SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Reviews, Competitors and Pricing

Donald Bakels

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Adfontessoftware

Sep 15, 2021

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Offers great software management tools

Pros and Cons

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

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

What is our primary use case?

My primary use case of SolarWinds is to see exactly what's going on in the network.

What is most valuable?

I find the IT Operation Management Suite, the software management tools from SolarWinds, to be very useful for our customers.

What needs improvement?

I'd like to see some additional security and more efficient support for the solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for 10 years.

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

January 2025

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Learn what your peers think about SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. We have around 100 customers using Analyzer.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is fine but they need to improve their response time.

How was the initial setup?

The initial installation was quite straightforward, we were able to do it ourselves and it took a couple of hours.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Licensing fees are reasonable.

What other advice do I have?

I recommend this solution and rate it nine out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner

it_user2979

Network Engineer at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 27, 2017

Many administrators turn to NetFlow analysis to help identify not just what kind of traffic is flowing on the network, but also top devices creating the traffic.

As networks get busier, they also tend to get slower. Trends like increased use of cloud services, bring-your-own-device (BYOD), video and VOIP all create incremental stress and pressure on the network. BYOD can also introduce challenges like increased use of photo and video sharing, and peer-to-peer traffic.

Upgrading networks can be very costly, and usually is only a short-term fix.

One solution: NetFlow

Many administrators turn to NetFlow analysis to help identify not just what kind of traffic is flowing on the network, but also top devices creating the traffic. This allows them to take action to manage excessive bandwidth consumption, possibly saving money on expensive upgrades.

SolarWinds recently gave us a preview of the newest version of their NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA), expected to be released later this year. NTA has always done a great job at helping to decipher Flow data, and the new version has some interesting new features designed to make it easier for administrators to understand and take action to manage network traffic.

How well does it work? In this review we look at a couple of the new features, and test out NTA’s abilities.

What is the NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?

If you aren’t yet familiar with the product, NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is a traffic analyzer that can receive standard “Flow” data generated by devices from Cisco, Juniper, Extreme, Foundry, Riverbed, HP, Nortel, or Huwawei. It can support various implementations of the protocol including NetFlow, sFlow, IPFIX, etc.

Flow data shows how much, and what type of data is passing through a network interface. For example, it might show that IP Address #1 sent a 50 Mb data stream to IP Address #2 on port 80, and so on. Given the large volume of data on today’s networks, Flow data can be huge and hard to work with.

Analyzers like NTA attempt to take all that data and make it meaningful, and also add other features like alerting and historical reporting to help administrators gain network utilization intelligence.

New Features

One of the biggest changes in NTA 3.10.0 is the new chart styles. Gone are the old static charts, instead NTA now has charts that can be dynamically changed for custom date ranges on the fly using a sliding scale below the chart. Checkboxes allow users to turn on or off the display of different chart elements, making it easy to simplify the view by removing unnecessary data.

The charts also add a nice hover pop-up information box that appears when hovering the pointer over chart elements. The box shows detailed values for the element in question.

Users can also now click and drag to zoom in on charts, making it faster to zoom in to get a closer look at chart detail.

The speed of the new charts is impressive. Charts load very quickly compared to previous versions, and changes to date-ranges or other parameters are reflected almost instantly.

Other new features include enhanced support for sFlow v2 and v4, as well as enhanced support for interfaces that can’t be managed with SNMP – such as vSwitch interfaces.

NTA also has a lot of great features that have been there all along. Some of them include:

Designed for Administrators

NetFlow Traffic Analyzer delivers a good user experience from the start. Default views include a series of dashboards that identify a range of possible problem areas – top talkers, top endpoints, and top applications, to name a few.

The dashboard allows users to drill-down for greater detail. Want to know specifics of an endpoint that consumes a lot of data? Click on the endpoint to get detailed views of the kind of traffic flowing to and from that device. Drill down links help pinpoint when, where, and how much traffic is generated.

A nice feature is the ability to save customized views of the network. For example, if an administrator wants to monitor a specific traffic source or application, they could create a view that instantly bring up that traffic source – saving time and speeding problem resolution. They can email links to that “view” to other users, enabling fast sharing of data.

Forensics and Drill Downs

A strong case for having a NetFlow analyzer is the ability to troubleshoot network problems when there are no obvious errors or outages. NetFlow Traffic Analyzer allows administrators to drill-down to see not just volume, but also what kind of traffic is flowing through the network. So when network performance problems crop up, admins can instantly tell whether the cause is a single bandwidth hog or some other activity.

NTA does a nice job of enabling views that can be filtered down to specific time windows, a great way of looking back to determine the cause of an incident, and possibly pinpoint the source.

Application Mapping

NTA adds another level of visibility into the network by helping to identify application traffic out of the general flow data. It can map common applications like Oracle, and many web applications like Facebook or online gaming sites.

So rather than a list of IP addresses and ports, admins see a readable, useful picture of exactly what kind of traffic is generated. This could be used to identify and shutdown bandwidth vampires, or perhaps to determine how much bandwidth to allocate to QOS queues, enabling better traffic management and possibly avoiding costly bandwidth upgrades.

CBQOS Mapping

Speaking of QOS, the NetFlow Traffic Analyzer can also help to manage your CBQOS policies. Admins can view traffic segmented by QOS policy, allowing them to confirm that queues are allocated appropriately for voice, video, or other critical applications.

Alerting

Drawing on their history of making network monitoring tools, SolarWinds has enabled NTA to raise alerts when interfaces become saturated above a defined threshold. Alerts can be delivered via SMS Text, email, and other common notification methods.

The alerts can contain a couple of helpful items to pinpoint problems. The first is a list of top talkers – so you can instantly see who is generating the bulk of the traffic. The second is a direct link to details of the specific flow that triggered the alert – saving time by providing a quick way to jump to the NTA interface for further investigation.

Summary

SolarWinds’ NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is a must-have tool for any administrator who receives complaints that the network is slow – but can’t find the reason why. It provides deep insight into exactly what kind of traffic is flowing across the network, including details on what applications are being accessed and which devices are generating all of the traffic.

NTA is designed to be integrated with the SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor, which is their complete network monitoring system. NTA is available as an add-on module to Network Performance Monitor, and pricing starts at $1795 (USD) for 100 devices.

Unfortunately, that also brings up the only complaint with NTA – it’s not available as a standalone product, it must be purchased along with, and integrated into the full Network Performance Monitor product. There’s good reason for this – it provides a high level of detail, full SNMP management of devices, etc, but unfortunately doesn’t provide a good stand-alone option for businesses that may already have a full network management suite, and just want to add NetFlow analysis.

Other than that minor complaint, it’s a thoughtfully designed piece of software with a comprehensive UI providing a variety of ways to find the information you need.

If you need better insights into your network performance, then we recommend trying out a 30-day free trial of NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, or try out the online Live Demo environment to test out its abilities. Our bet? You’ll be surprised at what users are really doing with your bandwidth.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

January 2025

Free Report: SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.

reviewer1065336

Senior System Engineer at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Sep 22, 2020

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A reliable platform for assessing bandwidth utilization, but technical support could be faster

Pros and Cons

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

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

What is our primary use case?

We are using this solution for bandwidth utilization.

What is most valuable?

What I like the most is the bandwidth assessment.

What needs improvement?

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

The price could be reduced to make this product more competitive.

Support could have a better response time.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for two years.

We are using the latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's a scalable product and we plan to continue using it.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, we did not use another solution.

How was the initial setup?

It didn't take much to deploy.

We configured feature by feature.

What about the implementation team?

The initial setup was done through professional services.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

While the pricing is fair, it could be better.

What other advice do I have?

I am quite satisfied with this solution and I would recommend it for anyone who is considering using SolarWinds Netflow Traffic Analyzer.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner

reviewer1229574

Head of Network Department at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nov 19, 2019

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Stable with a straightforward setup and good traffic analysis

Pros and Cons

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

"Technical support needs improvement."

What is most valuable?

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

What needs improvement?

Sometimes the system is confusing; they should simplify it to make it easier in future releases.

There are many applications we cannot monitor with the solution. They need to open it up to make it easier to monitor across multiple apps.

The solution needs to work with Windows 2003 and 2008.

Technical support needs improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is okay, but it depends on the person who takes up the ticket. Sometimes we don't get the kind of service we should.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend the solution. I'd rate it eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Crismar Baste

Senior Tech Support Engineer | Project Implementation Head at a tech company with 11-50 employees

May 13, 2020

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Has good monitoring, overall good performance, and an easy deployment

Pros and Cons

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

"The pricing is expensive."

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are:

The bandwidth analyzer
The monitoring
The network Analyzer
It has overall good performance
Easy deployment.

What needs improvement?

The pricing is expensive.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer for six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It stable, we haven't experienced any issues or bugs.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have tested the scalability and have found it to be scalable.

We have several large clients who use SolarWinds.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't needed to contact technical support because I never had a problem with it.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment is easy. I deployed it myself and it took around one day.

What other advice do I have?

The product is a great experience to use and I never experienced any problems with this software application. I would recommend it.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. In the next release, I would like to see improvement in the area network health, the servers and the network equipment. They can see and can monitor all the equipment from network to server because inside the server are the backups, the systems of their company, and the backup files.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

DariusBwalya

ICT Training Consultant at a non-tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 9, 2019

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Easy to set up but the monitoring should be faster

Pros and Cons

"The program is scalable enough for our usage."

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

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for this solution is for monitoring.

What needs improvement?

One thing I have noticed is that it is very slow to pick the dynamics of the network, so that is something that could be improved. There is some sort of lag in the reporting, and I would like to see that being faster.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the program for about seven years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I think it is quite stable and that's why we stick with it. We often switch to something else. For instance, we recently changed to another antivirus program. But this program is stable so we haven't chosen another solution over this one yet.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The program is scalable enough for our usage. We currently have 8,000 users so we may have to buy extra modules soon.

How was the initial setup?

It was easy and straightforward to set the program up. The setup is very user-friendly.

What about the implementation team?

We used a vendor team at first and from there on we did everything ourselves. Deployment took about a day.

What other advice do I have?

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate this solution a seven. Some things that might improve, is that I would like to see it being able to detect mobile gadgets too, like smartphones.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user3195

Field Systems Engineer Level 2 at a tech consulting company

Jan 1, 2013

Review of Network Traffic Analyzer

Disclaimer: I work for a company that has a partnership with Solarwinds and provides services for Solarwinds products.

I have had nothing but good things to say about the Solar winds products. I have the pleasure to use NPM, IPSLA, NTA, and Engineers Tool Kit. We have a large network that without NPM would be hard to monitor and find problems. NTA allows us to keep good tabs on what people and systems are doing on our networks. It is nice to know who is playing World of War craft as an example or which server is pegging an interface. IPSLA has giving us the global view of how our network can handle real-time data. We have been able to vastly improve how implement routing and QOS in order to provide better throughput that result in a higher SLA compliance.

Network Traffic Analyzer
• Quick View of Bandwidth hogs
• Easy to read Per Interface throughput views
• Customizable protocol monitoring for consumption breakdown

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user1043517

Head of IT Governance Service at ITGSTORE

Oct 17, 2019

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A stable solution with good performance analysis but in need of better pricing

Pros and Cons

"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."

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

What is our primary use case?

For the first installation for our customers we use it for traffic analysis to determine which users consume the most internet bandwidth. then to have a visibility on the internal traffic in the network.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

I recognize that SolarWinds has a reporting feature that will give us reports that we can customize. However, it's not clear how I can integrate the existing solution like BI solutions to SolarWinds. The solution seems to lack an API for other integrations.

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

We'd like more application control in future releases. automatic identification of applications in the traffic. this feature is included in the new generation firewall.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution since 2014. Start working on Orion NTA version 3.0

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is okay. I would rate it three out of five. Their reaction time is not so good. You might have to wait one or two days before they can work on your ticket.

What other advice do I have?

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I would rate the solution seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller.