Ixia Hawkeye vs Plixer Scrutinizer comparison

Keysight Technologies and Plixer are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Keysight Technologies is ranked #37 with an average rating of 10.0, while Plixer is ranked #52 with an average rating of 8.0. Keysight Technologies holds a 0.3% mindshare in NMS, compared to Plixer’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Keysight Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Plixer users who would recommend it.

Ixia Hawkeye

Read 4 Ixia Hawkeye reviews

706 Views
466 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Plixer Scrutinizer

Read 15 Plixer Scrutinizer reviews

1,289 Views
877 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Ixia Hawkeye

Plixer Scrutinizer

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Ixia Hawkeye and Plixer Scrutinizer are competing products in the network performance monitoring market. Plixer Scrutinizer appears to have the upper hand due to its superior data analysis features, considered worth the investment.

Features: Ixia Hawkeye focuses on real-time network performance monitoring, automated testing, and proactive alerts. Plixer Scrutinizer offers comprehensive flow analysis, extensive drill-down options, and traffic visualization.

Room for Improvement: Ixia Hawkeye could benefit from enhanced flow analysis, more detailed traffic visualization, and additional customization options. Plixer Scrutinizer might improve its deployment process, offer more competitive pricing options, and simplify its initial setup.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Ixia Hawkeye is noted for its streamlined deployment and responsive customer service team, providing assistance throughout setup. Plixer Scrutinizer, despite a more intricate deployment, is supported by comprehensive documentation and knowledgeable technical support, making the complexity manageable.

Pricing and ROI: Ixia Hawkeye is recognized for lower upfront costs and rapid ROI, appealing to budget-conscious buyers. Plixer Scrutinizer, with higher initial costs, justifies the investment with high returns through enhanced capabilities and deeper insights.

To learn more, read our detailed Ixia Hawkeye vs. Plixer Scrutinizer Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Ixia Hawkeye vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

September 2025

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Helped 869,760 peers since 2012

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

Ixia Hawkeye

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

37th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Unified Communications Monitoring (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (36th)

Plixer Scrutinizer

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

52nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Ixia Hawkeye is 0.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Plixer Scrutinizer is 0.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Ixia Hawkeye	0.3%
Plixer Scrutinizer	0.4%
Other	99.3%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

José Enrique Cano Rodriguez

Assistant Consultant at Tata Consultancy

A valuable tool for optimizing network performance and security with comprehensive network monitoring capabilities, user-friendly interface, and flexibility for scripting

Distinguishing itself from network management systems like SolarWinds Orion and Dataminer, Hawkeye offers a distinctive feature. It empowers network administrators to access specialized and detailed views for specific tests, including video streaming and performance related to specific applications like video games. In contrast, SolarWinds and Dataminer typically offer a more general evaluation of network health. Hawkeye's unique capability enables a detailed analysis of network performance through specific tests, allowing administrators to identify areas in need of improvement and take precise actions to enhance network performance.

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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

"The ease of setup is the most valuable aspect of this solution. It's easy to set up and run tests."

"The most valuable feature is the deployment because it's very easy to deploy real flow through the network."

"It empowers network administrators to access specialized and detailed views for specific tests, including video streaming and performance related to specific applications like video games."

"Our customer was happiest with the price of this product."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"The ability to view the status of the top-10 at a glance is helpful. We immediately know which link is over-utilized or heavily used... and it's all in real-time."

"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 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."

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

More Plixer Scrutinizer pros

Cons

"Ixia has one flaw, which is that they do not print the license code on the paper licenses that are shipped to the customers."

"The customization of tests and even the results can be improved."

"Improvements in network performance are essential."

"You can't delete more than one thing at a time. It would be great to be able to highlight three out of five things and delete them, whether it's a test or an actual report."

"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."

"In Plixer Scrutinizer, scalability is an area with minor concerns where improvements are required."

"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."

"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."

"The reporting structure, the front-end GUI, also needs some work. It needs some getting used to. It works fairly well, but it's a technical tool rather than a user tool. You have to understand the structure of the databases before you can really use it."

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

"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."

More Plixer Scrutinizer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It cost us approximately 25,000 for two years. This is cheaper than ThousandEyes."

"In larger networks, the costs for licenses tend to be more reasonable, but for smaller networks, it appears relatively costly."

"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."

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

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

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

"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 licensing cost for Plixer Scrutinizer is in the middle. It's not the cheapest, but it's not the most expensive. Its licensing model is based on how many exporters, how many devices export information to the system. Plixer Scrutinizer has different modules you could add such as the security module which would cost extra."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

University

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Ixia Hawkeye?

It empowers network administrators to access specialized and detailed views for specific tests, including video streaming and performance related to specific applications like video games.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Ixia Hawkeye?

Improvements in network performance are essential.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Ixia Hawkeye?

Our objective is to evaluate the performance of GPON and DOCSIS networks which involves considering factors such as pricing, sales, and the technical aspects of conducting tests. To achieve this, v...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 16% of the time

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Compared 16% of the time

DX Unified Infrastructure Management vs Ixia Hawkeye

Compared 13% of the time

VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs Ixia Hawkeye

Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 28% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 27% of the time

Kentik vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 23% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 22% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Network Monitoring Software

September 2025

Download Ixia Hawkeye product report

Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer

September 2025

Download Plixer Scrutinizer product report

Overview

Hawkeye quickly and effectively validates network performance, isolates problems, and proactively detects issues by running scheduled verification tests. Using a combination of hardware and software agents called Performance Endpoints, Hawkeye simulates application traffic and sends key performance metrics to a central console for fast action.

Keysight Technologies

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

EMA

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

Ixia Hawkeye vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

September 2025

Free Report: Ixia Hawkeye vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

Find out what your peers are saying about Ixia Hawkeye vs. Plixer Scrutinizer and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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