PRTG Network Monitor vs Plixer Scrutinizer comparison

Plixer and Paessler GmbH are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Plixer is ranked #54 with an average rating of 8.0, while Paessler GmbH is ranked #5 with an average rating of 7.8. Plixer holds a 0.4% mindshare in NMS, compared to Paessler GmbH’s 4.2% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Plixer users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Paessler GmbH users who would recommend it.

Plixer Scrutinizer

Read 15 Plixer Scrutinizer reviews

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376 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

PRTG Network Monitor

Read 102 PRTG Network Monitor reviews

7,245 Views
4,886 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Plixer Scrutinizer

PRTG Network Monitor

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

PRTG Network Monitor and Plixer Scrutinizer compete in the network monitoring category. Based on feature comparisons and pricing, PRTG seems to have the upper hand due to its all-in-one licensing model and rapid deployment capabilities.

Features: PRTG Network Monitor supports rapid deployment, scalability, and accuracy in alerting systems. It is suitable for various environments with its adaptable configuration options. Plixer Scrutinizer provides detailed network traffic analysis and handles various flow monitoring standards, making it ideal for complex environments requiring detailed traffic insights.

Room for Improvement: PRTG could enhance remote monitoring capabilities, provide more customizable reports, and improve the mobile app interface while addressing its pricing structure for smaller deployments. Plixer Scrutinizer would benefit from simpler update deployments, improved graphical interfaces, and expanded SaaS offerings, needing more streamlined configuration processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: PRTG supports Hybrid Cloud, Private Cloud, and On-Premises environments, though its customer service can be slow due to email-only support. Plixer Scrutinizer is primarily on-premises, valued for local problem-solving, and both solutions offer intuitive knowledge bases, although PRTG faces timing issues with support.

Pricing and ROI: PRTG is affordable with its all-in-one licensing but can be restrictive due to high entry costs for small-scale use. Plixer Scrutinizer's device-based pricing is favorable for large deployments. Both solutions promise high ROI by reducing downtime and maintenance overheads, with PRTG's simple licensing structure being advantageous for straightforward cost planning.

To learn more, read our detailed PRTG Network Monitor vs. Plixer Scrutinizer Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

PRTG Network Monitor vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

April 2025

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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

Plixer Scrutinizer

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

54th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (10th)

PRTG Network Monitor

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

102

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (8th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Plixer Scrutinizer is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PRTG Network Monitor is 4.2%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Ronald Jansen

Owner/President at Abraxax

Reporting is extensive, flexible, and can be custom-made in just a short time

In terms of additional features I'd like to see in the next release of Plixer Scrutinizer, I can't think of any because you can do some integration with other monitoring tools that are not strong in NetFlow or don't have NetFlow at all. There are also some integration possibilities in the product, plus there are alerts, too. Plixer Scrutinizer is a pretty complete product. There was a price lift because previously the product was privately owned, and now there is some external capital in the organization, so pricing could be lower, though, for Plixer Scrutinizer, there is almost no competition at this price point.

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Tochukwu Uzomba

Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited

Efficiently monitor networks across regions with seamless setup and robust feature set

PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational. It is an all-in-one monitoring solution without extra costs. For example, we set it up for an insurance company with branches across Africa. We are able to monitor from Lagos without installing anything in the branches, using the agentless feature. We just put in the IP address and the parameter, and we monitor from those ends. Additionally, all the sensors are very useful. Most people are interested in the bandwidth monitoring sensor to see what bandwidth the users are consuming. The pricing is affordable compared to SolarWinds.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"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."

"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."

"We didn't experience any bugs."

"It helps us determine what is going on with our Internet and who is hogging it all up. If we get a real high throughput or a throughput that's going over and getting dropped fairly quickly, we can tell who (or what device) is consuming that traffic."

"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."

"There are other tools out there that will do what Scrutinizer does. But what I have found with Scrutinizer is that it does it very quickly. I've taken 25 million individual data fragments from the different sensors, and it has graphed that and mapped it and presented a picture within 30 seconds. It has a very efficient database algorithm that I am really impressed with."

"As a network engineer, the ability to identify what traffic on the link is consuming all the bandwidth at any given time, and provide immediate feedback to the business, is the most valuable feature."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pros

"It is nice to have one place where all the information is right there in front of us."

"The network visualization helps us to drill down deeper."

"The remote probes are very useful. They allow us to provide a reference across different areas in the network. In trying to localize issues, that's very useful."

"The Slack integration is fantastic, and I've actually found it to be very useful recently."

"PRTG Network Monitor helps us quickly and easily discover a large number of sensors, so we can spend minimal time monitoring customer sites."

"PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up."

"It is easy to use and intuitive, which is really important. It does what it says on the box by giving you a visual of the state of what is going on at any one time."

"One of the valuable features is the diversity of metrics available to us to monitor. It's all there, it's all in the box. It's all made very easy, by virtue of it being pre-configured."

More PRTG Network Monitor pros

Cons

"In Plixer Scrutinizer, scalability is an area with minor concerns where improvements are required."

"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."

"We couldn't get it set up properly."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Knowing that they're coming out with a new user interface, that is an area where there is room for improvement. There are so many variables. They should limit the variables in the user interface and create some classes, like "simple," "novice," and "expert" to narrow down the variables within it."

"There was a price lift because previously the product was privately owned, and now there is some external capital in the organization, so pricing could be lower, though, for Plixer Scrutinizer, there is almost no competition at this price point."

More Plixer Scrutinizer cons

"The clustering aspect needs improvement, as there is a bit of confusion about you do when hit that 5000 probe mark."

"Users need to buy the more expensive licenses if they expect to be able to scale."

"Other monitoring tools that I have used are easier to use."

"PRTG Network Monitor could improve by having a feature to allow uploading of preset standard network switch configurations and the ability to monitor the SLA configuration, such as uptime for the switches or internet connectivity. This would be very useful."

"We would like to monitor certain aspects of the user experience. We should be able to analyze the cause of end user experience, bad or good, so we can do some research and development on our own."

"Once you start going above 5000 sensors, things do start to get a bit shaky. There are some best practice out there that you will need to adopt and be aware of."

"They should work on syncing the solution with Gmail."

"The inventory of the device should be improved."

More PRTG Network Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay our one-off cost for the licenses, per device, in blocks of 50. And then we pay an annual maintenance fee of about $15,000 Australian, which is, at this point in time, about $9,000 US, for those 250 devices. The upfront costs for the 250-license use, were about $50,000 Australian, which is about $32,000 US."

"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."

"The licensing cost for Plixer Scrutinizer is in the middle. It's not the cheapest, but it's not the most expensive. Its licensing model is based on how many exporters, how many devices export information to the system. Plixer Scrutinizer has different modules you could add such as the security module which would cost extra."

"There are no extra costs. It's about $8,000 a year. The bang for the buck (cost) is definitely a plus."

"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."

"Compared to some of the other tools we have, it's incredibly reasonably priced."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pricing and cost advice

"The licensing fees are billed annually and there are no costs in addition to this."

"We are using the basic PRTG that we can download for free. For now, we only need to monitor less than 100 devices. For more than 100 devices, we would need to buy a license. PRTG is much cheaper than SolarWinds."

"Our licensing costs are 10,000 euros over three years."

"If you're looking for a cost effective software I’d suggest this product."

"The price is pretty comparable."

"It's an annual license that is based on the number of endpoints that we're tracking and using."

"We pay for a perpetual license and we have a support fee."

"The pricing is reasonable for the features provided."

More PRTG Network Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Educational Organization

48%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Plixer Scrutinizer?

Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Plixer Scrutinizer?

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.

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What needs improvement with Plixer Scrutinizer?

I don't have deep enough knowledge to comment on what requires improvements in Plixer Scrutinizer. In Plixer Scrutinizer, scalability is an area with minor concerns where improvements are required.

See all answers

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...

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What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?

The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?

The prices are very high for PRTG Network Monitor. That's why I'm using the free100 sensor license.

See all answers

Comparisons

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 26% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 25% of the time

Kentik vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 18% of the time

LogicMonitor vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 14% of the time

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Zabbix vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

LibreNMS vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

PRTG Enterprise Monitor vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Centreon vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

PRTG Network Monitor

April 2025

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Overview

The Scrutinizer incident response system leverages network traffic analytics to provide active monitoring, visualization, and reporting of network and security incidents. The system quickly delivers the rich forensic data needed by IT professionals to support fast and efficient incident response.

Plixer

PRTG Network Monitor runs on a Windows machine within your network, collecting various statistics from the machines, software, and devices which you designate. PRTG comes with an easy-to-use web interface with point-and-click configuration. You can easily share data from it with non-technical colleagues and customers, including via live graphs and custom reports. This will let you plan for network expansion, see what applications are using most of your connection, and make sure that no one is hogging the entire network just to torrent videos.

To monitor a large IT environment, it's important to be able to scale PRTG up. Paessler PRTG Enterprise Monitor includes all the proven capabilities of PRTG Network Monitor, which are enhanced by exclusive ITOps Board for a service-oriented, central overview of multiple PRTG servers.

Paessler GmbH

Sample Customers

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

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

Buyer's Guide

PRTG Network Monitor vs. Plixer Scrutinizer

April 2025

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