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NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE vs Plixer Scrutinizer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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

NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
50th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Plixer Scrutinizer
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
75th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Plixer Scrutinizer is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE0.5%
Plixer Scrutinizer0.5%
Other99.0%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ian Munoz - PeerSpot reviewer
Ingeniero en Telecomunicaciones at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has improved traffic visibility and simplified dashboard use, but could benefit from better integration with other tools
NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE works very well in our case. We have not experienced any troubles with traffic analysis SolarWinds has a dashboard that is older and not as user-friendly. NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE has an easier dashboard to manipulate compared to SolarWinds. NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is not…
Ira Mulyanti - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

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 features of this solution are monitoring and maintaining traffic queuing, as well as seeing who is using the bandwidth."
"I like the single pane of glass view. I like being able to go to one place instead of having to hunt around for everything."
"NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE has an easier dashboard to manipulate compared to SolarWinds."
"The most valuable feature of NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is the network troubleshooting analysis. You can pinpoint an issue before it could shut down the network."
"This is a very reliable and complete solution for troubleshooting and monitoring environments."
"I like the single pane of glass view because it presents everything in one window, obviously. You can see it all. With a quick glance, you get a pretty good snapshot of what's going on in a particular situation."
"The solution's technical support team consists of good engineers and technicians."
"We didn't experience any bugs."
"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."
"The ability to view the status of the top-10 at a glance is helpful. We immediately know which link is over-utilized or heavily used... and it's all in real-time."
"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."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the ability to track what a device is doing and to go back historically. It is also able to go down to, and identify, very low levels of traffic."
"The reporting and generating troubleshooting reports would be the best feature; our host-to-host conversation reporting."
"Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features."
"It shows us the saturation of the network of devices. It gives us a clear view of the flows in the network to understand, for instance, planning upgrades in the network to get an idea of what's going on the network on traffic flows. It gives us insight, for instance, on what's going on on our VPN Client. There are a lot of things where it provides very helpful information. It also gives us our security reports with quite detailed information on what's going on in the network, and whether there are data exfiltrations and so on."
 

Cons

"The GUI interface and dashboards could be more attractive to the customer."
"Usability is the area with the biggest room for improvement. We've found that with NETSCOUT, while it's a fantastic product, the usability is a major factor because there are just way too many clicks. It's obvious, from our experience, that the people who are developing the product aren't using it."
"Before an attack starts, seeing the traffic behavior and activities would be great. The tool should also share alerts since it is an area where the product has certain shortcomings."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
"NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is not integrated with SolarWinds. They work in different ways."
"They require a lot of manual effort as traffic flows, networks, and formal times change."
"In terms of additional features, I would like to see better event notification. Right now, we put in an email address to receive an alert and it receives every event and every alert that comes out. We need something a little more granular."
"The reporting structure, the front-end GUI, also needs some work. It needs some getting used to. It works fairly well, but it's a technical tool rather than a user tool. You have to understand the structure of the databases before you can really use it."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"From what I understand it is that the solution is not very scalable in a high volume traffic environment with a large number of flows."
"I wish the reporting side was easier to work with, but it does a decent job. I also wish the reporting side was a little more intuitive or they offered more reporting examples."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is high. The other solutions are less expensive but we cannot depend on the other solutions, they are not as stable."
"Cost is contracted on a yearly basis. There is no additional cost beyond the standard licensing."
"The tool's price is okay. On a scale of one to ten, I rate it as a five, where one means it is not expensive, and ten means it is the most expensive."
"Compared to some of the other tools we have, it's incredibly reasonably priced."
"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."
"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."
"Currently, the license for Plixer Scrutinizer is subscription-based and at a yearly fee. The price would depend on the amount of traffic you pull in. For example, there are several blocks from a 10K flow, a 40K flow, and a 100K flow, and based on the number of devices that you receive the flows from, that's the license, and it is not a per-interface pricing model, so that is a very strong, very competitive pricing feature of Plixer Scrutinizer. Licensing for the product is also not based on the number of storage, compared to some competing products that are priced based on the amount of storage you need, particularly based on the retention and the amount of data. Plixer Scrutinizer licensing is based on the device, and it's more in the direction of $10,000 because, with just $1,000, you don't have anything."
"We just renewed. The pricing is 5,000 euro per year. This is the final price. All tax (20 percent) is included."
"The license is per device. We have 50 devices."
"It's about €10,000 a year for initial license and yearly maintenance costs. In addition, the hardware costs are about €10,000 once every five years."
"We have increased the license over time. We have added more licenses as the network has grown."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE?
The tool's price is okay. On a scale of one to ten, I rate it as a five, where one means it is not expensive, and ten means it is the most expensive.
What needs improvement with NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE?
NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is not integrated with SolarWinds. They work in different ways.
What is your primary use case for NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE?
I use the solution in my company to analyze international traffic.
Ask a question
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Also Known As

nGeniusPULSE
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banco Votorantim
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
Find out what your peers are saying about NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE vs. Plixer Scrutinizer and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.