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AppNeta by Broadcom vs NetBrain comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

AppNeta by Broadcom
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (62nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (45th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (16th), DX NetOps (3rd)
NetBrain
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (18th), Network Automation (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. AppNeta by Broadcom is designed for DX NetOps and holds a mindshare of 29.3%, up 22.4% compared to last year.
NetBrain, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 3.3% mindshare, up 2.8% since last year.
DX NetOps Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AppNeta by Broadcom29.3%
DX Spectrum26.2%
DX Performance Management24.8%
Other19.700000000000003%
DX NetOps
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetBrain3.3%
Wireshark18.8%
AirMagnet Survey PRO8.5%
Other69.4%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Cliff Chapman - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at Linkstatus Ltd
Excellent support, easy configuration, and a reliable tool to know what the problem is and where the problem is
They should try and make diagnostics run a bit quicker. When the problem occurs on a network, AppNeta runs automatic diagnostics on the end-to-end path. The path it was testing only to the destination, it now runs the same test to all of the devices and all the intermediate devices. Depending on the number of intermediate devices, it can take several minutes to run. If we're trying to find or diagnose a problem that only lasts two or three minutes, it may be that the diagnostics is still running by the time the problem is cleared. The only thing, which I have also mentioned to AppNeta in the past, is that there should be much faster and much more lightweight diagnostics, which can be completed within 30 seconds or one minute, rather than in 5 to 10 minutes. Currently, when we have short-duration problems, we use a different tool, but we only use that different tool for short-duration problems. With AppNeta, as long as the problem exists for more than a few minutes, such as within 10 to 15 minutes, we can normally tell where the problem is. However, most of the problems that we deal with are intermittent. They're very rarely a permanent condition that needs to be addressed. That makes it more difficult to troubleshoot. We would look to see at least two or three events and hope they show the same results to raise our confidence that we've actually found the problem, rather than just a problem.
Deborah Gamelin - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President at Asset Track for Cloud, LLC
Good monitoring and troubleshoot capabilities, improves overall network traffic visibility
In my organization, we had 130,000 network devices that needed to be brought into the solution and mapped. NetBrain can handle the scale but the engineers that manage those devices have to go in and update all of them to allow NetBrain permission to poll them. It can get a little stressful for everybody when you're trying to roll out new stuff when you've got other issues that have to be addressed with other devices. In some cases, our devices had no automation at all. One example is the Cisco 3650. Right now, if you went through the inventory list, you see that we have different versions running. Some are on one version, whereas others are on another version. The problem with upgrading them is that they need to be done overnight because we don't want to disrupt any network traffic during business hours. Consequently, it could take us years to upgrade the versions before we can even get them onto these new tools. This may be an internal issue but it's a big one when you have a lot of devices. Even if you had 10,000 devices, it's still an issue. You have to consider the compatibility of the device against the tool, and being able to use certain commands to upgrade it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool allows us to ensure the capacity, bandwidth, and packet loss of our VPN-based WAN within our thresholds end-to-end, and it is different from SNMP/NetFlow-based monitoring, which we also make use of."
"The main feature that we use is what they call Delivery, which is the testing of network paths end-to-end."
"Every experience that I have had with them has been outstanding."
"We get complete, hop-by-hop visibility into the internet and we can know how much latency is taking place from one hop to another. That way, we know whether a particular hop belongs to the ISP, or that it is something owned by our own client's office, or is something to do with the SaaS network."
"Delivery and experience are valuable. The usage in terms of the traffic application captures and other similar things is also valuable."
"Technical support is exceptional. They are very available, willing to work with our technicians and engineers and very open to providing training to understand their product more thoroughly."
"This solution helps prove that, if we move to cloud, we'll still be as effective as we are on-premises."
"We have peace of mind that our redundant circuits are fully operational and ready to take VoIP calls if they are needed."
"This tool is exactly what we wanted and needed."
"NetBrain is faster, better and level sets the engineering technical sets."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that you can click once and have a link test, see your network, and get an overall view of your network and its state."
"Enables maps to be drawn out."
"Chain management is a good feature. I don't get it on other solutions."
"Other advice to users considering the solution would be: go with NetBrain."
"NetBrain is very good when it comes to network mapping, as it looks for different assets within the network available, so router, firewall, applications, et cetera, and it gives you the full mapping, asset mapping along with the full range including the firmware software update and all those things."
"A reliable, time-saving tool for providing accurate layer 2 and layer 3 network mappings."
 

Cons

"I would like to see the following improvements in accessibility: The ability to see the details concerning incidents and their reasons right on the graph, the ability to open those events right from the graph, the ability to see the applications being used at that time."
"Cloud monitoring could be better. That's one of the biggest pain points for me. I have shared this feedback with them multiple times, but they're limited to some extent. That's one area where I've seen a problem."
"Fully monitoring asymmetrical links is more costly and complex than symmetrical ones."
"I would like to see some advanced dashboard features. It could also be integrated with third-party tools. For example, an integration with a reporting solution would be helpful. Out-of-the-box, there are few dashboards or reports. What it does have is useful, but there should be additional dashboards."
"The initial setup is complex."
"AppNeta by Broadcom needs to add more features to its dashboards. It also needs to work on providing out-of-the-box reports."
"Having to deal with configuring the end devices using a USB stick is a bit cumbersome. It would be nice if there was a better way of handling that."
"Alerting. We have so many paths in our environment that it is strictly a reactive tool, not proactive."
"The solution could integrate more automation."
"It's okay on the value, a bit expensive for just maps, but makes it a lot easier to see things visually and take it from there."
"Support needs to improve for the installed product and some of the reporting could be more flexible to provide more complete cataloging."
"If you're comparing NetBrain as an NDR, I would rate it as a four or five, however, NetBrain has a different aspect of looking at things within the network."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"The IP interface brief isn't consistent."
"Netbrain must get AWS functionality done."
"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I inherited this from a different version, and I haven't yet gone through a renewal because we had purchased three years upfront. So, to me, that still remains to be seen. Once it comes up for renewal, we'll see what happens. Especially because now it is Broadcom, it is going to change anyway."
"It's worth the money."
"Broadcom software is always a little expensive because they provide quality."
"I find the solution's price to be fairly good."
"We typically don't get involved in the commercial side, but the list price is probably something like $3,000 for a small probe. However, that gives all of the features that the probe can do, whether or not you use them. In the old days, up until two or three years ago, each of the separate features was a separately licensable module so that you could add things that you wanted, and you didn't have to add things that you didn't want. They've changed all that now, and everything the probe can do is a part of the base license."
"The small probe is probably around $3,000 and the very large probe that they make for massive data centers might be $50,000 or $60,000. It's a subscription model, so the payment is per year."
"AppNeta by Broadcom is not expensive."
"The product is expensive, but less expensive than some of the competition and worth the price."
"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What open source tool can one use to measure bandwidth from one's upstream service provider?
One I am looking closely at is AppNeta. They have an appliance that can digest the flow and do a better job than Netflow. The other one we are using is ExtraHop. This has both a Datacenter Hig...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ebay, Citrix, National Instruments, Marriott, AT&T, Bon-Ton, McDonald's, Netflix, PayPal, Uber, QAD
CompuCon, TD Ameritrade, Move Inc.