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PRTG Network Monitor vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.9
PRTG Network Monitor boosts ROI by enhancing time efficiency, reducing staff needs, preventing failures, and offering cost-effective management.
Sentiment score
5.5
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer improves efficiency and cost management but may not offer significant ROI compared to cheaper options.
There is a return on investment when purchasing SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, as in the long run, there is a return on investments.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Users appreciate PRTG's intuitive design, often resolving issues via resources, despite email-only support and mixed service feedback.
Sentiment score
7.3
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer customer service varies, with praise for higher support and mixed experiences regarding response times.
Tutorials are available so I can manage any issue with PRTG Network Monitor easily.
The setup process is well-documented, making it easy to deploy.
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.
I would rate support eight out of ten.
I received efficient responses to many questions.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
PRTG Network Monitor is highly scalable, allowing seamless expansion with added sensors or licenses, despite potential hardware limitations.
Sentiment score
7.3
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer scales well for enterprises, but costs rise with licenses, and stability issues may occur.
PRTG Network Monitor has the ability to scale and add new devices.
On a scale of one to ten, scalability is rated as 9.5.
For less than one hundred devices, it is stable.
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is a scalable solution, and by adding licenses, I can use the same deployment and instance to onboard more elements and nodes.
The license is based on the count of the ports.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
PRTG Network Monitor is praised for its stability and reliability, with issues often due to user errors or limits.
Sentiment score
7.1
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is stable, rated 7-10, with occasional issues from large databases and SQL environment demands.
 

Room For Improvement

PRTG users seek enhancements in dashboards, cloud integration, application speed, support, reporting, pricing, and sensor expansion.
SolarWinds NetFlow Analyzer faces installation woes, limited support, integration issues, and demands for better interfaces, pricing, and AI features.
PRTG Network Monitor should provide syslog monitoring since it is not available at this time.
PRTG Network Monitor can sometimes be too detailed and cluttered at the beginning, making it heavy to use.
They need to improve application performance monitoring, error tracing mechanisms, and log management.
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.
Ideally, NetFlow should have a robust alerting mechanism.
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.
 

Setup Cost

PRTG Network Monitor provides flexible, cost-effective licensing for enterprises, appealing for intuitive setup and competitive pricing against other solutions.
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's pricing is fair yet potentially costly, especially when scaling or compared to flexible competitors.
The prices are very high for PRTG Network Monitor.
Pricing is by the number of devices, not by sensor.
It's not too high, nor too low, but it's reasonable.
provide a rating of nine out of ten
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's model is quite costly compared to other brands.
 

Valuable Features

PRTG Network Monitor is praised for its scalability, user-friendly interface, real-time monitoring, and seamless integration across various technologies.
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer provides traffic analysis, real-time metrics, customizable reports, and integration for enhanced network performance management.
PRTG Network Monitor already provided me with 100 free sensors, which is enough for my network monitoring.
The pricing is affordable compared to SolarWinds.
It is advantageous because it can be deployed on-premises.
The application recognition feature of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer has helped me identify and manage bandwidth-intensive applications by providing insight into the applications and their behavior regarding bandwidth consumption.
The best feature is customizable reporting, which includes network diagrams and monitoring of various types of bandwidth usage and peak times.
The bandwidth indicates the utilization of the devices; if any issue occurs, it triggers an alert for me.
 

Categories and Ranking

PRTG Network Monitor
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (5th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. PRTG Network Monitor is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 4.3%, down 4.7% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, on the other hand, focuses on Network Traffic Analysis (NTA), holds 5.6% mindshare, down 6.9% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
 

Featured Reviews

Noman-Saleem - PeerSpot reviewer
Detects suden changes but significant pricing concerns affect the effectiveness of network traffic troubleshooting
We use PRTG Network Monitor for monitoring traffic on interfaces and the behavior of network traffic. If there are sudden changes in traffic or any configuration issues, we can sort them out using PRTG. It's very helpful for troubleshooting and monitoring traffic utilization on our interfaces…
Raja Xabi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
report
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
40%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?
The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?
The pricing is in the middle. It's not too high, nor too low, but it's reasonable.
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...
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...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?
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 dashboa...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Netflow Traffic Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori
Find out what your peers are saying about PRTG Network Monitor vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and other solutions. Updated: March 2023.
859,533 professionals have used our research since 2012.