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NetBrain vs PRTG Network Monitor 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

NetBrain
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (17th), Network Automation (5th)
PRTG Network Monitor
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (5th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. NetBrain is designed for Network Troubleshooting and holds a mindshare of 3.1%, up 2.5% compared to last year.
PRTG Network Monitor, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 3.3% mindshare, down 4.1% since last year.
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetBrain3.1%
Wireshark14.3%
AirMagnet Survey PRO10.3%
Other72.3%
Network Troubleshooting
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
PRTG Network Monitor3.3%
Zabbix5.0%
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
Other88.1%
Network Monitoring Software
 

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.
madhan kumar hs - PeerSpot reviewer
software engineer at Capgemini
Alerting precision has reduced incident response times and improved department-level network visibility
The auto-pause sensor during the maintenance window is good without any false alerts, and it prevents me from getting flooded with alerts during planned maintenance, helping department heads understand their own network usage better. It has reduced incident response time by giving clearer ownership of each alert, ensuring alerts go to the proper recipient. SNMP testers and auto-pause are among the best features of PRTG Network Monitor, which is particularly useful for different departments such as HR and finance, where alerts can be filtered accordingly. The alerting features and dashboard of PRTG Network Monitor are very helpful, especially in our industry. However, the dashboard can look cluttered on smaller screens, which is one negative aspect. PRTG Network Monitor has impacted us positively; we have stopped getting flooded with alerts during planned maintenance or unplanned outages. Compared to others, this gives specific alerts very quickly and helps department heads understand their own network usage better, thus reducing incident response time so that each alert has clear ownership.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 very good when it comes to network mapping, as it looks for different assets within the network available, so router, firewall, applications, et cetera, and it gives you the full mapping, asset mapping along with the full range including the firmware software update and all those things."
"Enables maps to be drawn out."
"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."
"This tool is exactly what we wanted and needed."
"A reliable, time-saving tool for providing accurate layer 2 and layer 3 network mappings."
"Chain management is a good feature. I don't get it on other solutions."
"NetBrain is faster, better and level sets the engineering technical sets."
"PRTG has improved our visibility and response time to issues related to remote sites."
"There is a simplicity to setting up the extra sensors. It's really easy for us to build infrastructure and start monitoring very quickly."
"Currently, we are competing in the market with SolarWinds and ManageEngine, they are good, but we come out winning."
"The most valuable features of PRTG Network Monitor are bandwidth utilization, user-friendliness, all past report simple retrievals, and timeout features. Additionally, if the solution does go down it is simple to bring it back."
"Network monitoring - it's able to collect lots of detailed information on network devices and network traffic."
"PRTG Network Monitor is a very stable product."
"The most valuable feature is the dashboard interface. It's very clean, it's very simple to use."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
 

Cons

"The IP interface brief isn't consistent."
"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."
"If you're comparing NetBrain as an NDR, I would rate it as a four or five, however, NetBrain has a different aspect of looking at things within the network."
"It would be nice if the setup was a little simpler. Also, if the solution could provide more training materials for new people coming into our company so they can quickly learn how to use the functionalities."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"Netbrain must get AWS functionality done."
"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
"Support needs to improve for the installed product and some of the reporting could be more flexible to provide more complete cataloging."
"While the desktop app is good, they could slightly improve it. We would like it to be a single pane of glass. At the moment, you can only see certain portions of information. You have to scroll through to make it more granular. We want them to develop the desktop app to be more user-friendly."
"Its price can be better. Its price is a problem for us because it is in dollars, and there is a high conversion rate. In terms of new features, it can have BGP monitoring. It should also have a dashboard and maps editor."
"We're using more cloud services now. It would be useful to be able to get information back from these cloud services in detail, and display any issues within PRTG for the rest of our systems."
"I would like to see them take their graphing tools and convert them into a collector so that we can point telemetry to them"
"The icons on PRTG's network diagram are hard to find. For example, finding the icons for firewalls and servers is difficult, so we're struggling to create the network topology."
"PRTG Network Monitor can improve by adding prevention and detection features."
"PRTG Network Monitor can improve the reports. In the reports, you have to give an alert for that SMS and email, the emergency calls and downtimes have to be reported accordingly. You have to enable email services or an SMS gateway service to receive more alerts at the proper time."
"I am not sure the solution is giving me all the needed feedback that we need."
 

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."
"The scalability is there, but smaller companies might need CAM software to be able afford the product."
"Right now, the smallest sensor pack that they have is just a bit out of range for me, as a business. This kills me, as I need the product. Therefore, there is always a balance between needing to buy it or continuing their free version."
"PRTG Network Monitor is very expensive."
"If you're looking for a cost effective software I’d suggest this product."
"The licensing fees are billed annually and there are no costs in addition to this."
"PRTG Network Monitor's price is a little high."
"At the moment I'm only using 500 sensors. I pay yearly, so it's a cost that's easily swallowed."
"The pricing is not too bad. It's not massively expensive, and the ability to upscale or even downscale licenses every year is brilliant for us."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise50
 

Questions from the Community

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What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?
The pricing was higher at the beginning, but the recurring licensing cost is affordable and reasonable. Overall, the pricing, setup cost, and licensing is fair for our industry. They have quoted us...
What needs improvement with PRTG Network Monitor?
The reporting features look very technical and that can be improved. If they can change the report so everyone can understand it, that would be helpful.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CompuCon, TD Ameritrade, Move Inc.
Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about NetBrain vs. PRTG Network Monitor and other solutions. Updated: May 2020.
885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.