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Darktrace vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.3
Users of Darktrace experience high returns and savings, enhanced system visibility, threat detection, and improved cybersecurity cost-effectiveness.
Sentiment score
4.7
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is time-saving, offers ROI but faces competition from cheaper alternatives, enhancing bandwidth cost management.
Using this solution provides financial benefits by securing from server attacks, which offers indirect savings.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.7
Darktrace's customer support is highly rated for responsiveness and proficiency, with minor improvements suggested for complex deployments and specific regions.
Sentiment score
7.0
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's support has varying reviews, highlighting responsive yet inconsistent service with suggested premium support for efficiency.
The technical support from Darktrace is of high quality.
Darktrace provides excellent technical support with a monthly meeting to review platform incidents, ensuring the system functions as expected.
The challenge lies in waiting for a response after logging a ticket.
They often say that only premium subscribers receive support within one or two hours.
I would rate support eight out of ten.
I received efficient responses to many questions.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Darktrace is highly scalable, adaptable to enterprise environments, and supports both cloud-based and on-premise expansion with careful management.
Sentiment score
7.3
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer scales efficiently for enterprises, but high licensing costs and hardware complexities limit expansion.
Darktrace has high scalability, and I would rate it a nine out of ten.
Since it's cloud-based, it expands easily.
For scalability, I would rate it an eight out of ten because they integrate with many technologies.
The license is based on the count of the ports.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
Darktrace is highly stable, reliable, with 99.9% uptime, efficient performance, and excellent monitoring, rated favorably by users.
Sentiment score
7.0
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is praised for stability, despite occasional SQL issues and slow performance with large databases.
The stability of Darktrace is excellent, rated ten out of ten.
The appliance itself has never let me down.
For stability, I would rate Darktrace an eight out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Darktrace needs better integration, interface, pricing, reporting, user-friendliness, automation, documentation, and collaboration to reduce false positives and improve protection.
Users seek improved documentation, integration, pricing, visibility, monitoring, and better stability and responsiveness in support services.
There is no dedicated salesperson in Egypt, and having one would help to improve focus on this market.
They say they can integrate with most firewalls, but when we did an integration with Meraki MX firewalls, that integration didn't work and still doesn't work to this day.
Darktrace could improve by integrating with email security gateways like Mimecast or Ironscales.
Ideally, NetFlow should have a robust alerting mechanism.
It should be like a Meraki cloud, where if you are familiar with Meraki devices, you can locate any device directly on the world map.
Deployment needs improvement; the process is complicated, requiring attention to infrastructure settings and installation of components like the origin application server, platform, close storage, and policy agents.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers have mixed pricing perceptions of Darktrace, with costs up to $350,000 annually and flexible payment options.
Enterprise users find SolarWinds NetFlow pricing fair but costly when scaling, yet praise its value and return on investment.
The product is considered expensive compared to others.
The pricing is costly in USD, and they charge based on device counts.
The licensing cost is approximately eight dollars a year.
 

Valuable Features

Darktrace provides AI-driven threat detection and autonomous response, offering real-time monitoring, high visibility, and minimal human intervention.
SolarWinds NetFlow excels in traffic analysis, bandwidth monitoring, and vendor-agnostic management with a user-friendly, integrable interface.
It is capable of responding to lateral movement and ransomware deployment within environments where there is data exfiltration.
I do not need to manually process incidents as Darktrace provides an incident summary, potential detection paths, and other details, all exportable with just a click.
If I am in a data center where I don't have layer two, it becomes an issue because the autonomous response is reliant on sending spoofed TCP resets to my core switch to block traffic, which is a major issue.
This tool provides insights into top utilization applications or it identifies which circuit or application is consuming the most on the complete one-gig circuit traffic path.
The bandwidth indicates the utilization of the devices; if any issue occurs, it triggers an alert for me.
The best feature is customizable reporting, which includes network diagrams and monitoring of various types of bandwidth usage and peak times.
 

Categories and Ranking

Darktrace
Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (9th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (1st), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th), AI-Powered Chatbots (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (15th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (11th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (3rd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (2nd)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...
Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
5th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category, the mindshare of Darktrace is 26.4%, up from 26.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is 5.6%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
 

Featured Reviews

Malebo Lethoba Group - PeerSpot reviewer
Have found the AI analyst and detection functions highly valuable for network operations while managing complexity in initial setup
The functions I find most valuable in Darktrace ( /products/darktrace-reviews ) are the AI analyst as well as the detection.The autonomous response capabilities of Darktrace are not crucial for me because it doesn't work in a network where there are no core switches. In a modern network, the autonomous response doesn't work, especially when sitting in a shared data center.If I'm running a traditional network where I am not in a shared data center with a layer two dedicated for my resources, then it can work for me. However, if I am in a data center where I don't have layer two, it becomes an issue because the autonomous response is reliant on sending spoofed TCP resets to my core switch to block traffic, which is a major issue.
DeepakVyas - PeerSpot reviewer
Utilization alerts enhance monitoring with good alerts
The tool itself is very complicated, so training is required to handle it effectively. Configuration and the streamlining process are very complex. In my view, it is a good product if properly configured and streamlined according to your IT infrastructure. For enterprise-level organizations, SolarWinds is more appropriate than for small and medium enterprises. I would rate the solution eight out of ten.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) solutions are best for your needs.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
62%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing user interface that makes setup easy and seamless. CrowdStrike Falcon offers a cl...
Which is better - SentinelOne or Darktrace?
Which solution is better depends on which is more suitable specifically for your company. Darktrace, for example, is meant for smaller to medium-sized businesses. It is also a good option for organ...
What do you like most about Darktrace?
A very useful feature in Darktrace for real-time threat analysis is the packet inspection that analyzes the packet traffic in real time.
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all kind of software in monitoring from infra to end to end, it depends on the funct...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?
I am very satisfied with the pricing and provide a rating of nine out of ten.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?
Deployment needs improvement. The process is complicated, requiring attention to infrastructure settings and installation of components like the origin application server, platform, close storage, ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Netflow Traffic Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Irwin Mitchell, Open Energi, Wellcome Trust, FirstGroup plc, Virgin Trains, Drax, QUI! Group, DNK, CreaCard, Macrosynergy, Sisley, William Hill plc, Toyota Canada, Royal British Legion, Vitol, Allianz, KKR, AIRBUS, dpd, Billabong, Mclaren Group.
Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori
Find out what your peers are saying about Darktrace vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.