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NetBrain vs Observer GigaStor comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 11, 2024

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

NetBrain
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
18th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Automation (6th)
Observer GigaStor
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (88th), Network Packet Broker (NPB) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of NetBrain is 3.3%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Observer GigaStor is 3.8%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Observer GigaStor3.8%
NetBrain3.3%
Other92.9%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Deborah Gamelin - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President at Asset Track for Cloud, LLC
Good monitoring and troubleshoot capabilities, improves overall network traffic visibility
In my organization, we had 130,000 network devices that needed to be brought into the solution and mapped. NetBrain can handle the scale but the engineers that manage those devices have to go in and update all of them to allow NetBrain permission to poll them. It can get a little stressful for everybody when you're trying to roll out new stuff when you've got other issues that have to be addressed with other devices. In some cases, our devices had no automation at all. One example is the Cisco 3650. Right now, if you went through the inventory list, you see that we have different versions running. Some are on one version, whereas others are on another version. The problem with upgrading them is that they need to be done overnight because we don't want to disrupt any network traffic during business hours. Consequently, it could take us years to upgrade the versions before we can even get them onto these new tools. This may be an internal issue but it's a big one when you have a lot of devices. Even if you had 10,000 devices, it's still an issue. You have to consider the compatibility of the device against the tool, and being able to use certain commands to upgrade it.
Jeroen-Dubbelman - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Bitrate
Aids significantly in the threat-hunting process and provides a score-based evaluation of user experience
There are many valuable features, but understanding end-user response times stands out. It provides a score-based evaluation of user experience, helping customers quickly pinpoint whether issues originate from the network, server, client, or application. Additionally, it facilitates in-depth analysis of application dependencies. The retrospective network analysis capability of Observer GigaStor has been beneficial. It's a pivotal feature for network performance solutions. However, I prefer to consider the entire solution suite - GigaStor, along with GigaFlow and Apex - for comprehensive network visibility and monitoring. So, I prefer to integrate all three solutions to provide the best visibility. They complement each other well, with Apex aggregating and correlating data from both GigaStor and GigaFlow to enhance environmental understanding and troubleshooting efficiency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This product has good network monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities."
"This tool is exactly what we wanted and needed."
"Once it's up and running and you don't have the strange requirements I had, and you just want some basic maps, it'll work."
"Enables maps to be drawn out."
"NetBrain is faster, better and level sets the engineering technical sets."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that you can click once and have a link test, see your network, and get an overall view of your network and its state."
"NetBrain is a very simple tool."
"Chain management is a good feature. I don't get it on other solutions."
"I have no regrets using this product, I am very satisfied for what I paid for it and for the things I am able to do with the product."
"It can help to write your rules, organize firewalls, your block, and also your protocols and IP address to come in or out of your network."
"Go take a look at it. It's a great product and has great capabilities."
"It's able to capture packets and, after a long time, you can come and use that information; to check, to analyze - everything you would want to do. So it's very good and helpful if you want to protect your data. It is stored in a certain place where you can access it every time you want to analyze it."
"If you have the opportunity, I would strongly encourage you to get it, because it makes the IT experience easier and more flexible, by providing the ability to see things in your networks like the directory packet label."
"I also have the ability to see an application's performance, to see what's going on, why a network is slow, why this program for this user is experiencing a delay or some network issue"
"Industry-leading line rates, packet-capture technology and data-mining capabilities are the most valuable features."
"The ability to capture packets. It is not only for monitoring. That is very important for a company that wants to keep an eye on the packets, the transactions, the flows..."
 

Cons

"Each device needs to be configured to allow NetBrain to poll for the information it needs, which can be very time-consuming for a large network."
"It's okay on the value, a bit expensive for just maps, but makes it a lot easier to see things visually and take it from there."
"The IP interface brief isn't consistent."
"Netbrain must get AWS functionality done."
"Support needs to improve for the installed product and some of the reporting could be more flexible to provide more complete cataloging."
"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
"The solution could integrate more automation."
"When I used the installed product before, I wasn't very satisfied with the support."
"The Observer Console UI is consistent and stable, but could use some updating to be more modern."
"The interface is pretty complex, so for the average user, it takes a while to get up to speed with it. I would like it to be more user-friendly."
"GigaStor feeds into Apex. So, the area where there could be improvement would be in artificial intelligence. For example, the incorporation of more advanced machine learning or AI capabilities could enhance its functionality."
"I would like to have more than 4TB of storage available in the portable version of this solution."
"Graphics need improvement. Because a lot of the information there you have to input first in some case to have full potential. It could be more automated."
"There are some issues, in our environment that puts processing restraints on the Gigastor when turning on trending data to be sent to APEX."
"Maybe the graphical user interface could be simplified to allow people to use it more easily. It's already good, but they can work more on it to make it even easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
"The product is expensive, but less expensive than some of the competition and worth the price."
"It depends on the requirements you have. There are three types of license. There's the updates license, the work group license, and the workstation license."
"It's quite expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Construction Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise3
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CompuCon, TD Ameritrade, Move Inc.
Cisco Systems, Hawaiian Telecom, Renown Health, State of Nevada, U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, Allstate Insurance, Jack Henry & Associates, United States Airforce, US Bank, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Chicago Board Options Exchange
Find out what your peers are saying about NetBrain vs. Observer GigaStor and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.