Grafana vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Grafana
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Grafana is a data visualization tool developed by Grafana Labs in New York. It is available open source, managed (Grafana Cloud), or via an enterprise edition with enhanced features. Grafana has pluggable data source model and comes bundled with support for popular time series databases like Graphite. It also has built-in support for cloud monitoring vendors like Amazon Cloudwatch, Microsoft Azure and SQL databases like MySQL. Grafana can combine data from many places into a single dashboard.
$0
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds 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
Pricing
GrafanaSolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Editions & Modules
Grafana Cloud - Pro
$8
per month up to 1 active user
Grafana Cloud - Free
Free
10k metrics + 50GB logs + 50GB traces up to 3 active users
Grafana Cloud - Advanced
Volume Discounts
custom data usage custom active users
Grafana - Enterprise Stack
Custom Pricing
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
GrafanaSolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
GrafanaSolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
GrafanaSolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Grafana
8.0
4 Ratings
5% below category average
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
-
Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports7.14 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable dashboards9.94 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Grafana
8.2
3 Ratings
2% above category average
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
-
Ratings
Drill-down analysis8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Grafana
9.2
3 Ratings
10% above category average
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
-
Ratings
Publish to Web9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Versioning9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Grafana
7.5
3 Ratings
9% below category average
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
-
Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Predictive Analytics7.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
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User Ratings
GrafanaSolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.9
(4 ratings)
8.1
(61 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(49 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
GrafanaSolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Likelihood to Recommend
Grafana Labs
Grafana is a one stop solution for all application monitoring needs. In our organisation, we use nodeJs. We run it using pm2. Since we didn't use Grafana it was hard for us to know if an app has stopped working unless we find it ourselves because our other app components were failing, or someone called us up and told about the situation. We were already using Grafana for monitoring our Ubuntu servers, but we hadn't had set it up for our app monitoring. Somehow we decided to monitor our nodeJs app with Grafana. It's a really good decision we made. We used Grafana nodeJs module "prom-client" for our node app which brought us relief from app failing situations. Since we have implemented Grafana for our Node app, it has helped us to monitor every health aspect of our node app. Now we have set up alerts based on heap-memory, so when heap memory goes beyond a set threshold we get notified and take the right steps ultimately saving our app from crashing and of course from losing business and reputation.
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SolarWinds
I would suggest this tool to any user that has to monitor multiple sites and locations where bandwidth monitoring can be a labor. This software works really well for central monitoring of multiple sites and services where having a technician onsite isn't feasible. I really like the reporting, though, and would recommend this for someone wanting to keep an eye on bandwidth usage for replication of data across sites.
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Pros
Grafana Labs
  • It visualizes metrics very well coming from any well known data source.
  • It sends alerts to collaboration channels when a threshold is breeched.
  • Graphs and dashboards are portable (Graph-as-a-Code).
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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.
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Cons
Grafana Labs
  • Functions to customize values
  • Improved user experience
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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.
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Usability
Grafana Labs
No answers on this topic
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.
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Support Rating
Grafana Labs
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
It is useful for our Infrastructure team and also provides valuable insights to our application team regarding the traffic being sent from various endpoints. They can monitor their applications and ensure there are no network issues that may impact their application.
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Online Training
Grafana Labs
No answers on this topic
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.
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Alternatives Considered
Grafana Labs
Grafana has a direct plugin to Icinga monitoring solution and allowed for easy configuration for us. At the time of implementation, other services did not have such an integration. As we already had a very customized and heavily introduced monitoring solution in place, we needed settings that could plug into the system quickly and efficiently. This was the case with Grafana and allowed us to have all the integrations we needed with services such as Icinga
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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.
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Return on Investment
Grafana Labs
  • Helps us to keep our application and server up all time
  • Dashboards are easy to share with others
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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??
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ScreenShots