Iris Session Analyzer vs Plixer Scrutinizer comparison

NETSCOUT and Plixer are both solutions in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category. NETSCOUT is ranked #16, while Plixer is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0. NETSCOUT holds a 0.7% mindshare in NTA, compared to Plixer’s 2.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of NETSCOUT users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Plixer users who would recommend it.

Iris Session Analyzer

Read 2 Iris Session Analyzer reviews

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34 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Plixer Scrutinizer

Read 15 Plixer Scrutinizer reviews

495 Views
193 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Iris Session Analyzer

Plixer Scrutinizer

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

Plixer Scrutinizer and Iris Session Analyzer are competitive network analytics tools. Iris Session Analyzer seems to have the upper hand in feature-richness, while Plixer Scrutinizer is preferred for pricing and customer support.

Features: Plixer Scrutinizer is known for its extensive reporting capabilities, advanced threat detection, and solid return on investment. Iris Session Analyzer stands out with its detailed packet capture, deep forensic analysis, and feature-richness. Both products offer powerful capabilities, but users highlight the advanced threat detection of Plixer Scrutinizer as a significant advantage.

Room for Improvement: Plixer Scrutinizer could enhance its integration capabilities, simplify the initial setup, and offer more intuitive workflows. Iris Session Analyzer users want better scalability, easier workflows, and more seamless integration. Both products have areas where improvements could enhance their offerings.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Plixer Scrutinizer users find the deployment smooth but occasionally complex initially, whereas Iris Session Analyzer users report a more straightforward deployment. Plixer Scrutinizer is praised for exceptional customer service, while Iris Session Analyzer's customer support could be improved.

Pricing and ROI: Plixer Scrutinizer is recognized for its competitive pricing and solid return on investment, making it attractive for cost-conscious buyers. Iris Session Analyzer, though more expensive, offers significant value due to its advanced features. Users feel Plixer Scrutinizer provides greater ROI attributed to its pricing model.

To learn more, read our detailed Iris Session Analyzer vs. Plixer Scrutinizer Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Iris Session Analyzer vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

April 2025

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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

Iris Session Analyzer

Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

16th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Plixer Scrutinizer

Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

10th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (53rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category, the mindshare of Iris Session Analyzer is 0.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Plixer Scrutinizer is 2.4%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Anas

Assistant Manager NOC and Infrastructure at NiFT

Provides a memory utilization graph and shows disk space and uplink utilization but could include smart navigation in next release

The solution is deployed on-premises. There are more than 20 people who use this solution in my organization. They're infrastructure engineers, network engineers, and information security engineers A great feature is the memory utilization graph. It shows utilization, disk space utilization,…

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Ronald Jansen

Owner/President at Abraxax

Reporting is extensive, flexible, and can be custom-made in just a short time

In terms of additional features I'd like to see in the next release of Plixer Scrutinizer, I can't think of any because you can do some integration with other monitoring tools that are not strong in NetFlow or don't have NetFlow at all. There are also some integration possibilities in the product, plus there are alerts, too. Plixer Scrutinizer is a pretty complete product. There was a price lift because previously the product was privately owned, and now there is some external capital in the organization, so pricing could be lower, though, for Plixer Scrutinizer, there is almost no competition at this price point.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A great feature is the memory utilization graph."

"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."

"The most valuable features of the solution are the ability to track what a device is doing and to go back historically. It is also able to go down to, and identify, very low levels of traffic."

"The reporting and generating troubleshooting reports would be the best feature; our host-to-host conversation reporting."

"As a network engineer, the ability to identify what traffic on the link is consuming all the bandwidth at any given time, and provide immediate feedback to the business, is the most valuable feature."

"The solution helps to enrich the data context of our network traffic. It allows me to see what applications are most in use on a slightly historical basis, going back a day or week at tops. It allows me to tune QoS or traffic shaping around what's being used. It saves me from having to unnecessarily upgrade, if I don't need to."

"It helps us determine what is going on with our Internet and who is hogging it all up. If we get a real high throughput or a throughput that's going over and getting dropped fairly quickly, we can tell who (or what device) is consuming that traffic."

"It's agnostic as far as what your network gear is. As long as it supports an sFlow, JFlow, NetFlow, some kind of flow monitoring, Plixer will support it very well."

"One of the most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer is the reporting, particularly how easy it is to drill down into the reports. Another valuable feature of the solution is its overall visibility. It's great. I also liked Plixer Scrutinizer in terms of deployment time and that it's very simple to set up. Once you get the appliance set up and connected, the customer starts to see results immediately, versus other solutions where that could take a while."

"There are other tools out there that will do what Scrutinizer does. But what I have found with Scrutinizer is that it does it very quickly. I've taken 25 million individual data fragments from the different sensors, and it has graphed that and mapped it and presented a picture within 30 seconds. It has a very efficient database algorithm that I am really impressed with."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pros

Cons

"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."

"From what I understand it is that the solution is not very scalable in a high volume traffic environment with a large number of flows."

"I wish the reporting side was easier to work with, but it does a decent job. I also wish the reporting side was a little more intuitive or they offered more reporting examples."

"There is room for improvement around the data that they have on the website about solutions... they should have more templated solutions on their website. Going out and identifying how to do RTP performance with a Cisco router, or how to do application response times in an Arrista data center deployment was where most of the work was... They should spend some more time documenting solutions and putting together white papers."

"It would be useful if there was a way to back up the configuration information. E.g., if you wanted to deploy a new instance or disaster recovery, you could quite easily deploy and restore the config, as opposed to having to restore all the NetFlow data. If there was just a button that said "backup config information", that would be good."

"There was a price lift because previously the product was privately owned, and now there is some external capital in the organization, so pricing could be lower, though, for Plixer Scrutinizer, there is almost no competition at this price point."

"For updating the Scrutinizer platform, when we have the actual data, it never happens in one day. Every time we have the data, we are obliged to install a new server in order to integrate the old data, and every time it has a problem. Most of the time, we were obliged to scrap all the data because we couldn't transfer it to the new server. So, it would be very good if they could improve this part."

"The visual acuity of how it presents data can sometimes be confusing. It takes a bit for people to spin up how to look at the graphs."

"They're working on the security areas, so it can provide more insight. What they have is still pretty much IP-concentric. If they were to make it IP and URL, they'd be a little bit ahead on that."

More Plixer Scrutinizer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"Currently, the license for Plixer Scrutinizer is subscription-based and at a yearly fee. The price would depend on the amount of traffic you pull in. For example, there are several blocks from a 10K flow, a 40K flow, and a 100K flow, and based on the number of devices that you receive the flows from, that's the license, and it is not a per-interface pricing model, so that is a very strong, very competitive pricing feature of Plixer Scrutinizer. Licensing for the product is also not based on the number of storage, compared to some competing products that are priced based on the amount of storage you need, particularly based on the retention and the amount of data. Plixer Scrutinizer licensing is based on the device, and it's more in the direction of $10,000 because, with just $1,000, you don't have anything."

"We recently bought a license upgrade, so we will integrate more exporters. We upgraded from a 25 exporter license to a 50 exporter license. Therefore, there will be more flows, and this will be an extension. I don't know when we will purchase a faster server, because the server that we have is quite new."

"We have increased the license over time. We have added more licenses as the network has grown."

"I rate Plixer Scrutinizer's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price or affordable, and ten is high price or expensive."

"There is a recurring maintenance fee after the initial purchase or if we want the license upgrade."

"Our entire solution, amortized over five years, is in the vicinity of $40,000 to $50,000 a year."

"The license is per device. We have 50 devices."

"There are no extra costs. It's about $8,000 a year. The bang for the buck (cost) is definitely a plus."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

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Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

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Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Plixer Scrutinizer?

Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Plixer Scrutinizer?

I rate Plixer Scrutinizer's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price or affordable, and ten is high price or expensive.

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What needs improvement with Plixer Scrutinizer?

I don't have deep enough knowledge to comment on what requires improvements in Plixer Scrutinizer. In Plixer Scrutinizer, scalability is an area with minor concerns where improvements are required.

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Comparisons

No data available

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Product Reports

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Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer

April 2025

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Overview

Iris Session Analyzer (ISA) uncovers and analyzes the specific calls and sessions that fail to deliver required performance.

NETSCOUT

The Scrutinizer incident response system leverages network traffic analytics to provide active monitoring, visualization, and reporting of network and security incidents. The system quickly delivers the rich forensic data needed by IT professionals to support fast and efficient incident response.

Plixer

Sample Customers

xtel communications, banco votorantim, petronas

Oxford Networks, Squaw Valley Ski Holdings, UltiSat, Wipro, West Aurora School District 129, SUNY Geneseo College, Bloomington Public Schools, First National Bank of Pennsylvania, Kitsap Credit Union, Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County Houston Texas, Carilion Clinic, Banner Health, IDEXX Laboratories, Phibro Animal Health Corporation, Goodwill Industries, Parmalat, Armstrong Coal Company, Flybe, James Walker

Buyer's Guide

Iris Session Analyzer vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

April 2025

Free Report: Iris Session Analyzer vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

Find out what your peers are saying about Iris Session Analyzer vs. Plixer Scrutinizer and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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