Nmap vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer comparison

The compared Nmap and SolarWinds solutions aren't in the same category. Nmap is ranked #9 in NMS , with an average rating of 8.8, 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 5.3% 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

1,820 Views
1,638 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Read 43 SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer reviews

1,984 Views
655 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: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Network Monitoring Software

January 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 880,745 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

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (9th)

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 5.3% mindshare, down 5.6% since last year.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Nmap	0.7%
Zabbix	6.9%
SolarWinds NPM	3.4%
Other	89.0%

Network Monitoring Software

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer	5.3%
Darktrace	19.4%
Cisco Secure Network Analytics	11.5%
Other	63.8%

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.

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

"The tool's most valuable feature is its scripts. These scripts prove beneficial when security features may obscure or block connections. Nmap helps identify vulnerabilities across different systems, including web servers and various server types."

"It helps us secure the network infrastructure."

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

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

"The initial setup was simple."

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

"The most valuable feature of the solution for security audits stems from the fact that it serves as a powerful tool with the ability to scan a large number of ports."

"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 scan our network and identify devices that aren't connected properly. This helps us detect any issues related to the operating systems of these devices."

More Nmap pros

"I find this tool very helpful in identifying the top traffic paths from source to destination, and determining which routes are consuming the most resources."

"What I like about SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is that it's useful for analyzing traffic. It also has an application visibility feature that lets you control applications."

"The dashboard alerts me when a critical device goes off the network."

"The bandwidth indicates the utilization of the devices; if any issue occurs, it triggers an alert for me."

"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."

"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."

"SolarWinds has improved our organization because whenever a device is down, we get an alert."

"I rate the support in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer as 10 out of 10 because whenever I open a tech ticket, they respond instantly, and their engineer is well-equipped to resolve the issues."

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."

"The price is high and could be cheaper."

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

"Since I started using Nmap, it has been completely based on the command prompt and I think it would help other users if they implemented a decent GUI as well."

"There could be a specific option to check non-pingable endpoints for the product."

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

"They should deliver Playtech's username and password."

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

More Nmap cons

"It does not flow. It cannot do our metric performance monitoring. So it is very limited. They can do it but in a very limited fashion. It is only good for SNMP-based alerts."

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

"The licensing should be more realistic so that we can adjust the number of nodes according to my needs, rather than in fixed increments."

"An area for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is application visibility because some applications aren't being recognized correctly. You can see applications such as Facebook and YouTube, but SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer needs to have more visibility into more applications. Currently, SolarWinds fails to detect more powerful applications, such as Zoom and Teams. If SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer can recognize every application and be able to report on each in terms of bandwidth, then that would be good. This is what I'd like to see in the next release of the solution."

"SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer could improve its flexibility and integration with AI to provide analytics beyond just showing up/down statuses and traffic volumes."

"As people always complain about the pricing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, it's an area for improvement in the solution. People find it expensive. Another area for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is support, as it could be better."

"Technical support needs improvement."

"They should work on the configuration of the Log Analyzer feature."

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

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

"The solution is free of cost."

"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."

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

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

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

More Nmap pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is really good."

"Pricing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is very high. I have a customer that needs the solution but doesn't have the budget for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer because the problem is that you can't use the solution only. You have to buy requirements such as the SolarWinds NPM first, and some companies don't have the budget for all the required components and modules. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer can cost up to $10,000, and some customers don't have that budget. Another product has all the modules that SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer has, with a very low price, that can be a replacement, which is ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer. PRTG is another solution that can replace SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer."

"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."

"The price of this solution is exceptional."

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

"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."

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

"The pricing is reasonable."

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

880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

14%

Government

10%

Retailer

University

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

Comparisons

LiveNX vs Nmap

Compared 9% of the time

Zabbix vs Nmap

Compared 9% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Nmap

Compared 8% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Nmap

Compared 8% of the time

More Nmap Competitors

Wireshark vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 13% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 11% of the time

Darktrace vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 8% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 7% of the time

DX Performance Management vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

Compared 3% of the time

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Nmap

January 2026

Download Nmap product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

December 2025

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

January 2026

Download Free Report

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

DOWNLOAD NOW

880,745 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.