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SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

SolarWinds and Progress Software are both solutions in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category. SolarWinds is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.8, while Progress Software is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.7. SolarWinds holds a 5.3% mindshare in NTA, compared to Progress Software’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...
Read 43 SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer reviews
  • 1,984 Views
  • 655 Comparison Views
83% willing to recommend
WhatsUp Gold
Read 25 WhatsUp Gold reviews
  • 3,998 Views
  • 80 Comparison Views
85% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary
We performed a comparison between SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and WhatsUp Gold based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

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To learn more, read our detailed SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs. WhatsUp Gold Report (Updated: December 2025).
Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs. WhatsUp Gold
December 2025
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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

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...
Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
3rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WhatsUp Gold
Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (29th), Network Monitoring Software (30th), Server Monitoring (16th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th), Configuration Management (19th), Log Management (31st), Cloud Monitoring Software (24th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category, the mindshare of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is 5.3%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 1.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer5.3%
WhatsUp Gold1.7%
Other93.0%
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
 

Featured Reviews

Raja Xabi - PeerSpot reviewer
Raja Xabi
Technical Manager at APRAL
Improved bandwidth management and network visibility have resulted in financial benefits and streamlined operations
There is always room for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, such as implementing instant reporting based on business intelligence reports and more granular filters in their dashboard to improve the GUI view and reporting. The licensing model of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is always an issue for users because competitors offer unlimited and perpetual licenses, and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's model is quite costly compared to other brands. If users are comfortable with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, they have to make the hard decision to invest, and it's suggested from a user's perspective that SolarWinds should improve their financial model and licensing to become competitive, especially for small to medium businesses.
Read full review
EC
Erik Cheng
Technical Manager at Quan Hung Gourmet
Efficient monitoring with detailed customization, yet complexity remains
The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless. I have used the automated device discovery with this topology feature. The interactive map feature helps me manage the topology because sometimes we cannot draw the topology correctly, so we need to manually edit the connections. The alerting system is very tunable and customizable, but it's a little complicated to use. Many customers cannot manage it by themselves and need support from us, the provider. We always use the dashboards in the SOC, where we constantly display a dashboard or multiple dashboards. This allows us to know immediately if the connection or bandwidth is full or if the connection is broken.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most helpful feature of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is bandwidth analysis, which lets you see who's hogging your network."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its traffic analysis."
"It allows us to pinpoint which protocol is overloading the link."
"The integration with other SolarWinds products is good."
"It provides proactive monitoring, rather than waiting for applications to go down due to heavy bandwidth or latency."
"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."
"What my organization likes best about SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is its easy deployment. It's also well-integrated in terms of monitoring because my organization also uses a SolarWinds solution for monitoring. You can connect SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer directly to that monitoring tool to get information. My organization also finds the default graphs that appear before the configuration in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer very useful."
"It helps us know when a branch is down because it has a graphic presentation of all the locations a node represents."
More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pros
"The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"This is a good, stable network monitoring solution for devices."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of resources."
"The threshold alerting is the most valuable feature."
"The documentation is very good."
"I use it on premises to monitor my network database. We monitor the link up/down and use the SNMP traps as well."
"The installation and configuration process are easy."
More WhatsUp Gold pros
 

Cons

"The plotting of the device on the map is not appropriate."
"This solution would benefit from having more security-based communications between the actual devices and the software itself."
"There are some areas for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. There are some challenges with the solution when compared to other monitoring tools such as difficulty in operations and difficulty with backup installation. My team is currently trying out different solutions but would need to see how it goes."
"What needs improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is performance because sometimes, my team struggles too much for the solution to perform correctly for a specific deployment in my organization. Having a more detailed view in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is another area for improvement, but that's more part of the protocol than the actual solution."
"SolarWinds' technical support is ok, but it could be faster and more knowledgeable."
"They should work on the configuration of the Log Analyzer feature."
"The pricing is expensive."
"The solution should improve its automation feature. It's quite limited compared to other products."
More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer cons
"I would like to see them do an enhancement to the application monitoring. A lot of other products do better application monitoring so they should do some improvements to the application monitoring."
"WhatsUp Gold should work on real-time monitoring and configuration management. If they succeed in doing this, the solution will cover all the network troubleshooting aspects and will be a benefit."
"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."
"The initial setup of WhatsUp Gold is a medium range of difficulty levels. However, if it is your first time it could be difficult."
"I would like to see better integration with switches so that you can see what is connected to each port, what the traffic is, and have a network map automatically generated."
"The pricing for this solution has gone up quite recently, which has led some of our customers to buy an alternative product."
"The tool should focus on increasing its market share, as it is the only area of concern where improvements are needed."
"Improvements are needed in integration, especially for WhatsApp call and messages. Our region heavily uses WhatsApp Messenger for communication, and integration with this platform would be beneficial."
More WhatsUp Gold cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay yearly, and we are happy with its price."
"We have licenses for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. In terms of pricing, its license is not that expensive versus other tools such as HP."
"I don't have information on the licensing cost for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer because it's bundled with another SolarWinds solution. My organization has seven different models and pays for the license yearly. My organization also had to deploy additional pollers, but the cost wasn't very expensive, though I can't give the exact numbers."
"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."
"The solution's licensing is high-priced."
"For our environment, we pay approximately $25,000 USD yearly."
"SolarWinds' pricing structure is the primary reason why some customers opt for another solution such as ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer. In NTA, you are charged per port, meaning that if you have a 24-port switch you will be charged for 24 individual nodes. ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer, on the other hand, charges per switch, such that if you add a switch, the entire switch will count as one single node."
"The pricing is reasonable."
More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer pricing and cost advice
"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."
"There are some subscription charges that are quite heavy. I need to pay for support every year and these charges can be quite expensive. Aside from the initial cost for the tool, you need to pay additionally for support."
"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."
"It is per device, per year. The pricing is very clear. If you have a service agreement, you get all of your major upgrades and minor upgrades. It was under $10,000 to go all-in with all of the different add-ons for it."
"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."
"This is a well priced solution."
"I'm not sure, but it's expensive. We don't pay any additional fees."
"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."
More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) solutions are best for your needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Healthcare Company
8%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

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...
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?
The licensing model of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is always an issue for users because competitors offer unlimited and perpetual licenses, and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer's model i...
See all answers
What needs improvement with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?
Regarding improvement, the application monitoring capabilities are not exceptional. If SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer could improve in that area, it would be helpful. It is less AIOps driven a...
See all answers
What do you like most about WhatsUp Gold?
The interactive mapping interface for scrolling, zooming, and drilling down on an element to learn about a network issue is good. When we see a network there will sometimes be a spot that has one l...
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WhatsUp Gold?
Clients find the licensing calculator confusing, but we simplify this for them by collecting relevant information first. The licensing is based on devices, providing better cost-effectiveness than ...
See all answers
What needs improvement with WhatsUp Gold?
It would be great if WhatsUp Gold could add features that simplify management with AI, as it is currently too complicated to manage.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Wireshark vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
Compared 13% of the time
Zabbix vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Logo
Zabbix vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
Compared 11% of the time
Darktrace vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Logo
Darktrace vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
Compared 8% of the time
SolarWinds NPM vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Logo
SolarWinds NPM vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
Compared 7% of the time
Entuity vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Logo
Entuity vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
Compared 4% of the time
More SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer Competitors
PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold Logo
PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold
Compared 5% of the time
LibreNMS vs WhatsUp Gold Logo
LibreNMS vs WhatsUp Gold
Compared 4% of the time
ManageEngine OpManager vs WhatsUp Gold Logo
ManageEngine OpManager vs WhatsUp Gold
Compared 4% of the time
Nutanix Prism vs WhatsUp Gold Logo
Nutanix Prism vs WhatsUp Gold
Compared 4% of the time
NinjaOne vs WhatsUp Gold Logo
NinjaOne vs WhatsUp Gold
Compared 3% of the time
More WhatsUp Gold Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
January 2026
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer reportDownload SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer product report
Buyer's Guide
WhatsUp Gold
January 2026
WhatsUp Gold reportDownload WhatsUp Gold product report
 

Also Known As

Netflow Traffic Analyzer
No data available
 

Overview

SolarWinds Netflow Traffic Analyzer enables you to capture data from continuous streams of network traffic and convert those raw numbers into easy-to-interpret charts and tables that quantify exactly how the corporate network is being used, by whom, and for what purpose.
SolarWinds

Explore and manage your entire network infrastructure effortlessly with WhatsUp Gold's robust layer 2/3 discovery, creating a detailed interactive map from the edge to the cloud. Monitor devices, wireless controllers, servers, virtual machines, applications, and traffic flows across various environments. Real-time alerts ensure optimal performance, allowing you to meet or exceed SLAs. The platform offers customizable maps, dashboards, and alerts for easy network management. Quickly resolve issues with intuitive workflows, reducing Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR). WhatsUp Gold's integrated log management provides easy visibility and control of device log data, allowing monitoring, filtering, searching, and alerting on syslogs or Windows logs. Archive logs to comply with regulatory requirements and preserve historical data, all through a user-friendly interface. Streamline network monitoring and issue resolution with WhatsUp Gold, making network management efficient and hassle-free.

Progress Software
 

Sample Customers

Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori
Artoni Trasporti, Austin Independent School District, Banca Marche, Burke County North Carolina, Cambridge University School of Clinical Medicine, Clayco, Community Integrated Care, Desca, Deutsche Bergbau, Flexi-Van, Gropper, Hamleys, Hammonds Furniture, Knowledge IT, Idras S.P.A., Sibeg, Swann Engineering, Trivium Lindenhof
Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs. WhatsUp Gold
December 2025
Free Report: SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs. WhatsUp Gold
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs. WhatsUp Gold and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
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