We performed a comparison between Plixer Scrutinizer and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer 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."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."
"There are other tools out there that will do what Scrutinizer does. But what I have found with Scrutinizer is that it does it very quickly. I've taken 25 million individual data fragments from the different sensors, and it has graphed that and mapped it and presented a picture within 30 seconds. It has a very efficient database algorithm that I am really impressed with."
"The reporting and generating troubleshooting reports would be the best feature; our host-to-host conversation reporting."
"It shows us the saturation of the network of devices. It gives us a clear view of the flows in the network to understand, for instance, planning upgrades in the network to get an idea of what's going on the network on traffic flows. It gives us insight, for instance, on what's going on on our VPN Client. There are a lot of things where it provides very helpful information. It also gives us our security reports with quite detailed information on what's going on in the network, and whether there are data exfiltrations and so on."
"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."
"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."
"Visualization of the network traffic is the most valuable feature. It allows you to drill into information quite quickly."
"The most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer are its ease of use, accessibility, and UI."
"For stability, I would give SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer a rating of ten out of ten."
"They have instructional videos and other information available on the site to assist you with learning it."
"The monitoring is perfect, showing you the details for the utilization of resources and network bandwidth."
"In terms of the implementation, we've actually used SAM, the server and application monitoring tools. The network configuration tools are very useful in terms of bulk upgrading switches and infrastructure. Also, the Network Traffic Analyzer was extremely useful to track down errant users soaking up bandwidth."
"This solution gives us important information about the utilization of protocols, particularly in terms of how often they are used."
"The program is scalable enough for our usage."
"As it offers enterprise solutions, it has all the essential features for business."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its traffic analysis."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"There was a price lift because previously the product was privately owned, and now there is some external capital in the organization, so pricing could be lower, though, for Plixer Scrutinizer, there is almost no competition at this price point."
"The reporting structure, the front-end GUI, also needs some work. It needs some getting used to. It works fairly well, but it's a technical tool rather than a user tool. You have to understand the structure of the databases before you can really use it."
"Knowing that they're coming out with a new user interface, that is an area where there is room for improvement. There are so many variables. They should limit the variables in the user interface and create some classes, like "simple," "novice," and "expert" to narrow down the variables within it."
"We couldn't get it set up properly."
"SolarWinds' technical support is ok, but it could be faster and more knowledgeable."
"This solution does not do a very good job when I am trying to look deeper into my internal network, in particular with respect to individual ports."
"The solution needs better log management and log coordination with tools."
"Customer Support is quite complex."
"This solution would benefit from having more security-based communications between the actual devices and the software itself."
"The Atlas module that is used for building the network map is very bad."
"They should work on the configuration of the Log Analyzer feature."
"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."
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Plixer Scrutinizer is ranked 9th in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) with 15 reviews while SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is ranked 6th in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) with 34 reviews. Plixer Scrutinizer is rated 8.6, while SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is rated 7.6. The top reviewer of Plixer Scrutinizer writes "Advanced reporting runs analytics on NetFlow and provides signature-based recognition of problems in the network environment". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer writes "Displays traffic visibility and efficient traffic flows". Plixer Scrutinizer is most compared with Flowmon , ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer, Cisco Secure Network Analytics, LiveAction LiveNX and PRTG Network Monitor, whereas SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is most compared with Cisco Secure Network Analytics, Zabbix, ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer, SolarWinds NPM and Wireshark. See our Plixer Scrutinizer vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer report.
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