Meraki Dashboard vs Plixer Scrutinizer comparison

Cisco and Plixer are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Cisco is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.5, while Plixer is ranked #53 with an average rating of 8.0. Cisco holds a 1.1% mindshare in NMS, compared to Plixer’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Plixer users who would recommend it.

Meraki Dashboard

Read 58 Meraki Dashboard reviews

2,378 Views
2,069 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Plixer Scrutinizer

Read 15 Plixer Scrutinizer reviews

1,336 Views
895 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Meraki Dashboard

Plixer Scrutinizer

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Meraki Dashboard and Plixer Scrutinizer are competitive in the network management and analytics category. Meraki Dashboard has the upper hand in ease of use and cloud management, while Plixer Scrutinizer leads in traffic analysis and reporting.

Features: Meraki Dashboard provides presence analytics, layer 7 filtering, and multiple SSID configurations. Its cloud management allows supervision from a single location, and it integrates with various platforms. Plixer Scrutinizer specializes in deep traffic analysis, provides extensive reporting, and offers context-based insights through traffic correlation. It is versatile as it is not tied to specific hardware.

Room for Improvement: Meraki Dashboard could improve licensing procedures, VPN client functionality, and integrate more advanced features for enterprise solutions. Its pricing structure is considered high. Plixer Scrutinizer needs better user documentation, a simpler interface, more streamlined updates, and improved data integration capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Meraki Dashboard benefits from cloud-based deployment, offering adaptability across various cloud environments. Plixer Scrutinizer, being primarily on-premises, may limit deployment flexibility. Both provide satisfactory technical support but Meraki has reported wait times, while Plixer might require extensive technical knowledge.

Pricing and ROI: Meraki Dashboard's high price point is offset by easy management and reduced overheads, with ROI through labor reduction. Plixer Scrutinizer offers competitive pricing, affordable with its security reports and flexible licensing. It provides value for its capabilities, reducing long-term operational costs.

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

Buyer's Guide

Meraki Dashboard vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 867,676 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

Meraki Dashboard

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

19th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Plixer Scrutinizer

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

53rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Meraki Dashboard is 1.1%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Plixer Scrutinizer is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Meraki Dashboard	1.1%
Plixer Scrutinizer	0.4%
Other	98.5%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

MURALI NIDAMANURI

Managing Director at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Dashboard provides comprehensive network security and management capabilities

I don't have specific handy names. Meraki Dashboard uses multiple functions where we can configure SSIDs, firewall policies, DHCP, multiple VLANs and DHCP configurations, VLAN configurations, access control policies, MAC binding, client access based on MAC authentication and certificate-based authentication. We have configured SSO for Windows Active Directory by configuring the RADIUS services. We have implemented many customer requirements in Meraki Dashboard. With the detailed visibility feature of Meraki Dashboard, I get connected clients information, including how much data each client downloaded and what applications they accessed. I can obtain detailed data including ISP links level monitoring and speed. I can perform speed tests, generate analytics reports, convert to Excel based on each user for each department, create dashboards, monitor and limit bandwidths, and restrict specific URLs. The advanced security configuration in Meraki Dashboard is useful for network security. Substantial security can be achieved within Meraki Dashboard itself, eliminating the need for additional firewalls to protect your network. You can configure WAN monitoring, users' ACLs, URL filtering, web filtering, and department-wise access configuration for specific client applications. It's completely cloud-managed, and in a simplified way, you don't need to visit any physical infrastructure to monitor activities. Apart from access points, everything is in the cloud. We have monitored IoT solutions, CCTV monitoring, and can detect and control intrusions. When people connect IoT devices to your network, Meraki Dashboard can detect what device it is and control those access controls, even with different operating systems.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We greatly utilize the network because we can plug it into the DNS, VPN, or equipment. It's very good. Meraki Dashboard enhances wireless network management. We appreciate its flexibility, as it allows for easy suite configuration. We can handle everything on there when there's a policy or any other requirement."

"We have found the client dashboard to be very simple to use, especially in our Meraki environment."

"Great visibility on the dashboard."

"The most valuable features are that it's easy to use and technically very complete. I can configure, do advanced troubleshooting in the dashboard, and reboot access points remotely."

"What I love most about the Meraki Dashboard are its user-friendly features."

"What I found most valuable in the Meraki Dashboard is straight monitoring of the different devices, as well as the ability to easily set up VPNs, for example, both Meraki client VPNs and non-Meraki VPNs for different organizations that work with my company. I also like that the tool is a really good firewall."

"Meraki dashboard deserves an Oscar."

"The most valuable feature for me is the cloud dashboard."

More Meraki Dashboard pros

"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 helps us determine what is going on with our Internet and who is hogging it all up. If we get a real high throughput or a throughput that's going over and getting dropped fairly quickly, we can tell who (or what device) is consuming that traffic."

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

"We didn't experience any bugs."

"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."

"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 most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer are its ease of use, accessibility, and UI."

"We have had many requests to understand in the network which devices are connected to others. Most people don't have this information or are able to establish a map of data flow everywhere around the network. Scrutinizer can really help with this. We are using it to understand who is talking to what, how, and which protocols can help us to improve security and analyze flow."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pros

Cons

"It would be nicer if the dashboard was lighter."

"In general, how I add firewall rules is not great."

"The solution has a limited routing table and needs improvement by increasing the numbers as well as providing a summarization for the table."

"For instance, you should be able to see if something has been blocked by a firewall rule by looking at a live log of traffic moving through the device. It helps you troubleshoot issues and understand if your rules are working. You need to ensure the firewall is blocking the right things. That's unavailable in the Meraki Dashboard. You have to send the logs to a log server. We use SolarWinds locally, but it's not natively built into Meraki. We're also using Cisco ISA and another tool called Smoothwall."

"More integration would be an improvement."

"What we would like from the IT perspective is a lot more granular control, more visibility into the packets, into the routing, and things of that nature."

"The wait time to speak with a Meraki support engineer is always long, but they get the job done."

"I think this product could be improved with a CLI for more directives."

More Meraki Dashboard cons

"The solution creates a visual map of a particular location and how the network flows. You need to spend time to generate all those maps. If they could figure out a way to reduce the time needed to generate the maps, that would be great."

"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."

"For updating the Scrutinizer platform, when we have the actual data, it never happens in one day. Every time we have the data, we are obliged to install a new server in order to integrate the old data, and every time it has a problem. Most of the time, we were obliged to scrap all the data because we couldn't transfer it to the new server. So, it would be very good if they could improve this part."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

More Plixer Scrutinizer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"You don't have to pay for the dashboard."

"My view is that it's expensive, but it's the best."

"Typically, the license model is for one, three, and five years. They can just be a bit more flexible around it and look into providing an option for 24 months."

"I’m not sure of the exact cost, however, it’s my understanding the Meraki WiFi is around $800. That’s for a three-year license. It’s about $150 a year."

"The pricing of the tool is relatively high compared to other solutions. It comes with a premium that exceeds that of its competitors by approximately 25 percent."

"Licensing is around under 1000 pounds. The licensing is either one year, three years, five years or ten years and during the licensing, we can choose to renew it per year or per every three years. We've got a license for three years. It's about 160 or about 200 pounds each."

"It is said to be expensive."

More Meraki Dashboard pricing and cost advice

"We just renewed. The pricing is 5,000 euro per year. This is the final price. All tax (20 percent) is included."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"We recently bought a license upgrade, so we will integrate more exporters. We upgraded from a 25 exporter license to a 50 exporter license. Therefore, there will be more flows, and this will be an extension. I don't know when we will purchase a faster server, because the server that we have is quite new."

"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."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	22
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	25

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Meraki Dashboard?

We greatly utilize the network because we can plug it into the DNS, VPN, or equipment. It's very good. Meraki Dashboard enhances wireless network management. We appreciate its flexibility, as it al...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki Dashboard?

The cost of the Meraki solution is high, which may not be affordable for smaller companies, especially in developing countries.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Meraki Dashboard?

The aspect I find challenging about this solution is that it is too extensive and complex. For example, when comparing Meraki Dashboard to Juniper Mist, the latter is quite simple. Mist is a very a...

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

Cisco DNA Center vs Meraki Dashboard

Compared 18% of the time

Zabbix vs Meraki Dashboard

Compared 13% of the time

ThousandEyes vs Meraki Dashboard

Compared 9% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Meraki Dashboard

Compared 6% of the time

Mist AI and Cloud vs Meraki Dashboard

Compared 6% of the time

More Meraki Dashboard Competitors

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 28% of the time

Kentik vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 21% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 20% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 20% of the time

ExtraHop Reveal(x) for IT Operations vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 11% of the time

More Plixer Scrutinizer Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Meraki Dashboard

August 2025

Download Meraki Dashboard product report

Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer

August 2025

Download Plixer Scrutinizer product report

Overview

Meraki Dashboard is a comprehensive cloud-based platform that offers centralized management and control for all Meraki networking and security products. It provides a user-friendly interface, allowing administrators to easily monitor and configure their network infrastructure from anywhere. With real-time visibility, troubleshooting becomes effortless, ensuring optimal performance and minimizing downtime.

The intuitive dashboard offers a holistic view of the network, enabling quick identification of potential issues and proactive measures. It simplifies network deployment and scaling, with zero-touch provisioning and automatic firmware updates. The robust security features include advanced threat protection, content filtering, and VPN connectivity.

Meraki Dashboard also offers powerful analytics and reporting capabilities, providing valuable insights into network usage, application performance, and user behavior. With its seamless integration and scalability,

Meraki Dashboard is the ideal solution for organizations of all sizes, ensuring efficient network management and enhanced productivity.

Cisco

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

Coop eG, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Priefert Manufacturing, Century Care Management, Clifton College, Zürs Ski Resort, Capital FM Arena, MAXI Autohöfe

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

Meraki Dashboard vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

September 2025

Free Report: Meraki Dashboard vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

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

DOWNLOAD NOW

867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Meraki Dashboard vs. Plixer Scrutinizer report.

See our list of best Network Monitoring Software vendors.

We monitor all Network Monitoring Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.