No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Broadcom Network Flow Analysis vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Broadcom Network Flow Analysis
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
76th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (23rd), Network Troubleshooting (11th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (8th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Broadcom Network Flow Analysis is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
Broadcom Network Flow Analysis0.6%
Other95.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Purneswara Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Consultant at KyndleIT Consulting
A stable tool that helps identify the complete flow analysis in a network
The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that the complete flow analysis can be identified through the tool. The classification of each protocol and how the bandwidth utilization is happening with the protocols while managing to get SLAs, IP protocols, and QoS metrics is possible because of the product.
Vivek Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Central monitoring has improved outage alerts and now needs smarter detection and modern dashboards
Regarding the automated network topology and mapping feature in SolarWinds NPM, I am not satisfied with it. For static monitoring, it is acceptable. However, if it is possible, I would need a feature in SolarWinds in the future for some kind of malfunctioning detection, such as malware attacks or that type of environment. We did not have any facility to detect that in SolarWinds. I think it would be better to incorporate those types of features. Regarding customization options in SolarWinds, the ability to customize the dashboard has room for improvement. The dashboard is quite old, and we need some improvement in it. Nowadays, we have multiple tools with AI-based monitoring and web-based dashboards. SolarWinds also has a web-based dashboard, but I think there is scope for improvement in the UI. There may be other areas I would like to improve in SolarWinds NPM.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is an overall stable solution."
"For supporting flow-traffic monitoring, this product is the best option."
"This solution has helped our organization by allowing us to have visibility. We deal with cybersecurity, so visibility is very important."
"The custom report is the most valuable feature."
"Despite the low level of support, I would still fully recommend this product, because even when not all the features are used, the advantage of having such a wealth of useful information about the network traffic in real time, together with such flexibility of its presentation, is undeniable."
"Anomaly Detector - This detects the anomaly flows in infra environment and makes job easy to analyze issue."
"We switched back to SolarWinds because of ease of use."
"The advanced alerting system in SolarWinds NPM helps us for network analysis, even CPU and memory analysis."
"Our search finally ended at this Orion’s NPM tool which has great scalability and reliability."
"From the product side, it covers everything; it is perfect."
"The solution ranks as one of the top five monitoring tools."
"SolarWinds NPM has helped our organization by proactively indicating if we are low on resources for a particular server."
"It's very easy to scale; the scalability is brilliant, and if you need additional monitoring resources or need to plug in your secondary data center, it takes thirty minutes and is easy to use."
"In a few short years, SolarWinds has empowered us to provide robust infrastructure monitoring, including a converged view of our servers, both the physical and virtual servers, and the storage and application environments."
 

Cons

"Currently, Broadcom Network Flow Analysis does not support high-availability solutions, making it an area that needs improvement."
"Enhanced support should be given with APIs that work to maintain collected information."
"If one is able to find it at all, the documentation is often no help."
"Prefer this product only if the scope of flow analysis is vast and for a limited scope I don’t prefer this product since the product licenses are very costly and it is a waste of money."
"I would like to see more security features, like a lost protection package."
"Sometimes the custom report jammed in the MYSQL database."
"We previously used WhatsUpGold, which has a fraction of the features for a tenth of the price."
"SolarWinds is expensive. That's why it's primarily banks using the solution."
"Bulk Node attach is chaos."
"My team has had a lot of issues with support."
"The interface could be made more user-friendly."
"Robustness of network element mapping tool could be better"
"An area for improvement would be the use of modular licenses, which are not practical for big clients."
"The solution could be enhanced. It currently lacks integration with SMS services which is something we need."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you make a DX NetOps-based purchase and the complete suite of products that fall under DX NetOps from Broadcom, then you get Network Flow Analysis along with DX NetOps Performance Management and DX Spectrum."
"Price could be improved on"
"SolarWinds is expensive. That's why it's primarily banks using the solution. Small businesses can't afford it. Due to its pricing, most smaller enterprises like manufacturing companies are not interested. For example, we have a client who is also interested in traffic monitoring, but they are not purchasing SolarWinds because of the cost."
"It is expensive."
"You have to license it per year, for the support. You don't really need to have support once you've already set it up. Once you install SolarWinds, you can skip on the licensing. It will still work."
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"It is too expensive."
"The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
16%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
 

Also Known As

CA NetQoS Reporter Analyzer, CA NFA, CA Network Flow Analysis
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Empowered, BCBST
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom Network Flow Analysis vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.