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Corelight vs SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 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

Corelight
Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Network Detection and Response (NDR) (19th)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic ...
Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
3rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category, the mindshare of Corelight is 10.6%, up from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is 5.6%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
 

Featured Reviews

Dan Jeske - PeerSpot reviewer
An open-source solution that gave us insight into our clients' network traffic flow
We use the solution for packet capture sampling. We offer it as part of our managed service. It's so we can identify east-west traffic on a customer's network Corelight is low-cost and made on open-source, and the code is Zeek. It's an easy way for us to get visibility in a client's environment.…
Raja Xabi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Corelight is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is the embedded IDS from Suricata."
"It's an easy way for us to get visibility in a client's environment."
"It is easy to deploy and easy to handle."
"It's easy to create additional dashboards specific to supporting specific tasks."
"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."
"We conduct network traffic analysis for a couple of key reasons. First, we look for traffic anomalies, such as unexpected increases or decreases in network traffic within specific segments. This helps us determine if the network needs to be re-architected."
"The most valuable feature is the alarm that is set up to trigger based on bandwidth utilization."
"The solution helps manage networks."
"The program is scalable enough for our usage."
"What people found most valuable in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is its report customization feature."
"They have instructional videos and other information available on the site to assist you with learning it."
"The most helpful feature of SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is bandwidth analysis, which lets you see who's hogging your network."
 

Cons

"Machine learning could be a good improvement, but it's very costly."
"The solution’s architecture is complex and difficult to understand. There are multiple machines and VMs."
"They can enhance the interface of the product. They can make it more interactive and also easier to use for feature access."
"In the next release, building a graphical user interface would be helpful."
"Corelight hasn’t added features in a long time."
"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."
"SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer could improve its flexibility and integration with AI to provide analytics beyond just showing up/down statuses and traffic volumes."
"An area for improvement in SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is the dashboarding. The user interface also has room for improvement because it's currently clunky."
"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."
"It is very slow to pick the dynamics of the network."
"It can be complex to set up and configure."
"If your network is on SolarWinds, and you notice that the traffic is bad because it says "user downloading a heavy file," it doesn't indicate which endpoint is downloading those heavy files. SolarWinds doesn't have the tools to be able to handle this kind of situation. You can just notice through your network device that the traffic is becoming overwhelming or heavy, but you cannot go inside and get more details related to the endpoint where it is happening. We would like SolarWinds to be able to handle this kind of situation and even manage the traffic inside a network from the endpoint to the network device. These would be good enhancements. It is mostly stable. The problem comes only when we want to add another SolarWinds model. SolarWinds has so many models, and sometimes when we want to add other models on the platforms that are reserved for our firm, it freezes. When this happens, we have to create a new VM for that model."
"Technical support needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a yearly fee and depends on what you are looking for."
"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."
"The pricing is really good."
"Pricing for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is very high. I have a customer that needs the solution but doesn't have the budget for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer because the problem is that you can't use the solution only. You have to buy requirements such as the SolarWinds NPM first, and some companies don't have the budget for all the required components and modules. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer can cost up to $10,000, and some customers don't have that budget. Another product has all the modules that SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer has, with a very low price, that can be a replacement, which is ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer. PRTG is another solution that can replace SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer."
"We have licenses for SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. In terms of pricing, its license is not that expensive versus other tools such as HP."
"The solution's licensing is high-priced."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is reasonably priced."
"The price of this solution is exceptional."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
52%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is the biggest difference between Corelight and Vectra AI?
The two platforms take a fundamentally different approach to NDR. Corelight is limited to use cases that require the eventual forwarding of events and parsed data logs to a security team’s SIEM or ...
What do you like most about Corelight?
It's easy to create additional dashboards specific to supporting specific tasks.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Corelight?
The solution is too expensive compared to others. If you have the technical knowledge, it's good. Corelight is a very big gap between you and others if you’re new.
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?
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...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer?
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 dashboa...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Netflow Traffic Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Education First
Oceaneering International, Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, 335th Signal Command, Immofori
Find out what your peers are saying about Corelight vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.