SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs Wireshark

Likelihood to Recommend

For a network admin or security team, NCM can be very useful in keeping config parameters standardized, this can mean anything from ensuring the timezone setting is standard to ensuring SNMP or logging is set up as you want it. The alerting is good if you want a record of findings for audit purposes so that you can show that you are monitoring configurations, you are alerting when a config goes out of compliance, and a ticket is created to drive remediation. Alternatively one can choose to automate remediation by running a configuration change script but that scares me so we never used it, this is a me-problem and not a tool problem. Where it falls down is in the data storage architecture as we had constant problems with our server running out of disk, this seems to be because it does a lot of basic monitoring of the devices along with storing many, many copies of the configurations. This may have been a user-side issue, though NCM runs under the Orion app which is where the storage issues come from I think.

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holt archer

senior security engineer

infobipTelecommunications, 1001-5000 employees

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I don't know of any other tool that works as well as Wireshark for packet capture an inspection. It's extremely easy to get up and running, and even with little to no knowledge of how to use the tool, you can be looking at all the traffic coming off a network interface.

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Chase Palmer, CISSP

Senior Security Analyst

LucidComputer Software, 501-1000 employees

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Pros

Real time performance details and historical data.
View the specific nodes very easily and get the information.
NetPath features help to analyze traffic paths whether it is hosted on premised or cloud.
Customize alert and reporting tools to get performance information.

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Verified User

Engineer in Quality Assurance

Information Technology & Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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Light-weight software - Does not require high end specifications; also runs smoothly on Legacy systems
Filter function - Lets you filter you packets from thousands to tens so as to find your target much easily
Simultaneous capturing on all the network adapters - You can capture packets from all the Network Interface Cards (NIC's) at once.

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Jaspreet Singh

Cyber Security Analyst

DeloitteManagement Consulting, 10,001+ employees

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Cons

More security put into the product, the Orion hack was not good news.
More frequent releases to address small bugs rather than big releases that are rare.
More IPv6 related features to make it easier for people familiar with IPv4 to learn IPv6.
Ability to edit dashboards using JSON or another similar language.

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Financial Services Company, 1001-5000 employees

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A more user-friendly interface would be nice, but then again it is not really designed for those who are not quite comfortable with this type of software.
Changes to functionality on updates - this can sometimes happen unexpectedly and can be an annoyance.
More powerful data processing would be welcomed

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Mauro Biefeni

Head of Information Technology

Mondetta ClothingApparel & Fashion, 51-200 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

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SolarWinds Network Device Monitor Editions & Modules

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Additional Pricing Details

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General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

Yes

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

$0

Wireshark Editions & Modules

Edition

Wireshark	Free

none

Additional Pricing Details

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Usability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Wireshark 10.0

Based on 2 answers

I give Wireshark a 10 for usability because it is very usable. Just about anyone can capture packets within a few seconds of opening the program. The analysis is a science but as far as just using Wireshark; it's very easy.

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Kenneth Hess

Senior Systems Analyst

CymSTAR, LLCDefense & Space, 201-500 employees

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Support Rating

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Wireshark 10.0

Based on 6 answers

I don't believe Wireshark has "true" support as the software is open source. However, there is an active & friendly community around Wireshark that are more than happy to help answer questions. From a comprehensive Wiki and FAQ section on the site to the Ask a Question forum and bug tracker section, there's plenty of support options to make sure your questions and issues are addressed.

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Drew Harrison

Programmer

Kingmaker SoftwareComputer Software, 1-10 employees

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Implementation Rating

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Wireshark 10.0

Based on 3 answers

Simple and easy setup.

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Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology

Automotive Company, 10,001+ employees

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Alternatives Considered

MS is meant for windows monitoring and up/down for mostly everything else. Moved away from MS System Center. Now we have better visibility and management can get reports. The other teams have added Linux to Solarwinds and also see improvements in monitoring. Whether you use snmp (v3), wmi or some other credentials to connect to you system, Solarwinds will more than likely be able to manage and monitor it.

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Verified User

Technician in Information Technology

Hospital & Health Care Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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Wireshark is a free tool that came highly recommended by one of our former network security consultants. Using the tool he was able to resolve all of our higher tier network tickets, so we observed first hand why we needed to add Wireshark into our toolset. We received in-depth instruction and training scenarios that demonstrated the effectiveness and power of the product, so we didn't spend any time reviewing competing products.

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Verified User

Executive in Information Technology

Information Technology & Services Company, 1-10 employees

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Return on Investment

Reduced site visits and recurring issues by 25 to 35%
Enables proactive warning, thereby reducing downtime caused by unforeseen issues
Provides a central panel for monitoring the entire network at a glance
Allows for SLA management thereby increasing accountability by 50%
Reduced time to repair by 35% as techs are more informed of root cause

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Jesse Bridgelal

Network Architect

MOHGovernment Administration, 501-1000 employees

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It is Easy to Use and Setup is very Easy
The data captured can be shared with different teams for further troubleshooting and working on a resolution to the issue.
Easy to Analyze the data, create own filters with easy to use expressions.

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Arnab Mukherjee

ITSM and Project Management Consultant

Kyra Solutions, Inc.Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, 201-500 employees

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