Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs Iris Session Analyzer comparison

"Auvik is easy to use. The first thing you see when you open it up is a map of the United States or wherever you are, and it shows the locations of all of your network endpoints. For discovery, you set credentials and manage the credentials and it tells you when it needs a new credential. So you just click the "Manage Credentials" button and it takes you to the right spot. You enter in a new credential and then it starts looking closer at the device. It can give you all kinds of information from inside the device's log. We use it for CIS logs and we use it for just regular logging. The CIS log was something I was looking for in the other products, just so we have a place for the CIS logs to congregate so we can look them up."

"I like the way everything can be integrated. Auvik uses SMNP and various protocols to ensure we can monitor any device on the network."

"The topology map is good. It shows each device and whether it has a safe connection, how long it has been connected, and its activities. That's really helpful. Knowing the map helps our efficiency."

"The quick alerts in the event the equipment goes up or down is the most valuable feature."

"The automation of alerts and ticketing has saved us about 30% to 40% of our time."

"The integration between Auvik Network Management and Autotask is particularly valuable for us, along with similar integrations with tools like IT Glue."

"I like Auvik's SNMP capabilities. Seeing all the metrics and analytics in one dashboard is a game-changer. The topology is excellent."

"The integration with other vendors, not just using their SNMP feature, but the actual integration to other cloud-based solutions is also valuable. We use Cisco Meraki, and integration into that has been very helpful."

"The feature that I have found the most useful is the decode of packets. It gives us a variety of information that helps us in figuring out what to look at. The networks are getting really complex, and without the information that we get from Iris Session Analyzer, we couldn't do our job. Its graphical user interface is also very easy to use and intuitive."

"A great feature is the memory utilization graph."

"Although the network topology is excellent, it has a hard time picking up some devices on the network. A device might not be fully supported, or Auvik is unable to pull all the information from it."

"The global dashboard needs work, and I'm not the only one saying this. The current dashboard shows a map of the country and all the sites, but many of our sites are in one city, resulting in 17 sites all having those pin drops sitting on top of each other. That view needs to be looked at in my mind."

"I would like to see improvement in terms of its integration with other applications and systems. I know that they are adding new systems. However, there is still work to be done there, such as integration with MS Teams. That is not working great for us."

"I did not have the chance to go through all the aspects or services that Auvik Network Management provides, but what I dealt with was good, and there was not much to complain about. However, its pricing was a little bit higher."

"The training is not intuitive."

"Its interface is very sluggish, and that's probably its biggest impediment."

"The price shouldn't be an issue for a larger organization, but a smaller organization or an MSP might struggle because the billing is per device. You're paying for your firewalls and devices that appear on the network. If you have a smaller organization with an extensive network, your revenue won't be able to support that cost. That's probably the biggest downside for me."

"Integrating some LLM/AI capabilities into the product that would enable us to use natural language to query the tool and get sensible answers back would be great."

"They can increase flexibility in the search engine. Basically, I go with the information I have at the time. If I could just type in the parameter that I want to search for and its value, it might be easier than having to do the groundwork upfront before I can get my traces."

"Sometimes the network analyzer will show that a server is down when it's actually working."

"Its pricing is definitely competitive with everything else that's out there. If somebody has not shopped for a product like Auvik for a while, there's probably going to be some sticker shock because it is not cheap, but that's true for all the products that we looked at."

"They are way too lenient in their pricing. To put that simply, I can have an entire network being monitored and it will cost nothing, as long as I'm not monitoring the firewall or the switches."

"The pricing could be tiered so that you get a discount for more devices. We're fairly early on in the billing process, but it could be slightly cheaper."

"The pricing is fair for the value and time saved that you get out of it. The larger you go, the more sense it makes per device, because as you hit different pricing tiers, it becomes much more affordable per device."

"Auvik is fairly priced. The cost is what we expected considering network management. The benefits outweigh the cost for us."

"The cost for all the devices that we were billed at in my last job was about $2500 annually. It wasn't much. It has the most reasonable pricing as compared to any product out there. I can't complain. It is amazing. It allows me to bundle inside the package what I charge customers per user per month. I don't charge them per device anymore. That's not how we do things in the industry. It is per user per month. The way Auvik is charging us allows me to do it. For example, if they charge $250 for a certain number of seats, I'm just going to write the costs onto per user per month. I have a few leftover licenses to use, which allows me to go out and make some more sales and give some freebies at some shows. So, it makes me very flexible. I am very happy with it. It is billed by network devices. You could choose which billable device you want. What is really nice is that if you don't want one switch to be billable and the other one to be billable, you can do that. You just won't have the features that the billable switch has, which isn't horrible. Sometimes, you don't need that. What I'm really happy about is that Auvik doesn't force things on you and doesn't say, "You have to have all of this," and that's a great business model."

"The pricing is good, but I haven't looked at the pricing in a while. So, I don't know if it has changed or not. As far as I know, the pricing is still where it should be. I have no issues with it."

"I believe that Auvik is one of the most expensive tools, but it is also the best."

"I don't know what the cost to buy the solution was, but I doubt if it's a significant part of the budget as far as the maintenance and support are concerned."