No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs SolarWinds ipMonitor comparison

 

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

Cisco Secure Network Analytics
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
32nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (4th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (6th), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
SolarWinds ipMonitor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
79th
Average Rating
6.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (63rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is 0.9%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds ipMonitor is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Network Analytics0.9%
SolarWinds ipMonitor0.4%
Other98.7%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Akash Das Barman - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Trainee at DataSpace Academy
Network analytics has reduced investigation time and provides deeper visibility into lateral movement
Several features often look very promising during evaluation or implementation but end up being used only lightly in day-to-day operations. Advanced reporting and scheduled compliance reports look very attractive for audit and compliance teams at implementation time and can generate structured reports for visibility, risk posture, and traffic summaries. In practice, many teams do not rely on it heavily because SIEM tools or GRC platforms already handle reporting better. Built-in threat intelligence feeds represent another area where expectations do not always match usage. The platform includes threat intelligence-based detection and classifications. Initially, teams expect to depend on this heavily, but later SOC teams often prefer their own threat intelligence feeds or correlate intelligence inside SIEM instead. The built-in feeds are used but not as a primary detection source. Automated incident summaries and guided investigation views are designed to simplify triage by automatically grouping related activity into incidents. However, teams often move away from them due to various factors affecting adoption.
Masud Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at Optimum Origens Inc.
IP address management improves network efficiency but licensing cost could decrease
We are using SolarWinds for NPM and NCM, and we use IP address management for IP address monitoring. It helps us track which IP address is live and which is not. It also provides DHCP reservation and allows us to declare IP addresses for our integration. We have been using it for IP address…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco products are incredibly stable, boasting a 200% stability."
"Stealthwatch has definitely reduced the incident response time, making troubleshooting now only minutes instead of a couple of hours and increasing our threat detection rate by around 25-30%."
"Cisco Stealthwatch has improved our organization because it has brought visibility that we didn't have previously before implementing it."
"Cisco Secure Network Analytics has increased the visibility of what is happening in our network, and I think that's the most important reason to use it. We can see what is really happening instead of just looking at numbers from routers or switches."
"Cisco Stealthwatch has reduced the amount of time to detect an immediate threat."
"The most valuable feature we got out of Stealthwatch is to be able to, while troubleshooting, go deep into one of our interfaces and verify what the bandwidth is and if there's any activity there that's causing problems."
"We use it to monitor for any anomaly behavior and analyze results."
"The most valuable features include encrypted traffic analytics and the ability to fulfill requirements at the network level."
"The most valuable feature is the availability of end devices."
"The initial setup is very straightforward and it is easy to add nodes."
"IPAM is used for IP address reservation and tracking, helping us easily identify live IP addresses."
 

Cons

"Stealthwatch is still maturing in AI. It uses artificial intelligence for predictions, but AI still needs to mature. It is in a phase where you get 95% correct detection. As its AI engine learns more, it will become more accurate. This is applicable to all the devices that are using AI because they support both supervised and unsupervised machine learning. The accuracy in the case of supervised machine learning is dependent on the data you feed into the box. The accuracy in the case of unsupervised machine learning is dependent on the algorithm. The algorithm matures depending on retrospective learning, and this is how it is able to detect zero-day attacks."
"Cisco should upgrade their hardware part to run the database, because sometimes it cannot handle the load while all features are running in the network."
"The expensive nature of the tool is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"This is a good solution, but Java is still in the SMC, the Firepower integration is not really there, and I would really appreciate people being told about the necessity of ISE beforehand."
"I would like to see better filters."
"I would like to see more and cleaner reporting. For example, if I pull up Steven and I want to look and maybe compare him to what you've done in the past week, and compare that to the past six months, the point would be to see what the difference in activity looks like over this time. I don't see that capability in reporting to date. You see that trend but you don't really see a straightforward comparison. That right there is key to what we want to see about the normal activity."
"Cisco Stealthwatch needs more integration with device discovery. We have to do a lot of hard work to figure out what things are. Better service integration is required."
"If they can make this product more web-based, that would be amazing."
"The licensing cost is high compared to open source tools."
"The solution does not include enough features and has some performance issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is worth the cost."
"The licensing costs are outrageous."
"Pricing is much higher compared to other solutions."
"It has a subscription model. There is yearly support, and there is also three-year support. It depends on what the customers want."
"The yearly licensing cost is about $50,000."
"We pay for support costs on a yearly basis."
"Licensing is done by flows per second, not including outside>in traffic."
"There are additional licenses needed for the number of so-called network flows. It's hard to plan the number of flows you need in the network, this is a problem. The price of the Cisco Stealthwatch is relatively inexpensive"
"The solution is a bit expensive because the annual license does not include new features that are priced as add-ons."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Government
8%
Construction Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Healthcare Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise52
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Stealthwatch?
Regarding cost, for the Bangladesh context, Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a little bit high-priced because we are a developing country, making it tough to manage affordable solutions. However, ...
What needs improvement with Cisco Stealthwatch?
Several features often look very promising during evaluation or implementation but end up being used only lightly in day-to-day operations. Advanced reporting and scheduled compliance reports look ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Stealthwatch?
My main use case for Cisco Secure Network Analytics has been network visibility and anomaly-based threat detection within the enterprise environment. In security operations and VAPT-related activit...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds ipMonitor?
The licensing cost is high compared to other open-source tools. Being a corporate client, we require corporate licensing, which adds to the cost.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds ipMonitor?
The licensing cost is high compared to open source tools. The state monitoring tools could be improved with AI integration to track IP usage history. There is no local support; we must contact thei...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds ipMonitor?
We are using SolarWinds for NPM and NCM, and we use IP address management for IP address monitoring. It helps us track which IP address is live and which is not. It also provides DHCP reservation a...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco Stealthwatch Enterprise, Lancope StealthWatch
ipMonitor
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Edge Web Hosting, Telenor Norway, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Webster Financial Corporation, Westinghouse Electric, VMware, TIAA-CREF
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. SolarWinds ipMonitor and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.