Iris Session Analyzer vs Plixer Scrutinizer comparison

NETSCOUT and Plixer are both solutions in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category. NETSCOUT is ranked #15, while Plixer is ranked #12. NETSCOUT holds a 1.9% mindshare in NTA, compared to Plixer’s 3.6% 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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248 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Plixer Scrutinizer

Read 15 Plixer Scrutinizer reviews

1,610 Views
451 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: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Iris Session Analyzer vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

December 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)

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Plixer Scrutinizer

Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

12th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (75th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category, the mindshare of Iris Session Analyzer is 1.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Plixer Scrutinizer is 3.6%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Plixer Scrutinizer	3.6%
Iris Session Analyzer	1.9%
Other	94.5%

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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Ira Mulyanti

Sales Director at ARGA SOLUSI

An affordable product with great integration capabilities

Plixer Core Platform is a valuable feature and a good software. Plixer Scrutinizer uses NetFlow analysis to monitor whatever is there in a network. Price-wise, Plixer Scrutinizer is not an expensive product. Basically, Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that can integrate with any other brand or product in the market, so it is not an area of concern.

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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."

"Visualization of the network traffic is the most valuable feature. It allows you to drill into information quite quickly."

"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."

"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."

"One feature I found most valuable in Plixer Scrutinizer is the very extensive reporting. Reporting is very flexible, though sometimes you need a little bit of support from Plixer Scrutinizer to create custom-made reporting in a very short time. Reporting is a very strong feature of the product."

"We didn't experience any bugs."

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

"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."

"It shows us the saturation of the network of devices. It gives us a clear view of the flows in the network to understand, for instance, planning upgrades in the network to get an idea of what's going on the network on traffic flows. It gives us insight, for instance, on what's going on on our VPN Client. There are a lot of things where it provides very helpful information. It also gives us our security reports with quite detailed information on what's going on in the network, and whether there are data exfiltrations and so on."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pros

Cons

"Sometimes the network analyzer will show that a server is down when it's actually working."

"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."

"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."

"Knowing that they're coming out with a new user interface, that is an area where there is room for improvement. There are so many variables. They should limit the variables in the user interface and create some classes, like "simple," "novice," and "expert" to narrow down the variables within it."

"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."

"Data retention needs improvement. Data retention is a thing where we are looking for a better way to collect flow data for a longer time to do forensic research on security incidents. By default, data retention is quite low. We need detailed data in safe storage for a longer time, e.g., for a couple of months. An improvement would be a way to export data into a secure long-term storage."

"Though Plixer Scrutinizer has network detection and response, it's an area that needs just a little more rounding out. Another room for improvement in the solution is its lack of SaaS offering which some customers were looking for. My company deals in small to medium businesses, mid-market, and some customers wanted the SaaS feature which Plixer Scrutinizer doesn't offer. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is for it to have a SaaS offering because my company also deals with educational spaces and smaller businesses that just don't have the staff that can implement this. If there's either a managed service or SaaS-based offering to just make it a little easier for those types of customers, it would be a great addition to Plixer Scrutinizer."

"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."

"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."

"We couldn't get it set up properly."

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."

"It's about €10,000 a year for initial license and yearly maintenance costs. In addition, the hardware costs are about €10,000 once every five years."

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

"We pay our one-off cost for the licenses, per device, in blocks of 50. And then we pay an annual maintenance fee of about $15,000 Australian, which is, at this point in time, about $9,000 US, for those 250 devices. The upfront costs for the 250-license use, were about $50,000 Australian, which is about $32,000 US."

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

"Compared to some of the other tools we have, it's incredibly reasonably priced."

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

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

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

More Plixer Scrutinizer pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	8

Comparisons

Nagios Network Analyzer vs Iris Session Analyzer

Compared 70% of the time

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Iris Session Analyzer

Compared 30% of the time

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SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 14% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 14% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 13% of the time

Kentik vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 12% of the time

WhatsUp Gold vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 9% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer

January 2026

Download Plixer Scrutinizer product report

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

December 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: December 2025.

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