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NetBrain vs PRTG Network Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

NetBrain
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (15th), Network Automation (4th)
PRTG Network Monitor
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
106
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (5th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. NetBrain is designed for Network Troubleshooting and holds a mindshare of 2.8%, up 2.0% compared to last year.
PRTG Network Monitor, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 4.1% mindshare, down 4.2% since last year.
Network Troubleshooting Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetBrain2.8%
Wireshark13.0%
LinkRunner12.7%
Other71.5%
Network Troubleshooting
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
PRTG Network Monitor4.1%
Zabbix11.4%
SolarWinds NPM4.4%
Other80.1%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Deborah Gamelin - PeerSpot reviewer
Good monitoring and troubleshoot capabilities, improves overall network traffic visibility
In my organization, we had 130,000 network devices that needed to be brought into the solution and mapped. NetBrain can handle the scale but the engineers that manage those devices have to go in and update all of them to allow NetBrain permission to poll them. It can get a little stressful for everybody when you're trying to roll out new stuff when you've got other issues that have to be addressed with other devices. In some cases, our devices had no automation at all. One example is the Cisco 3650. Right now, if you went through the inventory list, you see that we have different versions running. Some are on one version, whereas others are on another version. The problem with upgrading them is that they need to be done overnight because we don't want to disrupt any network traffic during business hours. Consequently, it could take us years to upgrade the versions before we can even get them onto these new tools. This may be an internal issue but it's a big one when you have a lot of devices. Even if you had 10,000 devices, it's still an issue. You have to consider the compatibility of the device against the tool, and being able to use certain commands to upgrade it.
Noman-Saleem - PeerSpot reviewer
Detects suden changes but significant pricing concerns affect the effectiveness of network traffic troubleshooting
We use PRTG Network Monitor for monitoring traffic on interfaces and the behavior of network traffic. If there are sudden changes in traffic or any configuration issues, we can sort them out using PRTG. It's very helpful for troubleshooting and monitoring traffic utilization on our interfaces…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A reliable, time-saving tool for providing accurate layer 2 and layer 3 network mappings."
"Chain management is a good feature. I don't get it on other solutions."
"This product has good network monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities."
"NetBrain is a very simple tool."
"Enables maps to be drawn out."
"PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up."
"I really love the activity library. It gives the flexibility to discover data and metrics about my interface and data server."
"I can create my own program sensor. This means I can add extra monitoring capabilities into the already fundamentally strong foundation."
"PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational."
"PRTG Network Monitor is perhaps the most accurate tool we have used to monitor the capacity of the WAN connection."
"Technical support has been very helpful so far."
"The scalability is good. You can improve a remote host or the clustering. This gives it the flexibility to monitor another infrastructure remotely."
"PRTG is relatively intuitive and fairly straightforward. It has net flow monitoring and that works all right. I would describe it as a decent middle-of-the-road solution."
 

Cons

"The IP interface brief isn't consistent."
"Support needs to improve for the installed product and some of the reporting could be more flexible to provide more complete cataloging."
"Each device needs to be configured to allow NetBrain to poll for the information it needs, which can be very time-consuming for a large network."
"It would be nice if the setup was a little simpler. Also, if the solution could provide more training materials for new people coming into our company so they can quickly learn how to use the functionalities."
"The solution could integrate more automation."
"Their penetration within the market could be much better. If their pricing was lower, even though it's reasonable now, it might help them achieve this."
"The inventory of the device should be improved."
"We've had some issues previously with the performance of the sensors. We tend to deploy quite a bit of WMI, which is quite processor-intensive, and we've found that that impacts the sensors quite a bit."
"There seems to be a big jump from the basic scan to the really thorough scan. There is a big jump in the quantity of sensors it uses for certain things. One minute you might get ten and then the next you get 200. There seems to be a big jump between the two at times."
"PRTG's documentation could be improved."
"PRTG Network Monitor could improve the price."
"Maybe in the future there will be room for improvement, but currently, there is nothing pressing that I can think of"
"Mostly, this software has sensors for devices to monitor specs and you can build or develop or modify various sensors, according to your company's needs. But you may need to do that with coding or plugins or with the support of Paessler AG, the manufacturer."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive, but less expensive than some of the competition and worth the price."
"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
"One thing I like is that when you buy sensors, it's a perpetual license, so once you buy 2,000 sensors, you've got 2,000 sensors; it's not a recurring cost."
"In my company now, we are using the free version."
"PRTG Network Monitor is not that expensive, so I like it cost-wise. There's no additional cost apart from the standard licensing fees. On a scale of one to five, with one being the cheapest and five being the most expensive, I would rate the cost of PRTG Network Monitor a two."
"If you are not too sure about it, try the free version. Then, if you like it, you can go to the paid version and roll it out."
"PRTG Network Monitor's price is a little high."
"PRTG Network Monitor is cheap."
"We have an unlimited perpetual license, so we just pay support costs and it can scale throughout the organization."
"Because we are only on the free version, we have a limited number of sensors. Therefore, we are not monitoring as much as we want to be to obtain historical information."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business56
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise39
 

Questions from the Community

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What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...
What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?
The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CompuCon, TD Ameritrade, Move Inc.
Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about NetBrain vs. PRTG Network Monitor and other solutions. Updated: May 2020.
868,654 professionals have used our research since 2012.