Plixer Scrutinizer vs SolarWinds Network Device Monitor comparison

Plixer and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Plixer is ranked #74, while SolarWinds is ranked #28 with an average rating of 8.0. Plixer holds a 0.5% mindshare in NMS, compared to SolarWinds’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Plixer users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Plixer Scrutinizer

Read 15 Plixer Scrutinizer reviews

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92% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Network Device M...

Read 23 SolarWinds Network Device Monitor reviews

2,818 Views
2,762 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Plixer Scrutinizer

SolarWinds Network Device M...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor and Plixer Scrutinizer compete in the network monitoring space. Plixer Scrutinizer arguably holds the upper hand with its advanced features and data insights, potentially justifying its higher cost, while SolarWinds is noted for pricing and customer support.

Features: SolarWinds Network Device Monitor offers straightforward device monitoring, alerting, and ease of use, ideal for basic network oversight. Plixer Scrutinizer provides detailed traffic analysis, comprehensive reporting features, and enhanced threat detection, making it suitable for networks requiring deeper insights and robust performance.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds could enhance its features by offering more advanced traffic analysis, improved reporting capabilities, and increased threat detection accuracy. Plixer Scrutinizer would benefit from simplified deployment processes, reduced learning curve, and more competitive pricing strategies.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is known for quick deployment and effective customer support, making it accessible for less complex networks. Plixer Scrutinizer involves a more intricate deployment process but provides comprehensive support and guidance during setup.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is cost-effective with a lower initial setup cost, suitable for basic network needs, offering decent ROI. Plixer Scrutinizer, though requiring a higher upfront investment, delivers significant ROI through its detailed analytics and advanced functionalities, targeting enterprises requiring in-depth network visibility.

To learn more, read our detailed Plixer Scrutinizer vs. SolarWinds Network Device Monitor Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer vs. SolarWinds Network Device Monitor

April 2026

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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

Plixer Scrutinizer

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

74th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (12th)

SolarWinds Network Device M...

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

28th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Plixer Scrutinizer is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SolarWinds Network Device Monitor	0.9%
Plixer Scrutinizer	0.5%
Other	98.6%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Ira Mulyanti

Sales Director at ARGA SOLUSI

An affordable product with great integration capabilities

Plixer Core Platform is a valuable feature and a good software. Plixer Scrutinizer uses NetFlow analysis to monitor whatever is there in a network. Price-wise, Plixer Scrutinizer is not an expensive product. Basically, Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that can integrate with any other brand or product in the market, so it is not an area of concern.

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Sorin Gogean

IT Infrastructure Senior Network Technician at Autoliv

Offers some features but needs better customization and analysis tools

There are solutions that can perform better, but due to pricing for our corporate implementation, we had to stay with this solution. It accomplishes the necessary tasks, but there is room for improvement. The features are not as customizable as we would prefer, but they are workable. If configured properly, you can perform a drill-down analysis. However, I have not used this feature much for our infrastructure on the network side.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If you really want to know what's happening on your network, this is one of the best tools that you can use."

"Scrutinizer does exactly what we need it to do; we're very happy with it, we're not looking to change in the short-term or long-term, and it's a product that runs without any issues and gives the information that we need."

"It shows us the saturation of the network of devices. It gives us a clear view of the flows in the network to understand, for instance, planning upgrades in the network to get an idea of what's going on the network on traffic flows. It gives us insight, for instance, on what's going on on our VPN Client. There are a lot of things where it provides very helpful information. It also gives us our security reports with quite detailed information on what's going on in the network, and whether there are data exfiltrations and so on."

"We see things that we did not see before; it's opened up peoples' eyes among our network folks and overall it has had a good, positive impact."

"My boss and I have been very happy with the product."

"One of the most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer is the reporting, particularly how easy it is to drill down into the reports. Another valuable feature of the solution is its overall visibility. It's great. I also liked Plixer Scrutinizer in terms of deployment time and that it's very simple to set up. Once you get the appliance set up and connected, the customer starts to see results immediately, versus other solutions where that could take a while."

"It helps us determine what is going on with our Internet and who is hogging it all up, and if we get a real high throughput or a throughput that's going over and getting dropped fairly quickly, we can tell who (or what device) is consuming that traffic."

"Visualization of the network traffic is the most valuable feature. It allows you to drill into information quite quickly."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pros

"This product proactively tells us about issues before the users notice."

"We are doing more with SolarWinds Network Device Monitor than we were doing in the past with WhatsApp Gold; when we moved to SolarWinds Network Device Monitor, the whole observability part started to grow."

"The alerting functionality in SolarWinds Network Device Monitor helps us stay informed during off-hours by sending alerts if our main links or devices are impacted, allowing us to quickly address any issues."

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is it shows you the utilization of devices to allow you to take proactive action before something goes down or reaches the saturation point. You can take proactive action to fix the problem before it occurs."

"The solution and its interface are elaborate and fully integrate all monitored items for easy analysis and troubleshooting."

"Overall, it is a good user experience and the dashboards are very usable."

"This product proactively tells us about issues before the users notice."

"The most valuable features of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor are the reports. We are configuring the reports, and the first reports are only about the devices. We are configuring the thresholds in order to monitor all the devices."

More SolarWinds Network Device Monitor pros

Cons

"There is room for improvement around the data that they have on the website about solutions."

"There was a price lift because previously the product was privately owned, and now there is some external capital in the organization, so pricing could be lower, though, for Plixer Scrutinizer, there is almost no competition at this price point."

"The visual acuity of how it presents data can sometimes be confusing."

"The solution creates a visual map of a particular location and how the network flows. You need to spend time to generate all those maps."

"The reporting structure, the front-end GUI, also needs some work. It needs some getting used to. It works fairly well, but it's a technical tool rather than a user tool. You have to understand the structure of the databases before you can really use it."

"We couldn't get it set up properly."

"I wish the reporting side was easier to work with, but it does a decent job."

"Data retention needs improvement. Data retention is a thing where we are looking for a better way to collect flow data for a longer time to do forensic research on security incidents. By default, data retention is quite low. We need detailed data in safe storage for a longer time, e.g., for a couple of months. An improvement would be a way to export data into a secure long-term storage."

More Plixer Scrutinizer cons

"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could improve by being more user-friendly. The network has so many features which make it difficult to find how to configure how to use it. It is not simple to customize."

"The initial setup is a bit complex. It's not for anyone who is a beginner to work in the products to do it."

"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor lacks the granularity of other monitoring tools like LiveNX."

"In terms of price, it could be less expensive."

"There is no mobile version of this product, and our team should be able to access it using a mobile device."

"The solution lacks in performance monitoring."

"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could improve by being more user-friendly. The network has so many features which make it difficult to find how to configure how to use it."

"The solution is not user-friendly."

More SolarWinds Network Device Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We recently bought a license upgrade, so we will integrate more exporters. We upgraded from a 25 exporter license to a 50 exporter license. Therefore, there will be more flows, and this will be an extension. I don't know when we will purchase a faster server, because the server that we have is quite new."

"We just renewed. The pricing is 5,000 euro per year. This is the final price. All tax (20 percent) is included."

"There are no extra costs. It's about $8,000 a year. The bang for the buck (cost) is definitely a plus."

"I rate Plixer Scrutinizer's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price or affordable, and ten is high price or expensive."

"Currently, the license for Plixer Scrutinizer is subscription-based and at a yearly fee. The price would depend on the amount of traffic you pull in. For example, there are several blocks from a 10K flow, a 40K flow, and a 100K flow, and based on the number of devices that you receive the flows from, that's the license, and it is not a per-interface pricing model, so that is a very strong, very competitive pricing feature of Plixer Scrutinizer. Licensing for the product is also not based on the number of storage, compared to some competing products that are priced based on the amount of storage you need, particularly based on the retention and the amount of data. Plixer Scrutinizer licensing is based on the device, and it's more in the direction of $10,000 because, with just $1,000, you don't have anything."

"The licensing cost for Plixer Scrutinizer is in the middle. It's not the cheapest, but it's not the most expensive. Its licensing model is based on how many exporters, how many devices export information to the system. Plixer Scrutinizer has different modules you could add such as the security module which would cost extra."

"There is a recurring maintenance fee after the initial purchase or if we want the license upgrade."

"We have increased the license over time. We have added more licenses as the network has grown."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pricing and cost advice

"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is not an expensive solution."

"When compared with other solutions SolarWinds is more expensive."

"The product is expensive."

"The enterprise license is good for the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor. However, it is expensive, they should reduce their price."

"The price of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is good."

"I rate the product's price as three to three and a half or on a scale of one to ten, where one means low price, and ten means high price."

"I find the cost of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor reasonable for our company. Though, I'm not aware of the exact licensing cost."

"Thankfully, it doesn't take a lot of manpower to install and deploy."

More SolarWinds Network Device Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	14

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?

I am not a positive person regarding SolarWinds Network Device Monitor.

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I have experience regarding the AD part, but my focus for the last 15 years has been oriented to the network side. My experience with identity tools comes more from a network perspective. We used N...

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Comparisons

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

Flowmon vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 5% of the time

Kentik vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

FortiMonitor vs SolarWinds Network Device Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

OpenNMS vs SolarWinds Network Device Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

Entuity vs SolarWinds Network Device Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer

April 2026

Download Plixer Scrutinizer product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor

April 2026

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor report

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Also Known As

No data available

Network Device Monitor

Overview

Plixer Scrutinizer provides enhanced network traffic management and security analytics, enabling organizations to quickly identify bandwidth issues and threats through comprehensive reporting and real-time monitoring.

Plixer Scrutinizer is a network monitoring tool that efficiently manages and visualizes traffic to detect bandwidth utilization and security threats. Its integration capabilities and compatibility with network devices enhance data context, ensuring robust network visibility. Organizations leverage its rapid data processing and extensive customization options for specific needs, supporting both on-premise and cloud deployment strategies.

What are the key features of Plixer Scrutinizer?

Comprehensive Reporting: Offers detailed insights to facilitate informed decision-making.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies navigation and improves user experience.
Advanced Security Analytics: Provides enhanced security threat detection capabilities.
Integration Capabilities: Ensures seamless compatibility with network devices and security products.
Real-Time Traffic Monitoring: Allows for immediate network traffic assessment.
Customization Options: Adapts to specific organizational needs and requirements.

What benefits and ROI should users expect from Plixer Scrutinizer?

Efficient Bandwidth Management: Ensures optimal utilization and performance.
Enhanced Threat Detection: Identifies and mitigates security risks promptly.
Improved Network Visibility: Offers comprehensive oversight of network activities.
Cost-effective Data Processing: Reduces operational costs through streamlined processes.

In sectors like telecommunications, educational institutions, and healthcare, Plixer Scrutinizer supports network monitoring and troubleshooting. It helps track bandwidth utilization and security, enabling capacity planning and analyzing traffic across multiple vendor environments.

Plixer

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor offers comprehensive real-time network monitoring capabilities with seamless integration across multiple vendor devices, ensuring efficient network operations.

Offering features like cloud workload monitoring, quick deployment, and a user-friendly interface, SolarWinds Network Device Monitor supports real-time alert thresholds, accurate link readings, historical utilization metrics, and customizable dashboards. Its ability to integrate with multiple vendor devices and perform network discovery enhances operational efficiency. Comprehensive bandwidth and fault management features provide stable network monitoring, benefiting devices such as switches and IP phones. However, there is room for improvement in integration with tools like ServiceNow and Excel, support response times, and enhanced security. Users highlight the need for a mobile version, improved reporting, and better customization options, alongside concerns about setup complexity and licensing costs.

What are the key features?

Cloud Workload Monitoring: Monitors workloads hosted in the cloud.
User-Friendly Interface: Offers an intuitive experience for users.
Quick Deployment: Simplifies installation and setup processes.
Real-Time Monitoring: Provides immediate alerts for network statuses.
Customizable Dashboards: Enhances network visibility with tailored displays.

What benefits can users expect?

Proactive Problem Solving: Real-time alerts facilitate quick issue resolution.
Efficiency: Automated network monitoring streamlines operational workflows.
Insightful Analytics: Provides valuable data on memory and CPU usage.
Cost-Effective: Monitors bandwidth and fault management to reduce outages.

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is implemented prominently in industries needing robust network infrastructure monitoring, like tech and manufacturing. Companies rely on its capabilities for IP address management, cloud workload monitoring, and remote equipment monitoring, gaining insights into system performance and ensuring compliance checks are met effectively.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Oxford Networks, Squaw Valley Ski Holdings, UltiSat, Wipro, West Aurora School District 129, SUNY Geneseo College, Bloomington Public Schools, First National Bank of Pennsylvania, Kitsap Credit Union, Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County Houston Texas, Carilion Clinic, Banner Health, IDEXX Laboratories, Phibro Animal Health Corporation, Goodwill Industries, Parmalat, Armstrong Coal Company, Flybe, James Walker

Air Rarotonga

Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer vs. SolarWinds Network Device Monitor

April 2026

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