Nmap vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer comparison

The compared Nmap and SolarWinds solutions aren't in the same category. Nmap is ranked #19 in NMS , with an average rating of 8.6, and holds a 0.7% mindshare in the category. SolarWinds is ranked #3 in NTA , with an average rating of 7.8, and holds a 5.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Nmap users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Nmap

Read 22 Nmap reviews

2,129 Views
1,937 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Read 43 SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer reviews

2,260 Views
791 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Nmap

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Nmap and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software.

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Network Monitoring Software

February 2026

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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

Nmap

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (19th)

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Nmap is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 0.7%, up 0.5% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, on the other hand, focuses on Network Traffic Analysis (NTA), holds 5.8% mindshare, up 5.4% since last year.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Nmap	0.7%
Zabbix	5.7%
SolarWinds NPM	3.4%
Other	90.2%

Network Monitoring Software

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer	5.8%
Darktrace	17.9%
Cisco Secure Network Analytics	10.5%
Other	65.8%

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

Featured Reviews

MoshiurRahman Khan

CEO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Improves network monitoring and offers insights into traffic, including VPNs

The real-time reporting feature of Nmap is particularly valuable. It generates detailed reports on the source and destination IP addresses, the protocols used, and the types of traffic. This feature is crucial for law enforcement agencies to monitor and analyze network connectivity effectively. It also has traffic analysis. For example, assessing bandwidth usage and configuring the tool to track specific types of traffic is crucial. Unlike SolarWinds, which requires configuration for this, Nmap has built-in functionality that allows it to check all 4,000 computer ports. It identifies the type of traffic each port is using and can easily generate reports on network communications between computers, whether there are 100 or 1000 in the network.

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Raja Xabi

Technical Manager at APRAL

Improved bandwidth management and network visibility have resulted in financial benefits and streamlined operations

There is always room for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, such as implementing instant reporting based on business intelligence reports and more granular filters in their dashboard to improve the GUI view and reporting. The licensing model of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is always an issue for users because competitors offer unlimited and perpetual licenses, and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's model is quite costly compared to other brands. If users are comfortable with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, they have to make the hard decision to invest, and it's suggested from a user's perspective that SolarWinds should improve their financial model and licensing to become competitive, especially for small to medium businesses.

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

"The real-time reporting feature of Nmap is particularly valuable. It generates detailed reports on the source and destination IP addresses, the protocols used, and the types of traffic."

"It enables us to delve deeper and identify the services and open ports on the system and visualize this information on a dashboard automatically."

"The solution detects the operating systems, which makes testing the software much easier before making the payload."

"The scanning procedure includes UDP ports which sets it apart from competitors."

"The best feature of Nmap is that it lets me see useful information about each endpoint in my entire network environment. For example, I can see every single connection of the network as well as each and every port."

"The initial setup was simple."

"It helps us secure the network infrastructure."

"From a functionality standpoint, it's robust and straightforward to comprehend."

More Nmap pros

"So far, it is a very stable product."

"The integration with other SolarWinds products is good."

"What I like the most is the bandwidth assessment."

"The bandwidth monitoring functionality is one of the most important features for our customers. When the customer notices that their bandwidth usage is too high for some reason, they will use the traffic analysis within SolarWinds NTA to identify which protocols (e.g. HTTPS) or applications are using up the bandwidth."

"For managing the traffic, it provides you a response about whether the traffic is down, up, or heavy, which is a very powerful feature. It has a good response time. We have been using this solution for many years, and we don't have any problem with this solution."

"This tool provides insights into top utilization applications or it identifies which circuit or application is consuming the most on the complete one-gig circuit traffic path."

"What my organization likes best about SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is its easy deployment. It's also well-integrated in terms of monitoring because my organization also uses a SolarWinds solution for monitoring. You can connect SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer directly to that monitoring tool to get information. My organization also finds the default graphs that appear before the configuration in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer very useful."

"What the network team found most valuable in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is that it helps them to troubleshoot or analyze the issue. For example, traffic that comes from our location: India, goes to the US, so for the network team to analyze where the traffic comes from and where it is directed, and whether the packets are being dropped, they use SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. The network team also likes that through the solution, they can analyze the complete traffic utilization and how they're going to use it. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is user-friendly. The team finds it comfortable to use."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pros

Cons

"Nmap major operates through the CLI; there's no GUI component, and that's where the challenge is."

"It takes a bit of time to get familiar with the solution and its options."

"The solution should increase the number of features under a free license."

"The solution is not that easy for a beginner to learn."

"There are concerns with the stability of the product, making it an area where improvements are required."

"One of the drawbacks of the standard Nmap utility is that it does not come with a graphical user interface, unlike a number of other open-source alternatives such as Zenmap."

"The challenge often lies in finding suitable courses and professional resources."

"Nmap needs to improve its scanning speed."

More Nmap cons

"There is room for improvement when it comes to the traffic generated by the analyzer and the analysis of that traffic."

"The Atlas module that is used for building the network map is very bad."

"Deployment needs improvement. The process is complicated, requiring attention to infrastructure settings and installation of components like the origin application server, platform, close storage, and policy agents."

"What needs improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is performance because sometimes, my team struggles too much for the solution to perform correctly for a specific deployment in my organization. Having a more detailed view in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is another area for improvement, but that's more part of the protocol than the actual solution."

"The problem is that SolarWinds is trying to bolt in too much and that can leave bugs, which you have to then sort out, leaving the product unstable. SolarWinds needs to try and slow down and improve the stability of the product, as opposed to bringing out more and more features."

"There is a lack of documentation ......as well as a lack of dashboards."

"The tool itself is very complicated, so training is required to handle it effectively."

"This solution would benefit from having more security-based communications between the actual devices and the software itself."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Nmap is an open-source product. You don't need a license to install it."

"The solution is free of cost."

"Nmap is an open-source and free product."

"I am using the free version of Nmap."

"I am using the standard free version of Nmap."

"It's an open-source solution. Commerically, only the support service is available."

"It's an open-source product, and I haven't seen any premiums. Options are available for those who purchase, but for my use case, everything I need is available in the community and forums."

"Nmap is open source software, which suits us well because we are a manufacturing company and not an IT company, for example. If we were an IT company, we would probably need to pay for extra support or instead go for another software solution. But as it is, we don't have any need for high-end troubleshooting tools."

More Nmap pricing and cost advice

"For our environment, we pay approximately $25,000 USD yearly."

"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."

"We have licenses for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. In terms of pricing, its license is not that expensive versus other tools such as HP."

"We pay yearly, and we are happy with its price."

"SolarWinds' pricing structure is the primary reason why some customers opt for another solution such as ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer. In NTA, you are charged per port, meaning that if you have a 24-port switch you will be charged for 24 individual nodes. ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer, on the other hand, charges per switch, such that if you add a switch, the entire switch will count as one single node."

"While the pricing is fair, it could be better."

"Licensing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is paid yearly, and there are no additional costs that you need to pay apart from the standard licensing fees because you don't need to purchase another solution to make SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer work. Pricing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is more expensive than other solutions."

"The pricing is reasonable."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

13%

Government

10%

University

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Healthcare Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	11

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	26

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Nmap?

Nmap is mostly helpful during compliance checks. We run the scanner to see how many devices are on our network and find vulnerabilities in those that aren't compliant. We also use it monthly to sca...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nmap?

I am using the free version of Nmap.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Nmap?

Nmap is used for network scanning to map the network, identify devices, and assess their status. It helps determine open ports and services running on a particular endpoint or server within an ente...

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all kind of software in monitoring from infra to end to end, it depends on the funct...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?

The licensing model of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is always an issue for users because competitors offer unlimited and perpetual licenses, and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's model i...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?

Regarding improvement, the application monitoring capabilities are not exceptional. If SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer could improve in that area, it would be helpful. It is less AIOps driven a...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Nmap

January 2026

Download Nmap product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

January 2026

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer report

Download SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer product report

Also Known As

No data available

Netflow Traffic Analyzer

Overview

Nmap ("Network Mapper") is a free and open source (license) utility for network discovery and security auditing. Many systems and network administrators also find it useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime. Nmap uses raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics. It was designed to rapidly scan large networks, but works fine against single hosts. Nmap runs on all major computer operating systems, and official binary packages are available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. In addition to the classic command-line Nmap executable, the Nmap suite includes an advanced GUI and results viewer (Zenmap), a flexible data transfer, redirection, and debugging tool (Ncat), a utility for comparing scan results (Ndiff), and a packet generation and response analysis tool (Nping).

Nmap

SolarWinds Netflow Traffic Analyzer enables you to capture data from continuous streams of network traffic and convert those raw numbers into easy-to-interpret charts and tables that quantify exactly how the corporate network is being used, by whom, and for what purpose.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Lockheed Martin, Eastern Bank Boston, Perspecta, Harris Corporation, Discovery Communication

Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori

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February 2026

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