TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    LiveAction

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/ALiveAction’s LiveNX is a network performance monitoring and analytics platform. It supports packet-level, network-wide visibility and proactive alerts. It can be deployed on-premise, virtually, or in the cloud.N/A

    SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset

    Score7.6 out of 10
    N/ASolarWinds® Engineer’s Toolset (ETS) helps users monitor and troubleshoot a network with over 60 tools for network management. ETS allows users to monitor and receive alerts in real time on network availability and health, and perform network diagnostics for faster troubleshooting and resolution of complex network issues. With ETS users can deploy an array of network discovery tools including Port Scanner, Switch Port Mapper or advanced Subnet Calculator, manage Cisco® devices with specialized…

    $1,585

    Per Instance

    Pricing
    LiveActionSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    One Time Price
    $1,585
    Per Instance
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    LiveActionSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    LiveActionSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Considered Both Products
    BlueCat
    No answer on this topic
    SolarWinds
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    11 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    90%
    Delivers good value for the price
    9 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    11 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    10 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    Features
    LiveActionSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Network Performance Monitoring
    Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of LiveAction and SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Feature
    LiveAction
    6.9
    2 Ratings
    14% below category average
    SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    -
    Ratings
    Automated network device discovery7.22 Ratings00 Ratings
    Network monitoring7.22 Ratings00 Ratings
    Baseline threshold calculation5.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Alerts6.32 Ratings00 Ratings
    Network capacity planning6.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Packet capture analysis7.22 Ratings00 Ratings
    Network mapping6.32 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable reports10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Wireless infrastructure monitoring8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Hardware health monitoring6.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    LiveActionSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Small Businesses
    Auvik
    Score8.8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    PingPlotter
    Score8.7 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    Nmap
    Score8.7 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    LiveActionSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (4 ratings)
    8.6
    (11 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    LiveActionSolarWinds Engineer's Toolset
    Likelihood to Recommend
    BlueCat
    From a packet tracing standpoint, it was easy to setup and analyze an issue we were having with eigrp errors between 2 data centers. Took a few minutes to stand up on both sides and compare the traffic to determine hellos weren't being sent. On the other spectrum, had it had the analytics of such products as Extrahop, it could have recognized and alerted us of an internal DNS attack we had.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    I have found the toolset especially useful for scanning subnets to discover devices, and for setting up temporary real-time monitors when we are troubleshooting or setting up new connections. The most useful aspect has been the ability to apply the tools to help troubleshoot and pinpoint intermittent issues. More general tools like Orion often do not have the granularity to detect issues like intermittent packet loss which are especially impactful to applications like Voice. The toolset gives us another level of capability to dig into issues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    BlueCat
    • Network QOS Assessment, and recommendations, and point-and-click remediation
    • Network L2/L3 Assessment, and recommendations, and point-and-click remediation
    • Network Security Assessment, and recommendations, and point-and-click remediation
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • Various monitoring
    • Stores history
    • Suggests indices
    • Helps to find the SQL query text
    • Helps to see what machines/users the bad queries are coming from
    • Shows current blocking session
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    BlueCat
    • I use it primarily as a monitoring tool from a security standpoint, so one complaint is that the filter creation process takes a little time to learn.
    • In the digital days of printing less, I do still need to print network diagrams for compliance documentation and some of the larger network diagrams documents do not print easily.
    • I wish the network connection lines were easier to see. They are typically very light and you have to drill down to see them more clearly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • The unifying component that is intended to be the initial interface to the tools seems clunky. I prefer to start the tools individually rather than using it.
    • The port scanner could use some improvements to make it easier to use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    BlueCat
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    Very easy to use and intuitive. Just be careful with the WAN Killer...it does what it says.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    BlueCat
    Can't really rate this, we never had to call support. The product wasn't complicated to setup and learn. We have a high level of network knowledge so the product was self-explanatory.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    Our organization uses it regularly. It is reliable, and we keep finding new uses for it
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    BlueCat
    There is not any other product that does exactly what LiveAction does. Some come about halfway close, like scrutinizer by Plixer. However, there is a gap with that product as it doesn't give proper quality of service recommendations, or to update l2/l3 configs to head off problems. Plixer's scrutinizer product costs about the same. It was a no-brainer to pick LiveAction.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    I haven't compared any tools similar to SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset. This might be because I'm pretty biased when it comes to monitoring, and reporting solutions. I've found that SolarWinds provides the biggest bang for the buck in my opinion. I'm sure there are other solutions on the market that compete, but I haven't tried any of them because I've been very satisfied with SolarWinds.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    BlueCat
    • Real time insight to network issues whether security related or not.
    • Great reporting features for executives.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • Spend less time downloading free buggy tools
    • All the tools in one spot, so you don't have to look around for tools
    • Get to the solution sooner
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset Screenshots

    Screenshot of Perform network stress tests with Engineer's Toolset WAN Killer. You don’t need to use real traffic for studying network activities, like testing traffic and load balancing. Instead, deploy Engineer's Toolset WAN Killer to help interactively test connections and adjust the IP traffic generated to achieve the desired network load based on your requirements.Screenshot of Quickly troubleshoot your network with enhanced ping capabilities and packet route tracing, among other network bandwidth usage and monitoring tools included in ETS.Screenshot of Using ETS, you can run scans to gain insight into how routers, hubs switches, and other devices are configured by analyzing SNMP queries and viewing MIB attributes. ETS is designed to help you more easily understand whether your network and ports are using appropriate settings.Screenshot of Config Compare, a part of ETS, is built to compare the running configuration of a Cisco router with the startup configuration. With the Cisco configuration compare tool, you can easily detect the changes made to the network, switch, and router configurations that are not committed to non-volatile memory (NVRAM).Screenshot of Manage your IP network from discovery to address tracking. Discover subnets on a seed router and scan the subnet or a range of IP addresses, generate a list of subnets along with their mask, size, range, and broadcast address and actively monitor subnets to identify and track which IP addresses are in use on your network.