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Kentik vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Kentik reduces costs and improves latency in expensive transit areas, enhancing operational efficiency and security for users.
Sentiment score
4.7
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is time-saving, offers ROI but faces competition from cheaper alternatives, enhancing bandwidth cost management.
In production environments, especially for service providers on IP networks and data centers, Kentik helps in reducing the time to identify and resolve issues.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.6
Kentik's customer service is praised for quick, expert responses, proactive communication, and effective problem resolution, fostering positive relationships.
Sentiment score
7.0
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's support has varying reviews, highlighting responsive yet inconsistent service with suggested premium support for efficiency.
I have mostly used forums for any support needed because the setup is straightforward and the documentation is quite good.
I am very satisfied with their technical support, rating it nine out of ten.
I would rate support eight out of ten.
They often say that only premium subscribers receive support within one or two hours.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.6
Kentik excels in scalable, flexible integration with global infrastructures, providing seamless adaptability for diverse, enterprise-level data management needs.
Sentiment score
7.3
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer scales efficiently for enterprises, but high licensing costs and hardware complexities limit expansion.
Kentik's integration with Kubernetes makes scaling easier.
The license is based on the count of the ports.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Kentik is highly reliable, with prompt issue resolution and communication, ensuring minimal impact and user satisfaction despite occasional bugs.
Sentiment score
7.0
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is praised for stability, despite occasional SQL issues and slow performance with large databases.
In production, however, dimensioning of the underlying platforms is something to be mindful of.
 

Room For Improvement

Kentik users seek improvements in user management, interface, security, AI integration, cost analysis, and better support across time zones.
Users seek improved documentation, integration, pricing, visibility, monitoring, and better stability and responsiveness in support services.
More work is required to integrate AI for troubleshooting, simplifying root cause analysis, and providing suggested solutions for network issues.
Deployment needs improvement; the process is complicated, requiring attention to infrastructure settings and installation of components like the origin application server, platform, close storage, and policy agents.
Ideally, NetFlow should have a robust alerting mechanism.
It should be like a Meraki cloud, where if you are familiar with Meraki devices, you can locate any device directly on the world map.
 

Setup Cost

Kentik's pricing varies by device type and scale, offering discounts for education and bulk purchases with flexible contracts.
Enterprise users find SolarWinds NetFlow pricing fair but costly when scaling, yet praise its value and return on investment.
Kentik’s pricing is competitive in the marketplace.
The pricing is good and aligns with the market target.
 

Valuable Features

Kentik offers real-time traffic analysis, customizable dashboards, anomaly detection, and flexibility, enhancing network management and security efficiently.
SolarWinds NetFlow excels in traffic analysis, bandwidth monitoring, and vendor-agnostic management with a user-friendly, integrable interface.
The most important feature is cybersecurity.
One of the most valuable features of Kentik, especially for service providers, is its ability to visualize all the BGP peering and the status of the BGP peering platform.
The bandwidth indicates the utilization of the devices; if any issue occurs, it triggers an alert for me.
This tool provides insights into top utilization applications or it identifies which circuit or application is consuming the most on the complete one-gig circuit traffic path.
The best feature is customizable reporting, which includes network diagrams and monitoring of various types of bandwidth usage and peak times.
 

Categories and Ranking

Kentik
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (32nd), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (16th)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Kentik is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 0.8%, up 0.7% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, on the other hand, focuses on Network Traffic Analysis (NTA), holds 5.6% mindshare, down 7.1% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
 

Featured Reviews

ADRIANA SALDARRIAGA TOBON - PeerSpot reviewer
Client experience and cybersecurity have improved with an easy setup
The solution is valuable for client experience, especially in the financial sector. The most important feature is cybersecurity. The pricing is good, but the functionality is the most important aspect for clients. The solution is easy to deploy and requires only one person to set up, making it easy and quick. Overall, the ease of use and the fact that it meets client expectations are major positives.
DeepakVyas - PeerSpot reviewer
Utilization alerts enhance monitoring with good alerts
The tool itself is very complicated, so training is required to handle it effectively. Configuration and the streamlining process are very complex. In my view, it is a good product if properly configured and streamlined according to your IT infrastructure. For enterprise-level organizations, SolarWinds is more appropriate than for small and medium enterprises. I would rate the solution eight out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
63%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Kentik?
It offers a simple yet powerful feature of classifying applications, going beyond basic statistics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kentik?
The pricing is good and aligns with the market target.
What needs improvement with Kentik?
The product could strive for more improvements to become closer to perfect.
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?
I am very satisfied with the pricing and provide a rating of nine out of ten.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?
Deployment needs improvement. The process is complicated, requiring attention to infrastructure settings and installation of components like the origin application server, platform, close storage, ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Netflow Traffic Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent. 
Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori
Find out what your peers are saying about Kentik vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and other solutions. Updated: September 2020.
850,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.