SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Wireshark comparison

"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 support is excellent."

"The software management tools are very useful for our customers."

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

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

"NTA's most valuable feature is traffic analysis and visibility."

"The integration with other SolarWinds products is good."

"For managing the traffic, it provides you a response about whether the traffic is down, up, or heavy, which is a very powerful feature. It has a good response time. We have been using this solution for many years, and we don't have any problem with this solution."

"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."

"It has good basic features."

"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."

"It helps in analyzing if something looks suspicious, such as a brute force attack or scanning from somewhere."

"Setup is very easy. It's also possible to change source code and compile if you want to change something in the code, because it's free."

"It's easy to troubleshoot issues because there's a large online community."

"I can save the traffic and analysis when I want to. Also, it's especially helpful to follow the stream (TCP, UDP, etc.)."

"The ability to decrypt traffic and the abundance of filters available are both valuable features."

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

"What needs improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is performance because sometimes, my team struggles too much for the solution to perform correctly for a specific deployment in my organization. Having a more detailed view in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is another area for improvement, but that's more part of the protocol than the actual solution."

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

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

"SolarWinds' technical support is ok, but it could be faster and more knowledgeable."

"There is a lack of documentation ......as well as a lack of dashboards."

"Customer Support is quite complex."

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

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

"The Wireshark search function shows green for a correct search and red for an incorrect search. If there were a way to provide a description about what a search - and the similar ones which are available - can do, while a person is typing it, it would make the product easier to use and simultaneously decrease the learning curve."

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."

"The pricing is really good."

"The solution's licensing is high-priced."

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

"The price of this solution is exceptional."

"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."

"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 tool is free."

"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."

"It's free."

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

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

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

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