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Broadcom Network Flow Analysis vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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

Broadcom Network Flow Analysis
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
81st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (25th), Network Troubleshooting (11th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Broadcom Network Flow Analysis is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.7%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.7%
Broadcom Network Flow Analysis0.6%
Other95.7%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Purneswara Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Consultant at KyndleIT Consulting
A stable tool that helps identify the complete flow analysis in a network
The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that the complete flow analysis can be identified through the tool. The classification of each protocol and how the bandwidth utilization is happening with the protocols while managing to get SLAs, IP protocols, and QoS metrics is possible because of the product.
Vivek Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Central monitoring has improved outage alerts and now needs smarter detection and modern dashboards
Regarding the automated network topology and mapping feature in SolarWinds NPM, I am not satisfied with it. For static monitoring, it is acceptable. However, if it is possible, I would need a feature in SolarWinds in the future for some kind of malfunctioning detection, such as malware attacks or that type of environment. We did not have any facility to detect that in SolarWinds. I think it would be better to incorporate those types of features. Regarding customization options in SolarWinds, the ability to customize the dashboard has room for improvement. The dashboard is quite old, and we need some improvement in it. Nowadays, we have multiple tools with AI-based monitoring and web-based dashboards. SolarWinds also has a web-based dashboard, but I think there is scope for improvement in the UI. There may be other areas I would like to improve in SolarWinds NPM.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The custom report is the most valuable feature."
"For supporting flow-traffic monitoring, this product is the best option."
"Despite the low level of support, I would still fully recommend this product, because even when not all the features are used, the advantage of having such a wealth of useful information about the network traffic in real time, together with such flexibility of its presentation, is undeniable."
"It is an overall stable solution."
"This solution has helped our organization by allowing us to have visibility. We deal with cybersecurity, so visibility is very important."
"Anomaly Detector - This detects the anomaly flows in infra environment and makes job easy to analyze issue."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the alerts."
"What I've found most valuable about the solution is that it's scalable."
"With reporting, we are able to spool ISP WAN links availability for the month and make necessary deductions based on the service level agreement we signed with the service providers."
"If your infrastructure is big, and requires a good kind of reporting tool, then SolarWinds fulfills all these requirements."
"It is scalable."
"One of my clients is a bank; SolarWinds is primarily used in banking to limit network downtime to less than one or two minutes, with all the ATMs connected so the bank can respond quickly when the network is down."
"SolarWinds is user-friendly with a manageable console."
"It's very easy to scale; the scalability is brilliant, and if you need additional monitoring resources or need to plug in your secondary data center, it takes thirty minutes and is easy to use."
 

Cons

"If one is able to find it at all, the documentation is often no help."
"Currently, Broadcom Network Flow Analysis does not support high-availability solutions, making it an area that needs improvement."
"I would like to see more security features, like a lost protection package."
"Enhanced support should be given with APIs that work to maintain collected information."
"Sometimes the custom report jammed in the MYSQL database."
"Prefer this product only if the scope of flow analysis is vast and for a limited scope I don’t prefer this product since the product licenses are very costly and it is a waste of money."
"The evaluation time for the product is too short especially for large corporations."
"They don't have a local support team."
"Back in the early days and new major releases, of course, there were some hiccups and gotchas."
"The reporting module that got integrated into the system itself, used to be a standalone solution and I preferred that."
"NPM comes with a tool called Network Atlas. Currently, it can only link switches to switches and only if all the corresponding ports are monitored."
"New, web-based interface lacks some features of traditional GUI."
"It needs group views with performance metrics."
"Consolidation of platforms would provide a smoother experience."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you make a DX NetOps-based purchase and the complete suite of products that fall under DX NetOps from Broadcom, then you get Network Flow Analysis along with DX NetOps Performance Management and DX Spectrum."
"You have to license it per year, for the support. You don't really need to have support once you've already set it up. Once you install SolarWinds, you can skip on the licensing. It will still work."
"I’d suggest that people be aware that licensing has tiers."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
"It's expensive and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"It is expensive."
"I believe the original setup cost was around $3500 with an annual cost of around $1200-$1500 to renew the support license. This would bring the average day-to-day cost of around $5-$6 over three years."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Healthcare Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

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What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
 

Also Known As

CA NetQoS Reporter Analyzer, CA NFA, CA Network Flow Analysis
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Empowered, BCBST
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom Network Flow Analysis vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.