ten."

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

"The pricing is expensive."

"This solution does not do a very good job when I am trying to look deeper into my internal network, in particular with respect to individual ports."

"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."

"I would like to see more training videos and additional material for learning how to use this solution."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer cons

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

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

"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."

"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."

"You need some basic knowledge to work with Wireshark. Maybe it could be more user-friendly just for new users. Just for the new generation."

"DNS could be improved."

"The product has been using the same GUI for many years."

"The decryption of encrypted packets could be better."

More Wireshark cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is really good."

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

"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."

"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."

"The price of this solution is exceptional."

"We have licenses for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. In terms of pricing, its license is not that expensive versus other tools such as HP."

"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."

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

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pricing and cost advice

"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."

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

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

"It is free."

More Wireshark pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Healthcare Company

University

Financial Services Firm

University

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	26

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	27

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 do you like most about Wireshark?

The GUI is easy to use.

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.

Zabbix vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Comparisons

Compared 8% of the time

Darktrace vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 7% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 6% of the time

Nagios Network Analyzer vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 6% of the time

Plixer Scrutinizer vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 5% of the time

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Competitors

Microsoft Network Monitor vs Wireshark

Compared 13% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Wireshark

Compared 9% of the time

Colasoft Capsa vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

AirMagnet Survey PRO vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

Nagios XI vs Wireshark

Compared 6% of the time

More Wireshark Competitors

Product Reports

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Download SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer product report

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer report

Download Wireshark product report

Also Known As

Netflow Traffic Analyzer

No data available

Overview

SolarWinds Netflow Traffic Analyzer enables you to capture data from continuous streams of network traffic and convert those raw numbers into easy-to-interpret charts and tables that quantify exactly how the corporate network is being used, by whom, and for what purpose.

SolarWinds

Wireshark is the world's foremost network protocol analyzer.

Sample Customers

Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori

Comversion, ADP, Talbots

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)