Iris Session Analyzer vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer comparison

NETSCOUT and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category. NETSCOUT is ranked #15, while SolarWinds is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.8. NETSCOUT holds a 1.6% mindshare in NTA, compared to SolarWinds’s 5.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of NETSCOUT users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Iris Session Analyzer

Read 2 Iris Session Analyzer reviews

202 Views
200 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Read 43 SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer reviews

1,904 Views
628 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Iris Session Analyzer

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and Iris Session Analyzer are network monitoring solutions. Users tend to favor Iris Session Analyzer for its advanced features despite the higher cost.

Features: SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer offers detailed traffic analysis, customizable alerts, and extensive network monitoring capabilities. Iris Session Analyzer provides robust session tracking, in-depth protocol analysis, and comprehensive packet capturing. Iris Session Analyzer delivers deeper insights into packet-level data.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer could benefit from more intuitive navigation and better integration with third-party tools. Iris Session Analyzer needs improved documentation and experiences occasional performance lags with large data sets.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer has a straightforward deployment process and responsive customer service. Iris Session Analyzer requires significant configuration but also has reliable customer service.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is competitively priced with a favorable return on investment. Iris Session Analyzer has a higher cost but is considered worth the price due to its feature set.

To learn more, read our detailed Iris Session Analyzer vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Iris Session Analyzer vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

July 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

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

4th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category, the mindshare of Iris Session Analyzer is 1.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is 5.3%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer	5.3%
Iris Session Analyzer	1.6%
Other	93.1%

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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Raja Xabi

Technical Manager at APRAL

Improved bandwidth management and network visibility have resulted in financial benefits and streamlined operations

There is always room for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, such as implementing instant reporting based on business intelligence reports and more granular filters in their dashboard to improve the GUI view and reporting. The licensing model of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is always an issue for users because competitors offer unlimited and perpetual licenses, and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's model is quite costly compared to other brands. If users are comfortable with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, they have to make the hard decision to invest, and it's suggested from a user's perspective that SolarWinds should improve their financial model and licensing to become competitive, especially for small to medium businesses.

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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

"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."

"A great feature is the memory utilization graph."

"The monitoring is perfect, showing you the details for the utilization of resources and network bandwidth."

"It is great at telling you if your devices are working and it keeps an eye on your network's overall performance."

"What I like the most is the bandwidth assessment."

"What my organization likes best about SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is its easy deployment. It's also well-integrated in terms of monitoring because my organization also uses a SolarWinds solution for monitoring. You can connect SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer directly to that monitoring tool to get information. My organization also finds the default graphs that appear before the configuration in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer very useful."

"The initial setup was straightforward."

"It provides proactive monitoring, rather than waiting for applications to go down due to heavy bandwidth or latency."

"The bandwidth monitoring functionality is one of the most important features for our customers. When the customer notices that their bandwidth usage is too high for some reason, they will use the traffic analysis within SolarWinds NTA to identify which protocols (e.g. HTTPS) or applications are using up the bandwidth."

"I like that it is able to monitor multiple devices and it's vendor-agnostic."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer 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 solution should improve its automation feature. It's quite limited compared to other products."

"I would like to see more training videos and additional material for learning how to use this solution."

"This solution would benefit from having more security-based communications between the actual devices and the software itself."

"The analysis can utilize algorithms like K-means clustering or associative neural networks for predictions rather than relying on generative AI, which is more suited for text."

"I would like to see better customization capabilities."

"The Atlas module that is used for building the network map is very bad."

"If your network is on SolarWinds, and you notice that the traffic is bad because it says "user downloading a heavy file," it doesn't indicate which endpoint is downloading those heavy files. SolarWinds doesn't have the tools to be able to handle this kind of situation. You can just notice through your network device that the traffic is becoming overwhelming or heavy, but you cannot go inside and get more details related to the endpoint where it is happening. We would like SolarWinds to be able to handle this kind of situation and even manage the traffic inside a network from the endpoint to the network device. These would be good enhancements. It is mostly stable. The problem comes only when we want to add another SolarWinds model. SolarWinds has so many models, and sometimes when we want to add other models on the platforms that are reserved for our firm, it freezes. When this happens, we have to create a new VM for that model."

"NTA's documentation for the implementation phase needs some enhancement."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer 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."

"The licensing for this solution is based on the number of nodes."

"Licensing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is paid yearly, and there are no additional costs that you need to pay apart from the standard licensing fees because you don't need to purchase another solution to make SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer work. Pricing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is more expensive than other solutions."

"Pricing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is very high. I have a customer that needs the solution but doesn't have the budget for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer because the problem is that you can't use the solution only. You have to buy requirements such as the SolarWinds NPM first, and some companies don't have the budget for all the required components and modules. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer can cost up to $10,000, and some customers don't have that budget. Another product has all the modules that SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer has, with a very low price, that can be a replacement, which is ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer. PRTG is another solution that can replace SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer."

"I don't have information on the licensing cost for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer because it's bundled with another SolarWinds solution. My organization has seven different models and pays for the license yearly. My organization also had to deploy additional pollers, but the cost wasn't very expensive, though I can't give the exact numbers."

"The solution's licensing is high-priced."

"The pricing is really good."

"For our environment, we pay approximately $25,000 USD yearly."

"The price of this solution is exceptional."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	26

Questions from the Community

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What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all kind of software in monitoring from infra to end to end, it depends on the funct...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?

The licensing model of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is always an issue for users because competitors offer unlimited and perpetual licenses, and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's model i...

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What needs improvement with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?

Regarding improvement, the application monitoring capabilities are not exceptional. If SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer could improve in that area, it would be helpful. It is less AIOps driven a...

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

September 2025

Download Iris Session Analyzer product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

August 2025

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer report

Download SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer product report

Also Known As

No data available

Netflow Traffic Analyzer

Overview

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

NETSCOUT

SolarWinds Netflow Traffic Analyzer enables you to capture data from continuous streams of network traffic and convert those raw numbers into easy-to-interpret charts and tables that quantify exactly how the corporate network is being used, by whom, and for what purpose.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

xtel communications, banco votorantim, petronas

Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori

Buyer's Guide

Iris Session Analyzer vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

July 2025

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