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Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs NetAlly EtherScope nXG 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)
NetAlly EtherScope nXG
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Network Diagnostics (3rd)
 

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 NetAlly EtherScope nXG is 11.5%, down from 14.3% 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.
Doug Dickerson - PeerSpot reviewer
Handheld form factor, intuitive interface that is easy to use, helps us quickly troubleshoot network problems
It would be helpful if this product interfaced with AirWave. The battery life should be improved. The real negative to the product is the horrible battery life. We had hoped for it to be able to deliver configurations to our network switches, and I think they're developing something for that. However, it doesn't do that now. We were hoping that we would, as we replace or refresh network components, be able to use this tool to push a config file to the switch. For example, the Aruba switches that we're deploying come with a Bluetooth function where we can push configs from our phones. It would be much more convenient to use this device, rather than using our personal cell phones to do it. I think that the capability is there, but it just hasn't been figured out yet.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"I like Auvik's alerts. We can configure the alerts for a specific timeframe, i.e., we can set it to alert us when devices have been offline for a specific amount of minutes. If a device or port is flapping, we can ignore it or allow only the first alert to come in and mute the subsequent alerts."
"I don't worry about the scalability of the solution because it is quite a broad, scalable, modern platform."
"The automation of alerts and ticketing has saved us about 30% to 40% of our time."
"Auvik's visual mapping and search features have been very useful. We can locate precisely where each device is on the map."
"The traffic insights and the configuration management are the most valuable features."
"One of the best things about Auvik, and it's why it's one of my go-to products, are the remote access capabilities. Without a VPN and without any other way in, I'm able to get in and work on and troubleshoot my devices through the remote access console. It has multiple options for that and has been very useful and a huge time-saver. That's one of the killer features. It's one of my must-haves and that's why I like it so much."
"It reduces downtime while improving security. The automated process saves me a lot of time."
"The most valuable part is absolutely being able to assess existing WiFi networks quickly. You get very powerful details of networks, details that you couldn't see unless you had multiple pieces of software and hardware. This does it all in one thing."
"The most valuable features are the WiFi troubleshooting, network validation, and cabling validation, and the fact that it's an all-in-one tool. You don't have to carry different tools. The multi-technology functionality and its ability to do WiFi and wired Ethernet analysis in one device are the best aspects."
"One of the key measurements that we use out of the device is the channel utilization measurement, how much traffic is on the air in a given channel. That's the most valuable feature for us. The ability to make a very fast measurement of how much traffic is on the air is a key value. Otherwise we'd have to do a packet capture and do some analysis. It speeds up our testing."
"I love the AutoTest feature... AutoTest allows us to find out what port it is on the switch and to trace it back to a particular patch panel. We can then document it, if necessary, or use that information for connecting a device or for re-VLANing a switch to the appropriate VLAN."
"The wireless aspect of it has been super valuable. The AirMagnet Survey feature is very useful for site surveys. For a long time, it used to be done on laptops, and now, we can do this simply on a handheld with one technician. The data automatically gets uploaded to the cloud so that our more experienced technicians can review the data and pull it into AirMagnet. This feature has saved tons of time. It's not easy to approximate the time saved, but for each survey, I'm taking a junior technician and getting him to do a role that a senior technician used to do. So, there is a cost-saving of at least 50%."
"The AirMapper Site Survey app is one of the biggest highlights of this product. When somebody asks me, "Why should I use this device?" it's the first thing I show them, and they usually love it. Its ability to gather WiFi site survey data is absolutely amazing."
"My impression of the ease of use is that it definitely is easy to use both the handheld device and the app walking around."
"Among those features that are important are the AutoTest to create a profile and then see that the network connection is in line with that profile. Also, the LANBERT test to have an idea about the quality of the cable. It is often the case that you have no reports on the cable infrastructure, so this test is also very valuable for us."
 

Cons

"If I am an administrator, then I have to maintain, clean, and label that environment. Auvik's utility in that regard is cumbersome. It is hard to find where certain things are configured. Also, it is sometimes hard to figure out why Auvik is doing what it is doing."
"One thing I would like to see is more functionality designed for managed services, such as multi-tenancy, to better manage things from an MSP perspective."
"The network maps can be confusing due to the wide scope of the network, making it difficult to find specific details."
"Sometimes we get a generic device, then we can't tell what it is quickly from the details. Just having a better knowledge-based integration for determining what devices are, what they're make and models are, would be helpful."
"There have been times when our SNMP community strings were incorrect or weren't updated for whatever reason, and Auvik kept trying to scan them. Changing it was a pain, and there wasn't a way to extract that from Auvik. I understand there are valid security reasons why we wouldn't want to do that sometimes. In those situations, we had to recreate those community strings and reapply them to various devices."
"I would like more customizable alerts."
"The Auvik interface, while functional, doesn't feel as intuitive as some competing products."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in the battery life and price."
"The user interface could be a little bit more streamlined, a little bit easier. Sometimes it's hard to find a specific thing that you're looking for. In terms of hardware-based improvement, the battery would be the biggest issue. The battery goes out very quickly."
"The main area for improvement that stands out is the lack of a microburst dashboard, which some other vendors offer. However, NetAlly has carved out its niche by focusing on comprehensive network analysis up to layer seven, including automatic network mapping with tools like CyberScope. While there may be some features missing compared to competitors, NetAlly remains strong in its specialized market, providing robust solutions like EtherScope for detailed customer scans, despite being on the pricier side."
"AirMapper is very quick and easy once everything is on there, but I would like to see an improvement on how you get things on there. Currently, rather than being able to build up buildings or a site of things, every map is an individual piece. We should be able to set up an AirMapper survey easily and more effectively. At the moment, we just have separate floor plans. It'd be great to be able to build a building and tell where different floors are so that if it hears an AP on the floor below, it doesn't put two APs, one on that floor and one on the other floor, and it knows that there are two floors here. One is on top of the other, and it won't put the AP at both places. It would put it on one of the floors where it would be strongest. This would be one of the biggest improvements."
"When it works, I love the AirMapper Site Survey app. Currently, my device has a hardware bug that the manufacturer and I are working on actively, to get it fixed or replaced. The 5 gigahertz radio on my device is flaky at best... It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the product itself, as much as it is some kind of unique hardware problem."
"NetAlly doesn't have a spectrum analyzer. I have to use other tools to view the spectrum, and this is a problem."
"On a hardware spec, it'd be nice to have something above 10-Gigs."
"I would love to see port profiles. This is something I've expressed to them. The ability for a technician to plug it into a switch port, and say, "Okay, this port will be an access point or this port will be a phone and desktop PC," thus choosing a profile. It will then push a configuration to the device it's connected to and verify that the switch port is correctly configured, so I can hand this to a phone tech who doesn't have any access to a network switch to be able to make changes. They can go out and plug this into a port, then they are able to push a profile to the switch port through the device. That would be pretty fantastic as a next step for this device."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They charge for switches and some networking hardware, but everything else is free."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"The pricing is favorable."
"I can't speak to the cost; I'm an engineer. Auvik has a subscription-based pricing option, and the other solution we evaluated had high upfront costs."
"Auvik is a good product and worth the premium price tag for a lot of people."
"It's absolutely worth the money. I would probably charge more if I were them. They don't charge you for anything that's not a router, switch, or firewall controller, or a network device. So, you can throw anything like servers and ESX hosts."
"It was worth every penny that we paid for it. It's not necessarily the cheapest. I don't know what its current price is. I haven't been involved in the pricing part of it for a couple of years. I know that a couple of years ago, it was a bit pricey, but it saved us many times over the cost that we were paying for it."
"I love the pricing. It makes a lot of sense. It allows you to use your own metal, which is great because it enables us to go higher-end for some clients and lower-end for others... Even having the flexibility to switch clients between the Performance (expert) and the Essentials (simple) version of Auvik, on the fly, is really unheard of."
"I don't consider the pricing to be a problem. It's not a cheap device, but it's a very capable device for the money. It's a good value."
"The stuff is expensive. I really do wish the price would come down. I don't really call support. I haven't had a problem. But it's really expensive and every year I have to pay them a ton of money. I don't want to make up reasons to justify that cost, but I'm not using the support."
"It is worth it. The cost benefit of Link-Live is massive because it is included with the cost of the device and the licensing. A lot of people miss that part of it. It is not just the device that you get but it is the ability to look at all of that data later on. You're not having to do all of that on the device. You can just be there, use the device, and then look at the data from the comfort of your office or home afterward."
"For the average network shop, the cost is a bit high. In a lot of organizations, people don't share test devices between teams. Generally, you need a device for the network team and a device for the system team, the security team, etc. While the cost is a little on the high side, that is offset by the regular updates and continued improvements that NetAlly adds to the device. Those improvements continue to increase the perceived value of the device."
"If you're in the networking world, this product makes great sense very quickly, if you're going to use it more than a few times a week... If you are just looking at a handheld device unit for specific, wireless or wired testing and not much else, the cost may be a little more prohibitive than what you have in your budget."
"It's the best 10Gig network tester for the price on the market."
"It's very expensive. I wish I could buy a few more and give them to all the people who could use it, or perhaps send it to a client, given that some of its features are easy to use. But sending something worth $8,000 or $9,000 is nerve-racking. It would be nice that if it were a lot less expensive."
"The pricing is very expensive, but this tool is the best."
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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%
Government
10%
Healthcare Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
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...
What do you like most about NetAlly EtherScope nXG?
Being able to do a Wi-Fi walk-around survey with a handheld tool is one of the most valuable features of NetAlly EtherScope nXG.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetAlly EtherScope nXG?
In terms of pricing, EtherScope isn't cheap. It's a significant investment, and not a budget option.
What needs improvement with NetAlly EtherScope nXG?
The main area for improvement that stands out is the lack of a microburst dashboard, which some other vendors offer. However, NetAlly has carved out its niche by focusing on comprehensive network a...
 

Also Known As

No data available
EtherScope nXG, EtherScope, netAlly EtherScope, OptiView XG
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs. NetAlly EtherScope nXG and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.