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 Traffic Analysis (NTA) 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 single dashboard is a valuable feature."
"If you are using Darktrace or NAC solutions you can integrate Stealthwatch."
"The solution allowed us to not only get gain insight but also start collaborating with other tools."
"StealthWatch lets me see the ports running in and out and the country. It has excellent reporting, telemetry, and artificial intelligence features. With the telemetry, I can set thresholds to detect sudden changes and the alarms go through the PLC parts. I can see all the ports running on that trunk."
"I believe this solution has reduced our incident response time."
"It works efficiently for encrypted traffic analysis."
"Able to drill down into a center's utilization, then create reports based on it."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is data hoarding because it catches threats on a frequent basis that we had no idea of."
"Cisco Stealthwatch has predefined alerts for different types of security issues that might happen in the network. Whether it's PCs or servers that are used for botnets or Bitcoin mining we receive the alerts automatically. This functionality is what we receive from the solution out of the box."
"The most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer are its ease of use, accessibility, and UI."
"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."
"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."
"The solution helps to enrich the data context of our network traffic. It allows me to see what applications are most in use on a slightly historical basis, going back a day or week at tops. It allows me to tune QoS or traffic shaping around what's being used. It saves me from having to unnecessarily upgrade, if I don't need to."
"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."
"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 didn't experience any bugs."
"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 technical support needs improvement."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"If they can make this product more web-based, that would be amazing."
"It's not great as a standalone solution."
"It would be better to let people know, up front, that is doesn't give you nice, clear information, as seen in the demos, without Cisco ISE installed."
"They should include Citrix VDIs in the next release."
"The GUI could use some improvement. Being able to find features more easily would be a great improvement if it was simplified."
"We need to be able to filter out internal IPs as non-threats."
"There could be better integration on the programming side, which uses Python. StealthWatch could provide a template for Python to manage the switches. For example, it would be nice if StealthWatch bounced a port automatically it detected something anomalous."
"I think the interface is a little lacking. The interface seems like it just needs to be modernized. It's been the same interface now, ever since I've seen it probably four years ago."
"Data retention needs improvement. Data retention is a thing where we are looking for a better way to collect flow data for a longer time to do forensic research on security incidents. By default, data retention is quite low. We need detailed data in safe storage for a longer time, e.g., for a couple of months. An improvement would be a way to export data into a secure long-term storage."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"For updating the Scrutinizer platform, when we have the actual data, it never happens in one day. Every time we have the data, we are obliged to install a new server in order to integrate the old data, and every time it has a problem. Most of the time, we were obliged to scrap all the data because we couldn't transfer it to the new server. So, it would be very good if they could improve this part."
"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."
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Cisco Secure Network Analytics is ranked 4th in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) with 57 reviews while Plixer Scrutinizer is ranked 9th in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) 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, LiveAction LiveNX and PRTG Network Monitor. See our Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. Plixer Scrutinizer report.
See our list of best Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) vendors and best Network Monitoring Software vendors.
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