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SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA) vs. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ASolarWinds Netflow Traffic Analyzer is a network monitoring tool within the broader SolarWinds ecosystem. It includes core traffic monitoring features, as well as customizable traffic reports and alerts.N/A

    SolarWinds NPM

    Score7 out of 10
    N/ASolarWinds NPM is a monitoring and performance management platform. It provides performance troubleshooting support, auto network discovery, customizable thresholds, and can be rapidly deployed.

    $1,638

    per year

    Pricing
    SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)SolarWinds NPM
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    NPM
    $1,638
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)SolarWinds NPM
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)SolarWinds NPM
    Considered Both Products
    SolarWinds
    Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
    SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (npm) has a stripped-down version of NTA where you can see some data about network traffic; however, if you need to take a deep dive into exactly what is going on, you need SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA). We have also used …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
    We went with SolarWinds b/c we already had npm and NCM and NTA just integrates better.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
    It's nice but It just seems overwhelming and hard to get started, and pricing is higher.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
    My team inherited SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer along with other SolarWinds products so I can't give reviews for alternatives as we haven't evaluated any other services. We are happy with what NTA provides us.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
    The company I work for now uses:

    SAM, VNQM, NCM, npm and DPAIM along with NTA
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
    There are not many tools in the market that provide a lot of info on networks that also integrate with other server related components like SAM, NCM, etc. SolarWinds NTA and all other modules need to embed a bit of AI into them which can give a lot more value than what it is …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
    So .. I still use Wireshark, but it can't even compare to Netflow. I went to the best of the best with SolarWinds out of the gate. Wireshark is just another utility I have used to gather traffic flows. SolarWinds puts all the data into a very understandable graph. The …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
    We already have several other Solar Winds products, so we did not compare NTA to competing products. We are trying to keep down the number of different products to support and maintain with limited staff.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
    To be perfectly honest, I've never used a comparable product to NTA. As a matter of fact, I have never used anything other than SolarWinds monitoring products at all. That could be a negative thing to some, but consider the fact that my company has never found a need to …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
    Due to the tight integration with the rest of the Orion system and that you're letting hardware send to software instead of trying to play man in the middle, NTA is just so much easier to use, provides better information, and is easier to display to management
    Incentivized
    SolarWinds
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    PRTG has been a very old tool that was good for plotting the utilization graphs of interfaces but lacked comprehensive device views, overall end-to-end dashboards, comprehensive reports, and alerting functions. WhatsUpGold lacked comprehensive Dashboards, Alerts, and Reporting …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    We used to have Nagios, which is free. Not really a fair comparison to a free product. Obviously, SolarWinds NPM blows Nagios out of the water, but it isn't cheap. We also tried IBMs management suite but requirement to install an agent turned us off.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    I don't think this is really a fair comparison, but both Cacti and Nagios have some similar functionality to SolarWinds NPM in that they all do performance monitoring on networked devices. Cacti and Nagios both lack the in depth feature set and customization that NPM offers, …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    Better than CISCOWork on ease of usage and effectiveness of network device monitoring.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    I like the overall layout and functionality of the SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor. I found the user interface of other software to be lacking the ease of use that SolarWinds offers.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    42 Answers
    91%
    Would buy again
    31 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    95%
    Delivers good value for the price
    37 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    32 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    42 Answers
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    33 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    95%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    36 Answers
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    28 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    88%
    Implementation went as expected
    37 Answers
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    29 Answers
    Features
    SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)SolarWinds NPM
    Network Performance Monitoring
    Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA) and SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
    Feature
    SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
    -
    Ratings
    SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
    8.2
    231 Ratings
    0% above category average
    Automated network device discovery00 Ratings7.8210 Ratings
    Network monitoring00 Ratings8.8231 Ratings
    Baseline threshold calculation00 Ratings8.6201 Ratings
    Alerts00 Ratings9.4228 Ratings
    Network capacity planning00 Ratings7.9188 Ratings
    Packet capture analysis00 Ratings7.2130 Ratings
    Network mapping00 Ratings7.1190 Ratings
    Customizable reports00 Ratings7.9212 Ratings
    Wireless infrastructure monitoring00 Ratings7.6153 Ratings
    Hardware health monitoring00 Ratings9.4215 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)SolarWinds NPM
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    Score8.9 out of 10
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    Enterprises
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    Score10 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)SolarWinds NPM
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (62 ratings)
    10.0
    (237 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.4
    (27 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (11 ratings)
    9.1
    (21 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.0
    (49 ratings)
    8.0
    (28 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)SolarWinds NPM
    Likelihood to Recommend
    SolarWinds
    We use and depend on it for status state of our network gear, switches and routers. It does an excellent job of getting you the details you need to confirm all devices and products are working at the level needed. At times, it does tend to flag network switch ports and/or switches themselves as exceeding their rated capacity when frequently it was a quick blip of high traffic due to downloads, or uploads causing the max'ing of the device. Again, you can adjust the settings but then you adjust it too high and miss real activity. It can become nuisance alerting when you tend to then ignore
    Incentivized
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    SolarWinds
    Solarwinds NPM is well suited for medium to large networks, it may be a bit heavy for the SOHO environment as most of the tools and reports are designed for monitoring KPIs which may not be critical for a small shop. NPM can handle large networks with several sites and mixed technologies ranging from networks, server systems, storage devices and SLA reporting.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    SolarWinds
    • The level of customization possible with Network Bandwidth Analyzer is very valuable. Rather than being stuck with a "one-size-fits-all" presentation, an administrator can easily create customized views, reports, and alerts so that users can have a more tailored view of the data provided by Network Bandwidth Analyzer. This has the effect of making the tool more attractive to the end user.
    • The NetFlow Traffic Analyzer piece of Network Bandwidth Analyzer provides the details on bandwidth usage on the network. More than knowing how much bandwidth is being used, one is provided with detailed information on how that bandwidth is being used. This provides invaluable information for capacity planning and even certain forensic tasks faced by the network engineer.
    • The ability to produce network maps provides an easy way to create an attractive and functional NOC/SOC view of the entire network. Both technician and the occasional passerby can quickly determine if there are issues to be addressed. The ability to customize a map with background images and custom icons and stencils can make these maps really pop.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • Out of the Monitoring of almost all Network Devices.
    • Build custom pollers to monitor which is not supported out of the box.
    • Further you can alert on these custom metrics and Out of the box metrics.
    • It provides you great dashboards, Reports features.
    • You can integrate it with any MoM layer tools either using its API or sending out traps.
    • Out of the box Integration with Service Now ITSM Tool.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    SolarWinds
    • The ability to intuitively and quickly serve up specified information up to a dashboard for general “public” consumption, that cycles through several pages of information.
    • The ability to intuitively set up alerting on bandwidth levels, instead of having to dig through all types of alerts available to find the one needed.
    • Provide a pricing model based on different support levels: if I want only available update installations, don’t make me pay the same amount as those wanting full support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • The software upgrade process is a little hairy and has caused me trouble on occasion.
    • The server that it needs to run is a bit of a resource hog along with the SQL server.
    • Some additional features like the network map are a bit clunky compared to some other products that we use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    The entire IT staff relies on NPM in its daily operations. It would be impossible for us to maintain our level of service without it. If SolarWinds gets to proud of their product and begins to over charge for it, we would be forced to reconsider and use a different product. But as it stands it is worth the price to renew it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    SolarWinds
    As far as rating for usability is concerned I would give 10/10 as NTA is very easy to use. All you need to do is install that module and ask network Team to configure the Netflow towards Server IP. [The] rest is pre-configured and reports are pre-built. Moment you receive the flows from Network all you will have is information about traffic.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is quite an extensive product, covering all our bases and requirements. There are a lot of customizable options and features which you can work with for their alerting which is really useful. I haven't found anything yet which I thought SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) could do, but it actually couldn't so overall it works nicely and does the job.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    Always available. Always is important to plan the software available during the machine/application setup.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    Pages load slow, especially the bettors map. Could be that my server is old.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    SolarWinds
    I know we could probably pay for it, but it would be nice if we could get to a tier 2 technician faster. Spending a couple of hours on the phone with the level 1 technician, when we have already tried the troubleshooting they are walking us through, is just a waste of time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    In all of the times that we called support, someone at SolarWinds had the answer for us in a timely manner. Through thwack and other internet searching, we have been able to resolve all of our issues that arose to our satisfaction. The support staff have always been knowledgeable of their products or had a fellow support staff member to rely on to get the needed answers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    SolarWinds
    The training offered by SolarWinds is some of the best out there. They have several different videos that go into great detail from initial setup to advanced configurations. In addition to the view at your own pace video, they also have live training for customers that focus on a single product and you can ask questions with the folks who develop the software. I have had good success with their live sessions and getting questions answered.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    The training is good but during the implementation, you can get situations not learned during the training. The trainer was very open to hearing the questions about use cases and always sharing his experience. I really recommend having official training to take advantage of all features that the NPM can bring.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    Make sure your inventory is accurate. Stand up some virtual machines for testing prior to installation. Make sure your database and its credentials are setup. Think about things you want to monitor that may not be obvious - UPS units, Door hardware, PBX systems, Fabric Channel switches, firewalls, routers, switches. Try to setup SNMP on these devices and have an IP that you will assign to the new server. If you do that it will go well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    SolarWinds
    SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer compared to Wireshark and PRTG Network Monitor beats it by just the simple interface. Though all are manual setup, NTA takes it a step further with graphs and reports that analyze the data for you. In comparing to Extrahop from a bandwidth comparison, Extrahop wins but Extrahop is a lot more than just a bandwidth monitoring and cost.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    We selected SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor because of the capabilities of the product versus the price. The tools also work well with their other products and support is fairly good. We have never had a problem when we needed to make a call.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    From the direction and information I have been given it is very flexible and scalelable
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    SolarWinds
    • Be prepared to answer lots of questions. When people see the data in NTA they are going to want to know why App A is talking to App B. Be ready to explain!
    • Hand the keys to the NTA kingdom to the network team. They will thank you. Everyone wants to have friends on the network team, right?
    • Be prepared to invest in some significant compute and storage performance to keep up with your NTA monitoring
    • Running the latest firmware for your network gear is (often) required to take advantage of all the flow-monitoring. You upgrade regularly, right??
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • SolarWinds allows us to proactively address hardware issues before they impact the business. We recently had a server that was experiencing issues sporadically and we were able to use the data from SolarWinds to track down and correct the issue before it tanked the server.
    • SolarWinds gives our IT department some piece of mind knowing that they'll be alerted of any issues real time.
    • We can use SolarWinds data to justify needed to replace or upgrade certain equipment that is key to our core business.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    SolarWinds NPM Screenshots

    Screenshot of Network monitoring software used to reduce network outages and detect, diagnose, and resolve multi-vendor network performance issues.Screenshot of See relationships for routers, switches, interfaces, volumes, and groups, updated automatically without user intervention to maintain the network, not network maps.Screenshot of Reduce visibility gaps into critical network switches, firewalls, and load balancers with Network Insight for Cisco Nexus, Cisco ASA, and F5 BIG-IP.Screenshot of Reduce the flood of unnecessary network alerts. Create alerts based on simple or complex nested trigger conditions, defined parent/child dependencies, and network topology.Screenshot of Identify dead zones and improve wireless coverage. With its network monitoring tool, users can access out-of-the-box wireless reports, including wireless availability and rogue access points.Screenshot of Configure alerts by calculating dynamic baseline threshold data with network performance monitoring software.