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ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer vs Wireshark 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
7th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (8th)
Wireshark
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer is 3.5%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wireshark is 18.4%, up from 14.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark18.4%
ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer3.5%
Other78.1%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Sherin Mirza - PeerSpot reviewer
Competency Center Lead Full Stack Development at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Improved network visibility has enabled faster incident resolution and collaborative monitoring
When I open ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer, I start by checking the dashboard for any alerts. There are no features that came up during implementation that I am not using today, and we are happy with whatever we configured. ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer does change how my team works together and improves collaboration. I would advise someone considering ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer that it is a good product, economical, and has a better interface and dashboard to monitor network activity. I give this product a rating of 10.
reviewer2837244 - PeerSpot reviewer
It System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Packet analysis has improved real-time troubleshooting and simplifies mapping complex data flows
The best features that Wireshark offers are everything. Every time I look into Wireshark, I find something new. The ability to capture real-time packets and understand how the packet is working and moving through how many hops and to how many points it reaches makes it a wonderful tool. The specific feature I use most is capturing packets of real-time communication and seeing how the packet is working. I rely on all the filters it has to check the protocols and see the communication between one end and another end and what the hops in between are, and if there is a proxy, how it behaves. Everything helps us check out the issue and troubleshoot it. I do not have anything additional to add about the features; everything looks really fine. The graphics are also good, and you can change its graphical features, making it a pretty nice tool. You can also use it with the PCAP file, which is really nice. Wireshark has positively impacted my organization by giving us the ability to capture packets and see into the network how it is working and what we can clarify about the network, specifically how we can remove many hops in the communication channels. A specific example of a measurable outcome is that we have a few switches in our network that, when we use Wireshark analysis, we find should not be needed or can be replaced with automatic switches instead of manual switches, such as switches which do not have any active features and only passive switches. That has saved us a lot of time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I give this solution a rating of 10 out of 10 and absolutely recommend it based on our experience."
"I would advise someone considering ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer that it is a good product, economical, and has a better interface and dashboard to monitor network activity."
"The impact of ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer on our team's daily operations is immediate, shifting the entire department from a fire-fighting mindset to a proactive management style."
"ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer has detection capabilities for flow, event, and service flow."
"The ability to decrypt traffic and the abundance of filters available are both valuable features."
"The best network analyzer tool out there in the market."
"The session-level filtering features are valuable."
"The product is simple to implement."
"The most valuable feature of Wireshark is the ability to choose a destination of flow that has not been working as expected."
"Wireshark is a network analytic tool which provides such intelligent information in a network."
"This is a good product for quick and easy troubleshooting."
"The options that are required to get the details for the packet drops are good."
 

Cons

"In ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer, we have to set custom thresholds to get alerted if there is a problem in network connectivity. It would be helpful if we could automate the tool such that we don't have to set thresholds manually, and the tool automatically alerts us when it detects issues."
"The single biggest friction point I experience with ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer comes down to database storage management and disk space explosion, as flow data records literally record every single conversation passing throughout the monitored interfaces."
"Big trace files (more than 1,000,000 packets) can be slow, but then you can use "TraceWrangler" (also free) to help with slicing and dicing the data."
"Wireshark is similar to an OS defense tool, meaning that it runs on an OS such as Ubuntu and Fedora, but I'm unsure if it's compatible with Windows or if it's a straightforward process to run it on Windows. Right now, my team needs to run Wireshark from a dongle to use it, so it's an OS-dependable tool, and that's an area for improvement. I was unable to use Wireshark on Windows, and I couldn't capture it, as I'm unsure how to configure the wireless card into monitoring mode on Windows. The process was straightforward on Linux, but it wasn't the case on Windows OS. It seems Wireshark isn't compatible with all OS. For example, you can analyze the log, and you can analyze it on the Windows server, but you can't do a capture in Windows. Configuring Wireshark for Windows isn't as easy as configuring it for Linux."
"It needs the ability to follow multiple interfaces for specific traffic from different network zones/virtual networks. It would help to understand how any packet is going through the network."
"Running Wireshark through an admin account for multiple exploits is unsecured."
"The product has been using the same GUI for many years."
"Built-in help system is not robust."
"Wireshark is also used for hacking which is a security breach."
"A room for improvement in Wireshark is its ease of use for beginners. It could be better. Another room for improvement in the tool is for it to provide more details about the traffic load. At the moment, Wireshark is adequate for me, so there isn't anything I'd like added to it in its next version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution is open source so is free."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"It's free."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"It is an open-source solution."
"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Educational Organization
10%
University
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer?
ManageEngine's product has some performance issues. It runs very slowly when the system is large and does not support high availability for big flow and high-level operations. The product needs imp...
What is your primary use case for ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer?
I use ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer for detecting the root cause when the database and application run very slow. I have not yet used the traffic shaping feature of ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Wireshark?
Wireshark is priced at a medium range, not too high, not too low. The pricing could be more flexible, and they might make it more expensive. That said, compared to other products, it is competitive.
What needs improvement with Wireshark?
Wireshark can be improved if it provides the accessibility of capturing packets from one device that is installed in the network without needing the port-mirrored facility. They could provide somet...
What is your primary use case for Wireshark?
Wireshark's main use case is capturing packets and reviewing the data flow over the network. Regarding my main use case for Wireshark, it is a great tool and would be one of the best tools availabl...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Metro Rail, Micron21, Lotus F1 Team, Elizabeth Board of Education, Queen’s University Belfast, DHL, Praxair, Adventist Health, Wipro Infotech, Tropical Shipping USA
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
Find out what your peers are saying about ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer vs. Wireshark and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.