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  1. Home>
  2. IT Topics>
  3. Performance>
  4. Network Traffic Analyzer
PRTG Logo

Network Traffic Analyzer with PRTG

All-in-one network monitoring tool for data traffic, packet sniffing, bandwidth & more

  • Detect network strain and maximize network performance
  • Prevent issues before they occur with custom real-time alerts 
  • Easily analyze network traffic by IP address, ports & more
Free download
product overview

Our users give top ratings for monitoring with Paessler PRTG

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PRTG network traffic analyzer: What you will find on this page

Table of content
  • How you can benefit from our network traffic analyzer PRTG
  • 3 use cases for PRTG network traffic analyzer network traffic analyzer
  • 5 advantages of analyzing your network traffic with PRTG
  • PRTG vs. other network traffic analysis tools
  • Explore our preconfigured PRTG sensors for network traffic analyzer
  • Network Traffic Analyzer: FAQ

PRTG makes network traffic analysis as easy as it gets

Custom alerts and data visualization let you quickly identify and prevent all kinds of performance issues as well as security threats.

Free download
PRODUCT OVERVIEW

How you can benefit from our network traffic analyzer PRTG

Less need for help desk support

With Paessler PRTG, your network is more stable, which results in fewer help desk support requests. Let’s face it: working in your company's IT support team can be quite stressful, especially if problems and complaints are pressing and complicated. Save yourself this hassle with PRTG.

More time for important tasks

Our network traffic monitor with its customizable alerting system lets you concentrate on the really important tasks in your everyday work. If PRTG doesn't notify you of an issue, you can have total peace of mind knowing that everything's working as expected. Take the extra time to maintain your network or install new hardware, for example.

More time for capacity planning

PRTG monitors your network traffic as well as your entire IT infrastructure round the clock. This means that you do not only benefit from live data analysis, but also from historical monitoring data that you can compare and analyze. Use data collected over a longer period of time, for example, to optimize your network capacity planning.

Table of content

3 use cases for PRTG network traffic analyzer

Icon Alarm

Optimize the network

Get an overview of how much traffic is flowing through your network. You can also determine if your full data allowance is actually being used or if you can make do with less. PRTG lets you optimize network capacity planning in an easy way.

  • Complete network traffic overview
  • Determine data allowance usage
  • Optimize network capacity planning
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Analyze the network

Is your company’s internet connection becoming less reliable or do other errors occur in your network? With PRTG, you get a network traffic tool that analyzes your data consumption & uncovers the causes of network disruptions as well as bottlenecks and security leaks.

  • Analyze network traffic data
  • Troubleshoot network disruptions
  • Identify bottlenecks and security leaks
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Identify bandwidth hogs

Every network has a bandwidth hog. It might be an individual application, video stream, or overloaded WLAN. However, it could also be a simple print job containing some big files that are temporarily clogging the network. Our PRTG network analyzer helps you to identify bandwidth hogs at one glance.

  • Detect high bandwidth consumption
  • Identify network-clogging activities
  • Visualize data in clear dashboards

What network traffic analyzer looks like in PRTG

Diagnose network issues by continuously tracking network traffic and bandwidth on all your endpoints (routers, servers, switches, firewalls,...) in you WAN, on-premises, cloud-based, and virtual network Show traffic patterns and status and other key metrics in real time. Visualize monitoring data in clear graphs and dashboards identify problems more easily. Gain the overview you need for troubleshooting all kinds of issues with your network traffic.

PRTG Screenshot device tree view

Device tree view of the complete monitoring setup

PRTG screenshot map entire it infrastructure

Custom PRTG dashboard for keeping an eye on the entire IT infrastructure

PRTG screenshot graph live data traffic

Live traffic data graph in PRTG


Start analyzing network traffic with PRTG and see how it can make your network more reliable and your job easier.

Free download
PRODUCT OVERVIEW

IT experts agree: Paessler PRTG is a great solution for IT infrastructure monitoring

PCMag

“All-around winning
 network monitor”

IT Brief

“The real beauty of PRTG is the endless possibilities it offers”

ITPro

“PRTG Network Monitor 
is very hard to beat”

5 advantages of analyzing your network traffic with PRTG

One tool to monitor everything

Network security, traffic, speed, uptime, performance, servers, routers, switches, and more: PRTG is an all-in-one monitoring tool for your entire network environment. If problems occur, you’ll benefit from easy-to-read dashboards that show you the issue at a glance. With PRTG, finding the source of an error is quick and easy – which also means that you'll save both time and money.

What's more: with our PRTG apps for iOS or Android, you can display your network’s traffic on your tablet or smartphone. This is perfect when you're away from your desk, for example, while working on a rack in the server room.

Detailed reports for different purposes

Our PRTG network traffic analysis tool collects all monitoring data and displays live as well as historical data in structured charts and graphs. This data can also be included in highly customizable reports that you can send to individual people or entire teams automatically.

It is also possible to include information at different levels of depth. For example, you can use reports with easy-to read graphs to show non-IT managers why the company needs to invest in the network. With PRTG, you can not only configure the reports as such to meet your own specific needs – but also restrict data access as required. 

Immediate alerting in case of an issue

Configure PRTG to send you alerts at different escalation levels. Set, for example, custom warning and error thresholds to be notified well in advance – such as when a sensor reveals a problem, but the affected network device is yet to fail. This means that you can react proactively and even before the error leads to a more serious issue. 

Sysadmins love our software’s built-in, customizable notification system. It lets them confidently go about their daily tasks without having to constantly worry that something might go wrong with the network

The right technology at hand

As a comprehensive network traffic and NetFlow analyzer, PRTG uses the following key technologies: SNMP, packet sniffing, flow protocols (NetFlow, jFlow, sFlow, IPFIX), WMI, and performance counters.

Whether you’re dealing with a Windows server or a Cisco router: with PRTG, you always have the suitable technology for your network traffic analysis right at your fingertips.

Long-term analysis of historical data

Capture network traffic not only in real time, but also over a longer period of time. This long-term data collection helps you to see if peak loads occur at regular intervals over and over again. Analyzing historical network traffic data with PRTG lets you quickly get to the root cause of the problem.

What’s more: if you’re faced with a critical issue and want to perform an in-depth analysis of your network traffic, you can easily use PRTG together with another traffic analysis tool such as Wireshark. This enables you to get an even more comprehensive look at the flow of your data.  

PRTG vs. other network traffic analysis tools

As an administrator, you need to optimize your network performance. But should you use an array of small tools or one central monitoring tool for your entire IT infrastructure? 

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Other tools: limited network traffic analysis

Administrators need network traffic analysis tools to measure and analyze the traffic in their IT infrastructure. Some tools let you have a detailed look into the live data of a network.

Wireshark, for example, captures live, unfiltered network traffic. Analyzing this data, however, is difficult unless you know what to look for. Moreover, these tools don't offer the same comprehensive feature set as PRTG does.

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PRTG: all-in-one network performance monitor

PRTG provides structured, long-term recording of your network traffic data so that you can easily compare and analyze the data set if issues come up.

Instead of managing numerous small tools to comprehensively monitor and analyze your network traffic, PRTG provides you with combined network analysis & IT infrastructure monitoring – all in one tool and at one glance.

Explore our preconfigured PRTG sensors for network traffic analyzer

PRTG comes with more than 250 native sensor types for monitoring your entire on-premises, cloud, and hybrid cloud environment out of the box. Check out some examples below!

SNMP Traffic v2

The SNMP Traffic v2 sensor monitors bandwidth and traffic on a device. It can show the following:

  • Number of incoming and outgoing broadcast, multicast, unicast, and non-unicast packets
  • Number of incoming and outgoing discards and errors
  • Total, incoming, and outgoing traffic
  • Number of incoming, unknown protocols
SNMP Traffic v2
SNMP Traffic v2

Packet Sniffer

The Packet Sniffer sensor monitors the headers of data packets that pass a local network card using a built-in packet sniffer. You can choose from predefined channels. It can show the following and more:

  • Traffic from Citrix applications
  • Traffic from file transfer (FTP/P2P) and various other protocols (UDP, TCP)
  • Traffic from network services (DHCP, DNS, Ident, ICMP, SNMP)
  • Internet mail traffic (IMAP, POP3, SMTP)
  • Traffic from remote control applications (RDP, SSH, Telnet, Virtual Network Computing (VNC))
Packet Sniffer
Packet Sniffer

NetFlow v9

The NetFlow v9 sensor receives traffic data from a NetFlow v9-compatible device and shows the traffic by type. This sensor has several filter options to divide traffic into different channels. It can show the following and more:

  • Traffic from Citrix applications
  • Traffic from file transfer (FTP/P2P) and various other protocols (UDP, TCP)
  • Traffic from network services (DHCP, DNS, Ident, ICMP, SNMP)
  • Internet mail traffic (IMAP, POP3, SMTP)
  • Traffic from remote control applications (RDP, SSH, Telnet, Virtual Network Computing (VNC))
NetFlow v9
NetFlow v9

Windows Network Card

The Windows Network Card sensor monitors the bandwidth usage and traffic of a network interface via Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) or Windows performance counters. It can show the following:

  • Number of incoming and outgoing discards, errors, and unicast and non-unicast packets
  • Total, incoming, and outgoing traffic
  • Number of packets total, sent, and received
  • Number of unknown protocols
Windows Network Card
Windows Network Card

See the PRTG Manual for a list of all available sensor types.

Find the root cause of the problem with our PRTG network traffic analyzer solution

Real-time notifications mean faster troubleshooting so that you can act before more serious issues occur.

Free download
PRODUCT OVERVIEW

PRTG is compatible with all major vendors, products, and systems

compatible with all major vendors, products, and systems

Network traffic monitoring: active or passive? Two everyday examples

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Active: the sysadmin puts out a fire

The day starts well. Then, all of a sudden, the network crashes. E-mails stay put in the outbox, applications slow down to a snail’s pace, and the technical support hotline doesn’t stop ringing anymore.

The sysadmin immediately gets to work. They need to look for a tool that displays their network’s traffic to get down to the root cause of the failure. They search, compare data, and, after a very long time, finally find and troubleshoot the issue. The problem: in the meantime, they’ve not only lost a lot of time, but also nerves and money.

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Passive: a 24 x 7 tool

With a network traffic monitoring & analysis tool like PRTG, the sysadmin can monitor the traffic in their network round the clock. They’ll quickly be able to tell if the volume of data has increased, and with it the strain on the entire IT infrastructure.

At the first sign of a possible disruption, PRTG sends them an alert so that they can take action proactively and upgrade the weak spots in their network. This way, they can go about their daily business with peace of mind knowing that if PRTG doesn’t notify them, everything’s working fine.

PRTG makes network traffic analysis as easy as it gets

Custom alerts and data visualization let you quickly identify and prevent all kinds of performance issues as well as security threats.

Free download
PRODUCT OVERVIEW

“PRTG helps us to keep control of our IT by making issues visible immediately – and everywhere. We always have an eye on the performance and availability of our IT and can react in time if any failures occur. On a long-term perspective, the monitoring data helps us with capacity planning so that we can deliver the required resources for our own systems as well as for our customers, without wasting money on unwarranted redundancies.”

Stein Erik Høybakk, Senior Network Engineer
TAFJORD

“All our production and business processes depend on SAP. But, of course, IT and production systems also play a crucial role in securing these processes. By incorporating SAP, production, and IT into one centralized monitoring system, we can quickly detect critical drops in performance and identify the causes of these issues. In fact, thanks to PRTG and itesys, this couldn’t be any easier.”

Andreas Schmidt, Senior Systems Engineer
Truma

“Any downtime could be detrimental to our customers. We also strive to provide the best possible service to our customers. PRTG allows us to see the health and performance of the network. Using these measurements we can make decisions on how to repair a piece of equipment before it fails and causes a service interruption.”

James Ott Jr., Communications System Technician and IT Administrator
Federal Radio

Your network traffic analyzer at a glance – even on the go

Set up PRTG in minutes and use it on almost any mobile device.

device overview

Create innovative solutions with Paessler’s IT partners

Partnering with innovative IT vendors, Paessler unleashes synergies to create
new and additional benefits for joined customers.

IP Fabric

IP Fabric

Combining PRTG’s broad monitoring feature set with IP Fabric’s automated network assurance creates a new level of network visibility and reliability.

Read more
Plixer

Plixer

Paessler and Plixer provide a complete solution adding flow and metadata analysis to a powerful network monitoring tool.

Read more
ScriptRunner

ScriptRunner

With ScriptRunner Paessler integrates a powerful event automation platform into PRTG Network Monitor.

Read more

Find the root cause of the problem with our PRTG network traffic analyzer solution

Real-time notifications mean faster troubleshooting so that you can act before more serious issues occur.

Free download
PRODUCT OVERVIEW
Paessler PRTG

Paessler PRTG

Network Monitoring Software – Version 24.4.102.1351 (November 12th, 2024)

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Hosting

Download for Windows and cloud-based version PRTG Hosted Monitor available

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Languages

English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese

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Monitor everything

Network devices, bandwidth, servers, applications, virtual environments, remote systems, IoT, and more

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Pricing

Choose the PRTG Network Monitor subscription that's best for you

Discover beyond network traffic analyzer

Resources Solution

Solutions for all your monitoring needs

  • Network Analyzer
  • Free NetFlow Monitoring
  • Monitor network traffic
Resources Content

Powerful stories from the monitoring world

  • Video: Bandwidth monitoring with flows and packet sniffing
  • No Budget? No Problem! The Poor Man’s Guide to Monitoring Network Traffic with SNMP and Packet Sniffing
  • Traffic monitoring on HP Aruba switches with sFlow and PRTG
Resources Solutions

Resources to master your monitoring challenges

  • How to Monitor All Traffic Between Router and Internet Modem
  • Trouble with SNMP traffic sensors
  • Monitoring Cisco WLC, AP's, SSIDs

Network Traffic Analyzer: FAQ

 

What is network traffic?

Network traffic is defined as the amount of data that passes through a network at a given point in time.

What technologies are used for network traffic analysis?

For analyzing network traffic, you can use technologies such as SNMP, WMI, packet sniffing, or flow (NetFlow, jFlow, sFlow, IPFIX). Choosing the right technology depends on the system you use, the manufacturers of your network devices, and the load on your network.

What does a network traffic analyzer do?

Network traffic analysis is the process of collecting and examining data from a network in order to understand and improve its performance. It can help identify bottlenecks in the system that may be causing slowdowns or impacting quality of service for end users.

What tool do I use for monitoring & analyzing network traffic?

PRTG is the perfect tool for network monitoring and analysis. It is known for being a powerful tool for system administrators and IT professionals, allowing them to detect network issues quickly and troubleshoot network errors in real-time.

What’s more: PRTG not only offers network traffic monitoring – with it, you can also monitor your entire IT infrastructure and benefit from a comprehensive & customizable alerting, notification, reporting, and visualization system.

What is NetFlow?

NetFlow is a protocol for collecting, aggregating, and recording traffic flow data in a network. NetFlow data provide a more granular view of bandwidth and network traffic in comparison to SNMP, for example. NetFlow was developed by Cisco and is integrated in Cisco’s IOS software on the company’s routers and switches.

What is a sensor in PRTG?

In PRTG, “sensors” are the basic monitoring elements. One sensor usually monitors one measured value in your network, for example the traffic of a switch port, the CPU load of a server, or the free space on a disk drive. On average, you need about 5-10 sensors per device or one sensor per switch port.

We asked: would you recommend PRTG? Over 95% of our customers say yes!

Paessler conducted trials in over 600 IT departments worldwide to tune its network monitoring software closer to the needs of sysadmins. The result of the survey: over 95% of the participants would recommend PRTG – or already have.

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Still not convinced?

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More than 500,000 sysadmins love PRTG

Paessler PRTG is used by companies of all sizes. Sysadmins love PRTG because it makes their job a whole lot easier.

PRTG

Monitor your entire IT infrastructure

Bandwidth, servers, virtual environments, websites, VoIP services – PRTG keeps an eye on your entire network.

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Try Paessler PRTG for free

Everyone has different monitoring needs. That’s why we let you try PRTG for free.

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Start analyzing your network with PRTG and see how it can make your network more reliable and your job easier. 

Free download
PRODUCT OVERVIEW

Products

  • Paessler PRTG
    Paessler PRTGMonitor your whole IT infrastructure
    • PRTG Network Monitor
    • PRTG Enterprise Monitor
    • PRTG Hosted Monitor
    • PRTG extensions
      Extensions for Paessler PRTGExtend your monitoring to a new level
  • Icon Features
    FeaturesExplore all monitoring features

Monitoring with PRTG

  • Network monitoring
  • Bandwidth monitoring
  • SNMP monitoring
  • Network mapping
  • Wi-Fi monitoring
  • Server monitoring
  • Network traffic analyzer
  • NetFlow monitoring
  • Syslog server

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