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SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Wireshark comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (3rd)
Wireshark
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is designed for Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) and holds a mindshare of 6.5%, up 4.9% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 19.1% mindshare, up 12.6% since last year.
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer6.5%
Darktrace15.1%
Cisco Secure Network Analytics8.4%
Other70.0%
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark19.1%
AirMagnet Survey PRO8.3%
DX Spectrum7.5%
Other65.1%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Raja Xabi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer2837244 - PeerSpot reviewer
It System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Packet analysis has improved real-time troubleshooting and simplifies mapping complex data flows
The best features that Wireshark offers are everything. Every time I look into Wireshark, I find something new. The ability to capture real-time packets and understand how the packet is working and moving through how many hops and to how many points it reaches makes it a wonderful tool. The specific feature I use most is capturing packets of real-time communication and seeing how the packet is working. I rely on all the filters it has to check the protocols and see the communication between one end and another end and what the hops in between are, and if there is a proxy, how it behaves. Everything helps us check out the issue and troubleshoot it. I do not have anything additional to add about the features; everything looks really fine. The graphics are also good, and you can change its graphical features, making it a pretty nice tool. You can also use it with the PCAP file, which is really nice. Wireshark has positively impacted my organization by giving us the ability to capture packets and see into the network how it is working and what we can clarify about the network, specifically how we can remove many hops in the communication channels. A specific example of a measurable outcome is that we have a few switches in our network that, when we use Wireshark analysis, we find should not be needed or can be replaced with automatic switches instead of manual switches, such as switches which do not have any active features and only passive switches. That has saved us a lot of time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I find the IT Operation Management Suite, the software management tools from SolarWinds, to be very useful for our customers."
"What I like the most is the bandwidth assessment."
"I would rate NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's stability ten out of ten."
"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."
"With SolarWinds, we are now able to accurately gauge bandwidth consumption."
"At the end of the day, you can get very comprehensive reports showing you everything that is happening in the domain."
"The dashboard alerts me when a critical device goes off the network."
"NTA gives you visibility so you can make good decisions regarding new devices and adding uplinks of traffic."
"You can use Wireshark to see the traffic packet format, the IP layers, the fields, and the enabled flags."
"Wireshark is a good tool to start with network analyzing and packet capturing."
"What's best about Wireshark is that it doesn't require installation. It supports cards and monitoring permissions and is sufficient for appending and capturing activities. You won't need to install other tools to use Wireshark, so this saves you time. You can capture packets at any time from your laptop through Wireshark."
"It is free, easy to use, getting better with every release."
"This is the de-facto standard network protocol analysis tool."
"The most valuable feature of Wireshark is the ability to choose a destination of flow that has not been working as expected."
"The ability to capture real-time packets and understand how the packet is working and moving through how many hops and to how many points it reaches makes it a wonderful tool."
"I believe everyone should use this tool if they need to analyze packets."
 

Cons

"The pricing is expensive."
"It's not a cheap product, so the pricing could be improved."
"It is a scalable solution, but it is costly to scale. Therefore, I would rate scalability at eight out of ten."
"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. SolarWinds doesn't have the tools to be able to handle this kind of situation. You can just notice through your network device that the traffic is becoming overwhelming or heavy, but you cannot go inside and get more details related to the endpoint where it is happening. We would like SolarWinds to be able to handle this kind of situation and even manage the traffic inside a network from the endpoint to the network device. These would be good enhancements. It is mostly stable. The problem comes only when we want to add another SolarWinds model. SolarWinds has so many models, and sometimes when we want to add other models on the platforms that are reserved for our firm, it freezes. When this happens, we have to create a new VM for that model."
"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."
"The analysis can utilize algorithms like K-means clustering or associative neural networks for predictions rather than relying on generative AI, which is more suited for text."
"There is a lack of documentation ......as well as a lack of dashboards."
"I would like to see better customization capabilities."
"With Wireshark, you cannot download and utilize the packet in automation."
"Sometimes I need to use tcpdump when I need to check the packets on CLI."
"DNS could be improved."
"There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain."
"Cannot be used to diagnose any kind of network intrusions and hacking exploits."
"It is difficult to scale this solution."
"The system could be improved upon by adding a better and more powerful data processing engine."
"Wireshark is also used for hacking which is a security breach."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution's licensing is high-priced."
"The pricing is really good."
"We have licenses for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. In terms of pricing, its license is not that expensive versus other tools such as HP."
"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."
"While the pricing is fair, it could be better."
"For our environment, we pay approximately $25,000 USD yearly."
"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"It is free."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"The solution is open source so is free."
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise29
 

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 Wireshark?
Wireshark is priced at a medium range, not too high, not too low. The pricing could be more flexible, and they might make it more expensive. That said, compared to other products, it is competitive.
What needs improvement with Wireshark?
Wireshark can be improved if it provides the accessibility of capturing packets from one device that is installed in the network without needing the port-mirrored facility. They could provide somet...
What is your primary use case for Wireshark?
Wireshark's main use case is capturing packets and reviewing the data flow over the network. Regarding my main use case for Wireshark, it is a great tool and would be one of the best tools availabl...
 

Also Known As

Netflow Traffic Analyzer
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
Find out what your peers are saying about Darktrace, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA). Updated: August 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.