SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Wireshark comparison

"I would rate NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's stability ten out of ten."

"I can point out the exact root cause 'why.' If there is a slowness, I can point out what was before the issue or before the slowness, what it is, and what is now."

"The initial setup was straightforward."

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

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

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

"The solution helps manage networks."

"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 most valuable feature is the traffic gate, which shows which IPs are getting more bandwidth or traffic."

"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."

"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."

"If you're dealing with troubleshooting network, voice issues, or network operations, having a tool like Wireshark to dive into packet details is important. The initial setup is straightforward. Anyone starting out or looking to deploy it on your personal PC or machine can do it easily."

"The product is simple to implement."

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

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

"Technical support could be improved with quicker response times."

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

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

"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."

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

"I'm expecting to see a little bit more artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. They need a bit more sophistication in that."

"SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer could improve its flexibility and integration with AI to provide analytics beyond just showing up/down statuses and traffic volumes."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"It needs the ability to follow multiple interfaces for specific traffic from different network zones/virtual networks. It would help to understand how any packet is going through the network."

"Wireshark's UI isn't easy to handle and doesn't have as nice a view as Omnipeek."

"With Wireshark, you cannot download and utilize the packet in automation."

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"The pricing is really good."

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

"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."

"The solution is open source so is free."

"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"

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

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

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

"I am using the free version of this solution."

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