Nmap vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer comparison

The compared Nmap and SolarWinds solutions aren't in the same category. Nmap is ranked #17 in NMS , with an average rating of 8.7, and holds a 0.8% mindshare in the category. SolarWinds is ranked #4 in NTA , with an average rating of 7.7, and holds a 6.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Nmap users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Nmap

Read 23 Nmap reviews

2,468 Views
2,246 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Read 43 SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer reviews

2,434 Views
876 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Nmap

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

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.

To learn more, read our detailed Network Monitoring Software Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Network Monitoring Software

March 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 885,667 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

Nmap

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (17th)

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (4th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Nmap is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 0.8%, up 0.5% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, on the other hand, focuses on Network Traffic Analysis (NTA), holds 6.1% mindshare, up 5.5% since last year.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Nmap	0.8%
Zabbix	5.0%
SolarWinds NPM	3.6%
Other	90.6%

Network Monitoring Software

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer	6.1%
Darktrace	18.0%
Cisco Secure Network Analytics	11.2%
Other	64.7%

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

Featured Reviews

Sai Aditya Panda

Student at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

Penetration testing has become efficient as I identify open ports and security risks with confidence

Nmap could potentially become a GUI and provide automatic reports with one-click downloads. For example, the report could show all the open ports for an IP address with a professionally formatted report. This is a far-fetched suggestion and not really required, but it could make the work a little better. On a scale of one to ten, I give Nmap a solid nine. I mean, how can you fix something that is not broken? Nmap is already the best, and I do not think there are any other features that can be added. Its job is reconnaissance, so I do not think there is more to add to it. However, if I get any ideas, I will let them know about this.

Read full review

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

"Nmap is easy to use; it's a command-line interface, and the output is quite good."

"The most important function, according to me, is the capability to use some arguments in the scanning. The solution's capability to go figure and do a deep dive, discovering information on specific aspects."

"Nmap is easy to use. It's a command-line interface, and the output is quite good."

"We chose this solution because it supports several frameworks, including coding frameworks."

"It is most efficient network scanner right now."

"Nmap's performance is great, and I've never noticed any issues in this respect. It really doesn't put a heavy load on the machine when using it."

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

"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."

More Nmap pros

"They have instructional videos and other information available on the site to assist you with learning it."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to look for any increases in bandwidth over time so that we can plan before it becomes critical."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its traffic analysis."

"We have had a good experience with customer service and support; they are knowledgeable and cooperative."

"The monitoring is perfect, showing you the details for the utilization of resources and network bandwidth."

"The performance analysis is a valuable feature. With the performance analyzer, we can see the realtime monitoring, the realtime performance, and historical performance on specific components like virtualization storage, CPU, servers and network equipment."

"For managing the traffic, it provides you a response about whether the traffic is down, up, or heavy, which is a very powerful feature."

"For stability, I would give SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer a rating of ten out of ten."

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."

"Customization is not very user-friendly in Nmap."

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

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

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

"The tool's license limits the number of scans it can perform. Improving the license model could benefit customers by allowing more scans for compliance and other purposes."

"The solution's initial setup could be better."

More Nmap cons

"I would like to see better customization capabilities."

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

"Technical support is fine but they need to improve their response time."

"If your network is on SolarWinds, and you notice that the traffic is bad because it says "user downloading a heavy file," it doesn't indicate which endpoint is downloading those heavy files."

"Currently, it shows only the top ten applications or ports in use, while the remaining data appears as 'remaining traffic,' causing confusion."

"The price of the solution is a bit high for our clients. They should consider adjusting their price model."

"There are some areas for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. There are some challenges with the solution when compared to other monitoring tools such as difficulty in operations and difficulty with backup installation."

"One area that we struggle with is the price. Because the price of this solution is so high, we are largely unable to introduce it into the local market, and only the banking sector has the means to afford it."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is free of cost, but there are specific services that we have to buy."

"The solution is free of cost."

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

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

"The product's pricing is fine. The licensing options for Nmap include perpetual licenses and volume-based licenses. For perpetual licenses, once you purchase it, there's no need to invest in renewals. And for volume-based licenses, enterprise companies can use it multiple times based on the number of users or devices they need to scan. It's a pay-as-you-go model, similar to how you pay for what you use."

"The solution is open source so it is free."

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

More Nmap pricing and cost advice

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

"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."

"The solution's licensing is high-priced."

"I don't have information on the licensing cost for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer because it's bundled with another SolarWinds solution. My organization has seven different models and pays for the license yearly. My organization also had to deploy additional pollers, but the cost wasn't very expensive, though I can't give the exact numbers."

"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."

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

"The pricing is really good."

"The licensing for this solution is based on the number of nodes."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer 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

885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

12%

Construction Company

10%

Government

University

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Healthcare Company

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
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

Comparisons

LiveNX vs Nmap

Compared 8% of the time

Domotz Pro vs Nmap

Compared 8% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Nmap

Compared 7% of the time

OpenNMS vs Nmap

Compared 7% of the time

Meraki Dashboard vs Nmap

Compared 7% of the time

More Nmap Competitors

Wireshark vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 10% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 8% of the time

Darktrace vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 6% of the time

WhatsUp Gold vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 6% of the time

ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 5% of the time

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Nmap

March 2026

Download Nmap product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

March 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

Buyer's Guide

Network Monitoring Software

March 2026

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: March 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.

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.