PRTG Network Monitor vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
PRTG
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
PRTG Network Monitor is the flagship offering from German software company Paessler, for monitoring local and wide area networks (LANs & WANs), servers, websites, apps, and more.
$1,750
perpetual license
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
PRTG Network MonitorSolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Editions & Modules
PRTG 500
1,750
perpetual license
PRTG 1,000
3,200
perpetual license
PRTG 2,500
6,500
perpetual license
PRTG 5,000
11,500
perpetual license
PRTG XL 1
15,500
perpetual license
PRTG Enterprise
Custom Pricing
subscription license
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PRTGSolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
PRTG Network MonitorSolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Considered Both Products
PRTG
Chose PRTG Network Monitor
Compared to SolarWinds licensing model on monitors, we bought PRTG xl-1 unlimited license monitoring any device without any difficulty and not specific to servers, devices, network devices. We monitor any device in our organisation. We monitor location, temperature, specific …
Chose PRTG Network Monitor
I have had a brief interaction with SolarWinds, but in my opinion, PRTG is a better product for our needs. The cost is justifiable and it provides all the tools we need to monitor our products.
Chose PRTG Network Monitor
This product was far cheaper than the SolarWinds packaged solutions I have used in the past, and provides nearly as much value, though you may have to put more work in initially to realize that value. I thought it was far more useful than WhatsUp, whose value went down …
Chose PRTG Network Monitor
PRTG does a lot of things similar to the SolarWinds products but I believe it gives you better near real-time metrics on monitored links between devices. I enjoy being able to pull up the sensor page of an interface between two devices and seeing just how much, or not, a link …
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
I have not done a detailed evaluation of PRTG vs. SolarWinds Netflow Traffic Analyzer. I selected SolarWinds Netflow Traffic Analyzer because I am already using other SolarWinds products.
Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Solarwinds totally outshines PRTG for many reasons. Specifically, its presentation and the amount of details that are available only in Solarwinds NTA.
Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
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 …
Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
It's nice but It just seems overwhelming and hard to get started, and pricing is higher.
Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
The only product that was any real competition was ThousandEyes. I've used WUG in the past and wasn't impressed. With a significant investment into the Orion platform, leverage NTA data inside of our current environment made perfect sense. ThousandEyes offers some impressive …
Chose SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
We used Nagios previously and also the Nagios Netflow Analyzer. It did a good job, but SolarWinds Network Traffic Analyzer is far superior and far more feature-rich in terms what you get. The planning it provides and alerting easily outweighs what Nagios Netflow can give. It is …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
PRTG Network MonitorSolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Network Performance Monitoring
Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of Product A and Product B
PRTG Network Monitor
7.1
55 Ratings
15% below category average
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
-
Ratings
Automated network device discovery7.449 Ratings00 Ratings
Network monitoring7.754 Ratings00 Ratings
Baseline threshold calculation6.747 Ratings00 Ratings
Alerts7.755 Ratings00 Ratings
Network capacity planning6.739 Ratings00 Ratings
Packet capture analysis5.528 Ratings00 Ratings
Network mapping7.639 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable reports7.448 Ratings00 Ratings
Wireless infrastructure monitoring7.438 Ratings00 Ratings
Hardware health monitoring6.952 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
PRTG Network MonitorSolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Small Businesses
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.1 out of 10
Auvik
Auvik
Score 8.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Nmap
Nmap
Score 8.8 out of 10
Darktrace
Darktrace
Score 8.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Nmap
Nmap
Score 8.8 out of 10
Darktrace
Darktrace
Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
PRTG Network MonitorSolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(55 ratings)
8.1
(61 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(17 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
PRTG Network MonitorSolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Likelihood to Recommend
Paessler
If there are a number of different protocols and devices to monitor PRTG is really an all in one solution. There are network specific solutions, telephony solutions, server solutions, etc - but this tool can do anything. Even if you don't use this tool as your main "monitoring solutions" every IT professional should have access to this tool for at least troubleshooting purposes. If you are looking for something specific built for a task you may be able to find [a] more direct and easy tool to use that would be easier and quicker to setup as customization is not needed.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Pros
Paessler
  • Very, very configurable. You can create all kinds of monitors for all kinds of things. Plus it has loads of suggestions out of the box. It can get complicated but monitoring is complicated. Pretty decent interface and good support - active community.
  • I really liked how easy it was to add alerts by SMS. So easy to setup.
  • I like their sizing models (for purchase). We're actually small enough that we are free. But it's not free as in stripped down - it's free because we don't use many "sensors" and don't honestly have the need.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Cons
Paessler
  • The probe service can be quite resource-intensive. This can cause false-positive readings from some sensors sometimes.
  • The software gets updated very regularly. Whilst this is usually a good thing to fix bugs etc, it does meantime downtime of the monitoring quite often while they are installed.
  • The ability to create Maps from Libraries. Very specific issue but a lot of people have been asking for it for years and it is still not available.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Paessler
It is now an essential tool for monitoring and maintaining the health of our network and systems.
Read full review
SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Usability
Paessler
The tool is very intuitive to use and it is Windows-based (everybody knows how to use Windows) so it's easy to get into. Every time is setup in a hierarchy so if you have a good initial hierarchy design, it will really reduce administrative effort down the road.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Support Rating
Paessler
I am giving this a 6 simply because I have never had to contact support. The online documentation is adequate for most things, and the user-maintained knowledgebase is excellent. The few times I have run into issues that were not easily resolvable with intuitive UI, I was able to find the answers that I needed either in the PRTG-provided documentation, the knowledgebase, or with a quick online web search.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Online Training
Paessler
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
Paessler
I have deployed and tested three products for evaluation I found [PRTG Network Monitor] very easy to deploy, the deployment literally took not more than one hour including basic configuration and network discovery. After deployment few configuration changes and creation of maps, reports and little tweaking is required. [Then] it would go through its process of recommendation that took some time to complete, while [on] other hand other software's took lot of time to install and configure. And features were also missing, which resulted in decision in favor of [PRTG Network Monitor].
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Paessler
  • The ability to analyze multiple pieces of information in one place, especially with historical data, has saved our IT department time and headaches. It would be so much more difficult to trace an issue without PRTG, just relying on event logs and an open task manager window.
  • The cost is not cheap, so it's an expense that hits the bottom line like everything else. Figure in hardware costs as well, ideally a server outside of your main environment.
  • I keep saying this, but the historical data piece is worth so much. There's really no good way to collect all of that information in one place without something like PRTG. And that definitely saves time and money in the long run.
Read full review
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??
Read full review
ScreenShots