We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Network Analytics and Plixer Scrutinizer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Network Monitoring Software solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is data hoarding because it catches threats on a frequent basis that we had no idea of."
"If you are using Darktrace or NAC solutions you can integrate Stealthwatch."
"Cisco Stealthwatch provides the solutions analytics and threat detection capabilities that I am looking for. It has also improved the network visibility of our organization."
"It is a good application, providing for real-time monitoring of the organization of data. It can basically identify points of peak traffic where possible issues are being caused."
"From what I understand, you can encrypt and unencrypt traffic moving in transit. This is one of the features that we liked about it."
"The fact that it can identify down to an IP address of a system that is causing problems, or potentially causing problems, is very valuable."
"Stability is the most valuable feature we have seen in this solution."
"Using this solution has helped us to detect and identify viruses or malicious activity in the network early on."
"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."
"The most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer are its ease of use, accessibility, and UI."
"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's agnostic as far as what your network gear is. As long as it supports an sFlow, JFlow, NetFlow, some kind of flow monitoring, Plixer will support it very well."
"One feature I found most valuable in Plixer Scrutinizer is the very extensive reporting. Reporting is very flexible, though sometimes you need a little bit of support from Plixer Scrutinizer to create custom-made reporting in a very short time. Reporting is a very strong feature of the product."
"Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features."
"The reporting and generating troubleshooting reports would be the best feature; our host-to-host conversation reporting."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"The overall visibility into the actual device itself would be helpful. I don't just want support-specific data, but also to be able to see information such as CPU and other internal components or usage of the devices."
"We are continuing down the road of ACI and ISE with Cisco, so we would like to see the continuation of Stealthwatch integrating into ISE for exchange of information, and also, more into the ACI environment too."
"If there was one improvement I’d suggest it would be that it detect traffic through an intranet. The product requires that traffic flow through a managed network device. The product is designed mostly for enterprise environments and not smaller environments or businesses."
"I would like Cisco to make it easier for the administrators to use it."
"I would like to see it better organized when I'm looking at it."
"We've run into some issues with the configuration."
"I would like to see more expansion in artificial intelligence and machine learning features."
"Stealthwatch is still maturing in AI. It uses artificial intelligence for predictions, but AI still needs to mature. It is in a phase where you get 95% correct detection. As its AI engine learns more, it will become more accurate. This is applicable to all the devices that are using AI because they support both supervised and unsupervised machine learning. The accuracy in the case of supervised machine learning is dependent on the data you feed into the box. The accuracy in the case of unsupervised machine learning is dependent on the algorithm. The algorithm matures depending on retrospective learning, and this is how it is able to detect zero-day attacks."
"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."
"Though Plixer Scrutinizer has network detection and response, it's an area that needs just a little more rounding out. Another room for improvement in the solution is its lack of SaaS offering which some customers were looking for. My company deals in small to medium businesses, mid-market, and some customers wanted the SaaS feature which Plixer Scrutinizer doesn't offer. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is for it to have a SaaS offering because my company also deals with educational spaces and smaller businesses that just don't have the staff that can implement this. If there's either a managed service or SaaS-based offering to just make it a little easier for those types of customers, it would be a great addition to Plixer Scrutinizer."
"We couldn't get it set up properly."
"In Plixer Scrutinizer, scalability is an area with minor concerns where improvements are required."
"They're working on the security areas, so it can provide more insight. What they have is still pretty much IP-concentric. If they were to make it IP and URL, they'd be a little bit ahead on that."
"From what I understand it is that the solution is not very scalable in a high volume traffic environment with a large number of flows."
"The solution creates a visual map of a particular location and how the network flows. You need to spend time to generate all those maps. If they could figure out a way to reduce the time needed to generate the maps, that would be great."
"It would be useful if there was a way to back up the configuration information. E.g., if you wanted to deploy a new instance or disaster recovery, you could quite easily deploy and restore the config, as opposed to having to restore all the NetFlow data. If there was just a button that said "backup config information", that would be good."
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Cisco Secure Network Analytics is ranked 24th in Network Monitoring Software with 57 reviews while Plixer Scrutinizer is ranked 48th in Network Monitoring Software with 15 reviews. Cisco Secure Network Analytics is rated 8.2, while Plixer Scrutinizer is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Network Analytics writes "Increased the visibility of what is happening in our network". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Plixer Scrutinizer writes "Advanced reporting runs analytics on NetFlow and provides signature-based recognition of problems in the network environment". Cisco Secure Network Analytics is most compared with Darktrace, Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics, ThousandEyes, Vectra AI and Arista NDR, whereas Plixer Scrutinizer is most compared with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, Flowmon , ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer, PRTG Network Monitor and Arista NDR. See our Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. Plixer Scrutinizer report.
See our list of best Network Monitoring Software vendors and best Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) vendors.
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