SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs. WhatsUp Gold

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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

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...

Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

4th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

WhatsUp Gold

Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

10th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (30th), Network Monitoring Software (23rd), Server Monitoring (15th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (18th), Configuration Management (21st), Log Management (41st), Cloud Monitoring Software (22nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category, the mindshare of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is 6.5%, up from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 3.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer	6.5%
WhatsUp Gold	3.4%
Other	90.1%

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

Featured Reviews

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.

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Erik Cheng

Technical Manager at Quan Hung Gourmet

Efficient monitoring with detailed customization, yet complexity remains

The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless. I have used the automated device discovery with this topology feature. The interactive map feature helps me manage the topology because sometimes we cannot draw the topology correctly, so we need to manually edit the connections. The alerting system is very tunable and customizable, but it's a little complicated to use. Many customers cannot manage it by themselves and need support from us, the provider. We always use the dashboards in the SOC, where we constantly display a dashboard or multiple dashboards. This allows us to know immediately if the connection or bandwidth is full or if the connection is broken.

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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

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

"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."

"It allows us to pinpoint which protocol is overloading the link."

"Visibility in the network is huge. Using the NetFlow analyzer, along with their NPM and NCM modules, are key for keeping our network up to date and for visibility."

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

"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."

"This solution gives us important information about the utilization of protocols, particularly in terms of how often they are used."

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

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pros

"The product is reasonably priced."

"The new version has a lot of improved features."

"We've been using it for many years and we use it typically for early warning, as it notifies customers of problems prior to failure."

"It's a good product, and if one has the expertise to use it, it will be a good investment and it will help IT to save and plan for the future."

"The tool's most valuable feature is the visibility it offers of everything in the network and infrastructure."

"The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless."

"Auto scanning is most valuable. It looks for rogue devices on your network."

"The most important features of WhatsUp Gold are the server health and uptime it provides. Additionally, WhatsUp Gold is a Windows-based solution which is a benefit."

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"SolarWinds' technical support is ok, but it could be faster and more knowledgeable."

"Technical support needs improvement."

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

"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."

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

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

"It is very slow to pick the dynamics of the network."

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

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer cons

"Regional product team support is not very good."

"The licensing model could be improved. Right now, the levels are too far apart. This causes the solution to be more expensive than it needs to be."

"One of the biggest things that made us start to look at another product is we're not able to have an end to end monitoring from a user perspective throughout the system and back to the user. All the monitoring is from inside out, we need something that also can give us from outside in."

"There are some subscription charges that are quite heavy. I need to pay for support every year and these charges can be quite expensive."

"Integrations with other devices. I want to have a product that has full integration with my active directory so I can track user activity."

"The point system is not clear and clarity around this would improve our understanding of the system."

"I would like to see better integration with switches so that you can see what is connected to each port, what the traffic is, and have a network map automatically generated."

"The pricing for this solution has gone up quite recently, which has led some of our customers to buy an alternative product."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"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."

"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."

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

"The pricing is really good."

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

More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pricing and cost advice

"There are some subscription charges that are quite heavy. I need to pay for support every year and these charges can be quite expensive. Aside from the initial cost for the tool, you need to pay additionally for support."

"It is per device, per year. The pricing is very clear. If you have a service agreement, you get all of your major upgrades and minor upgrades. It was under $10,000 to go all-in with all of the different add-ons for it."

"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."

"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."

"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."

"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."

"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."

"This is a well priced solution."

More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) solutions are best for your needs.

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893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Healthcare Company

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	14

Questions from the Community

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?

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...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WhatsUp Gold?

Clients find the licensing calculator confusing, but we simplify this for them by collecting relevant information first. The licensing is based on devices, providing better cost-effectiveness than ...

What needs improvement with WhatsUp Gold?

It would be great if WhatsUp Gold could add features that simplify management with AI, as it is currently too complicated to manage.

What is your primary use case for WhatsUp Gold?

My use case for WhatsUp Gold includes all device availability checks, bandwidth usage, CPU, and memory usage, as well as alarm notifications.

Wireshark vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

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Product Reports

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

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SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer report

WhatsUp Gold

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Also Known As

Netflow Traffic Analyzer

No data available

Overview

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer provides comprehensive bandwidth analysis and traffic visibility, offering real-time insights and proactive alerting to manage networks effectively.

Renowned for its extensive monitoring capabilities across diverse devices, SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer integrates seamlessly with other SolarWinds tools, enhancing network visibility and troubleshooting. Users benefit from customizable dashboards, detailed application tracking, and historical performance analysis. The tool is pivotal in managing network issues and ensuring network stability, although it faces some challenges in improving automation, third-party integration, and pricing flexibility.

What are the key features of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?

Bandwidth Analysis: Provides detailed insights into bandwidth consumption.
Traffic Visibility: Offers extensive monitoring of devices across vendor types.
Customizable Dashboards: Users can create tailored dashboards for specific needs.
Application Tracking: Delivers in-depth tracking of application performance.
Historical Performance Analysis: Allows thorough investigation of past network issues.

What benefits or ROI should users consider?

Real-Time Insights: Enables prompt detection of network issues.
Proactive Alerting: Alerts facilitate quick response to potential problems.
Enhanced Troubleshooting: Tools integration aids in faster problem resolution.
Capacity Planning: Assists in forecasting and managing bandwidth needs.
Comprehensive Reporting: Generates detailed reports for informed decision-making.

In industries requiring extensive network management, SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is widely implemented for monitoring network performance and traffic analysis. Organizations use it to supervise bandwidth consumption and assess site connections, aiding in bandwidth-heavy application analyses. It is crucial for generating reports and maintaining network stability, supporting capacity planning and endpoint monitoring to manage infrastructure proactively.

SolarWinds

WhatsUp Gold stands out with its comprehensive network monitoring, dynamic mapping, and real-time alerts, offering essential tools for managing extensive IT infrastructures.

WhatsUp Gold provides robust capabilities in network visibility through dynamic mapping and NetFlow analysis. The platform's interactive topology aids in pinpointing issues effectively. Auto-discovery ensures complete network device tracking. While offering an intuitive interface and integration with Cisco ServiceNow, users find server performance monitoring useful for incident handling. However, improvements are anticipated in application monitoring and Active Directory integration. The pricing model and customization options leave room for enhancement. Despite these, users benefit from its integrated dashboards for immediate device health checks and network updates, making it beneficial for large-scale infrastructure management.

What features does WhatsUp Gold offer?

Network Monitoring: Provides continuous oversight of network components
Dynamic Mapping: Offers visual representation of network topology
NetFlow Analysis: Delivers insights into bandwidth utilization
Threshold Alerts: Notifies users upon reaching set performance thresholds
Auto-Discovery: Detects devices automatically for complete network coverage

What benefits should users expect from reviews?

Comprehensive Visibility: Enhanced understanding of network elements
Real-Time Monitoring: Immediate insights into network and device status
Cost-Effectiveness: Competitive solution suitable for expansive networks
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies the management of complex networks

Organizations in sectors like telecommunications, education, and healthcare utilize WhatsUp Gold for their network monitoring needs. Telecom companies track switches and routers, educational institutions manage bandwidth usage, and healthcare facilities monitor device availability to ensure seamless operations.

Progress Software

Sample Customers

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

Artoni Trasporti, Austin Independent School District, Banca Marche, Burke County North Carolina, Cambridge University School of Clinical Medicine, Clayco, Community Integrated Care, Desca, Deutsche Bergbau, Flexi-Van, Gropper, Hamleys, Hammonds Furniture, Knowledge IT, Idras S.P.A., Sibeg, Swann Engineering, Trivium Lindenhof

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs. WhatsUp Gold