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Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs LinkRunner comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 11, 2024

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

Auvik Network Management (ANM)
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
189
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (2nd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (3rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (3rd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (2nd)
LinkRunner
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of Auvik Network Management (ANM) is 3.6%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of LinkRunner is 17.8%, down from 23.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Jeremy Campbell - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables us to get on top of issues before they become an outage
When I change IP addresses on a device or on a server, I have to wait for Auvik to figure out that change. It will tell me the device is offline until Auvik scans the whole subnet again and finds it. If I change 25 devices, I'll get 50 emails in a short time because they've gone offline. I'd love the ability to change that where I can update that device with the IP address without it going offline. That goes against the idea of a system that dynamically scans. It's information overload sometimes when you need to change a bunch of factors. You get inundated with emails. I would almost love a button whenever you first log in that says maintenance window, and then it would maybe take some of those alerts away. It's fairly intuitive but sometimes you have to search for things because it's hidden in the user interface, so I think that could be improved a little bit. The search could be better because they have these strange search terms. Instead of being able to look for what you want, you have to lay out the query in a specific way to get results. We've also been dealing with some weird bugs lately. We get alerts on miscellaneous items that go offline and online all the time. I've reached out to support, and they said that they've got a fix that they rolled out. However, we're still experiencing the issue, so I've got to work with them to fix that. They seem to be on top of the support.
Jesse_B - PeerSpot reviewer
Impressive ease of use, gives comprehensive results in seconds, and saves a lot of time and resources
I've found the VLAN test feature to be most valuable. That's because not many devices do VLAN tests. Normally, I have to send a center technician to check a line and see if it's alive. If it's working, then I have to send a network technician out to log into a switch and see which port it's on and on which VLAN that port is. That's two persons and two separate visits. This device does all of this in a matter of seconds, and that has saved me a lot of time, troubleshooting, and resources. Its ease of use is very impressive. LinkRunner allows me to have my technicians run tests that are normally too complex and require a network specialist. AutoTest works with just one click. AutoTest does a lot of testing that would normally require a network specialist to log in to a switch and check out VLAN based on a port. My technicians don't have to log in to the switch anymore. They can just do AutoTest and information is provided online. So, I no longer have to send a specialist. I can have my technician run these very complex tests. It saves me on resources, time, and site visits. When it comes to troubleshooting, based on my experience, it has given very useful and very helpful information, especially for my field technicians. It has reduced my visits and the amount of presence because it gives a very comprehensive report on your network tests. It tests multiple variables and multiple parameters and gives a very informative report that makes it easy to pinpoint what is the root cause. There are many tools in this one solution. It's basically a bunch of toolkits or tool sets in one device, which makes it very powerful testing equipment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I found the ease of setup to be a helpful feature. The appliance was quite quick to get running. The fact that Auvik is a cloud-based solution, as opposed to an on-prem solution, meant there was one less thing to worry about. I didn't have to configure another device or provision a server and support it myself."
"The automation of alerts and ticketing has saved us about 30% to 40% of our time."
"It's hard to say that one feature is my favorite, but I like Auvik's ability to map networks using SNMP. It maps the network, so I can look at all the devices and set them to provide alerts or automatically create tickets when outages occur. If clients need it, I can export all of the data into an Excel spreadsheet."
"One feature that is the most valuable for me is that after we added all of our firewalls, every time we make any configuration change in the firewall, it creates a backup and retains the change history for months. We can see and find out when a change was done and what was the change. The best part is that if we want to compare the current config with the config from two weeks ago, the tool pulls up both config files and tells us what the difference is."
"The ability to put in individualized SNMP checks that might not be in the automated playbook is a valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature in Auvik is that it lets us know when a network is down. It lets us know right away and we can find out what's causing it: whether it's the firewall, an AP, or there's a whole network outage. It makes things easier by giving us an "eye in the sky" when we're not on the site. It's great for monitoring."
"One of the great things about Auvik is the shared collector mode, which is useful in an environment that has more than one physical location. We have 15 different locations, and I can have all of those locations pointing to one collector. So, all these locations are sharing this one collector, and I can get a map, which is way out on top of the map that you would see in Google maps, to see all my locations. I can see alerts on that map for any of those 15 locations. I can zoom in right there to the location, and from there, click on it. It is really handy."
"Traffic insights are valuable. They show you what type of traffic is on the network and how much bandwidth it is utilizing. It can help you pinpoint issues if a device is broadcasting too much or if there is any other issue."
"In terms of network validation, and copper and fiber Ethernet configuration, I can't imagine life without LinkRunner devices. The minute I got the 10G, everybody was fighting over it. They had never used such a device before and it was just breathtaking for them to very quickly see the validation you can gain from these devices."
"The auto-test feature is vital and does 90 percent of what I need on its own. It's fast and I can get there in just a few clicks. It does a good job and tells me everything I need to know. LinkRunner works pretty quickly and always seems to be accurate."
"AutoTest is very helpful. It's very streamlined and it's very easy to set up and very easy to identify what we want to achieve. It's probably the feature we use the most. It provides us with LLTD, which is very useful."
"The most valuable feature is the end-to-end testing with the "dart," as they call it, where you can test for faults in the cable or if they've been terminated properly."
"Performance testing is the most valuable feature. It gives a brief summary of the information we're looking at, such as latency, jitter, and the available throughput."
"It provides a way to test 10Gig connectivity. Previously, we had to hook up a switch. That was our only way. Now, with LinkRunner, we can test on the fly if an SFP is bad or if the switch has the right configuration on it."
"It is fast in providing results. It is pretty accurate."
"Having the results sent directly, via email, from the LinkRunner itself makes it really great for logging different things that you're trying to document within your organization. You can have a paper trail of what your organization has as far as infrastructure goes."
 

Cons

"The speed and performance can be improved."
"Setting up the maintenance windows can be a bit complicated."
"Auvik's network map, while helpful, could benefit from improved clarity."
"The one thing that I need more help with is the networking of virtualization hosts. I need more information on those hosts and which virtual networks are attached to what, the virtual switches that are in there, and how they function. None of that exists currently."
"Sometimes it's a little bit slow to load, but I can't think of anything else that could be improved."
"The solution's loading time could be improved because when you click on a switch, it usually takes some time before it has everything loaded."
"The alerts are still a bit noisy. I know they are working on that. They're testing some changes to the data to dial down the noise. Sometimes, we'll get multiple alerts for the same issue until it's fixed. Since it's tied to our ticketing system, it's also generating tickets each time, so we had to turn off the ticketing until we got a better grasp on that."
"Getting remotely connected to managed devices could be a little bit smoother. Sometimes, it's a little bit cumbersome trying to do that. If they could streamline the facilitating of remote connections to network devices, that would be an improvement."
"It does take a little while to boot up if it's turned off."
"It's a little bit tough getting used to at first, but once you get the hang of it, and once you start using it more, like anything, it gets easier. The difficult part, at first, is knowing where to find each test and how to use the tests."
"One of the things I'd like to see in future versions of LinkRunner is a wireless dongle embedded into the product so that I don't need to have a separate wireless dongle. It should be built into that."
"A feature that I would like to see is the ability to send a tone down the cable. That would be great. I have to use a separate tool for that. If I'm trying to troubleshoot a cable that is not plugged into a network switch, I need the ability to tone."
"They should allow firmware updates even if you don't have an AllyCare contract. I'm in a situation right now where they've released firmware for bug fixes, but we cannot access those, which makes the device almost useless. You almost want to just throw it out the window because they're not supporting their product unless you have an AllyCare contract."
"Unlike using an application like Wireshark, this device gives us no way to see network packets specifically to look at what's going on. It doesn't have the capability."
"Being really nitpicky about the LinkRunner G2, I wish the form factor was a little bit smaller. However, I'm sure that the size of the unit is compromised by the fact that the battery is large. If that were to mean having less battery life, I would not change it."
"It is very stable. That being said, there is one feature that is not quite as stable as the rest of the product. You can leave it plugged into a location where you're doing some work and connect to it remotely by a program called VNC... sometimes that function breaks down, if you've been running for a couple of days... if you're remotely controlling it, you're probably not right next to it. That can be modestly annoying."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It turns out they only charge for routers and switches!"
"It's quite reasonable, although it's reasonable for us right now only because of the small number of devices we're using. If we had a lot more to monitor, then I'd have to double-check the pricing and compare it with other solutions to see if it would be competitive."
"I believe that Auvik is one of the most expensive tools, but it is also the best."
"The value is there. It's not that expensive per device and it's licensed per device. Unlike some of the other tools that I use, it's not real expensive. It's a good value for the price."
"Among the products considered, Auvik stood out for its competitive pricing."
"I assume it is not crazy. I know it is on a per-switch basis or per-device basis, but I am not sure what the exact values are."
"Its licensing is very fair. The devices that stand to gain the most benefit from this product are the ones that are billed. In the case of routers, switches, and firewalls, I won't necessarily have the ability to put a management agent on them to gather errors and activity logs. This type of solution is a requirement for me to properly monitor and manage these devices. The devices that aren't being billed are workstation servers, etc. For those devices, I can put agents on them to monitor their health. It has a fair billing structure."
"The area where the product could be improved is by having a lower cost so that I could have more than one. The price is competitive, but everybody would always like to see the price go down. I'd buy another one if it were cheaper."
"It's an expensive device. Don't expect it to be cheap. But the pricing is good. It certainly seemed in line with anything else I was looking at at the time."
"We... decided to go with NetAlly for the price and the bang for the buck."
"It's expensive but you definitely get what you pay for. I would buy another one if I had to."
"I didn't have to buy it, but if I was going to have my choice, I wouldn't buy it just because of the price point. It works pretty well to do one thing. For the cost, it is definitely not worth it. There are other products out there that can do the same thing for probably 70% less. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"They offer one price. I do like paying for support because I get software updates that way."
"The cost of this device is very expensive, especially with the NetAlly Care on top of the costs. It is not for personal use and would be very expensive for smaller businesses."
"Its pricing is all right. Of course, from the business point of view, the cheaper it is, the better it is, but I prefer to spend a bit more money to get a quick response, which is helpful especially when we are onsite or in a very critical situation. We are not only paying for the product. We are paying for the people behind the product in terms of developers and technical support. When you need some help, they will be behind it, and they'll support you. There are no additional costs other than the standard licensing fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Auvik?
The most valuable feature for us in Auvik is the network topology.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Auvik?
Auvik is pricey, and we were paying a lot for it, especially when compared to SolarWinds.
What needs improvement with Auvik?
The network maps can be confusing due to the wide scope of the network, making it difficult to find specific details. Improvements in the network exclusions part would be helpful, as well as enhanc...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Philips Healthcare, HCA Healthcare, University of South Dakota, Memorial Hermann, Baltimore County Public Schools, Aaramrak.
Find out what your peers are saying about Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs. LinkRunner and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.