Caligare Flow Inspector vs FlowViewer

Caligare Flow Inspector analyzes NetFlow exports from existing routers, without requiring deployed probes. Its web-based management interface configures collectors, network devices, application groups and anomaly detection. The software provides real-time network analysis, user data tracking, and statistics for hosts, protocols, applications and conversations. Caligare says this visibility can help identify suspicious activity, denial-of-service attacks, worm-infected stations, bottlenecks and routing trouble. The free edition supports NetFlow versions 1, 5, 6, 7 and 9, along with low-level traffic search, interface utilization, maps, filtering and forwarding. It also offers local, LDAP or external authentication and user and group management. The free license is for non-commercial use and is limited to two devices, 24-hour history and 250 flows per second. Professional and Enterprise editions add longer-term trends, network anomaly detection, unrestricted NetFlow parsing and commercial use. Linux packages are listed; the latest version requires MySQL 5.1 or newer. A 30-day trial key can be requested by email.

FlowViewer is free software for analyzing NetFlow data exported by an organization’s network devices. Its interface works with Carnegie Mellon’s SiLK software and also supports the older flow-tools collector. The toolset combines FlowViewer for text reports, FlowGrapher for charts, and FlowMonitor for longer-term traffic monitoring. It supports NetFlow versions 5 and 9, including IPv6, and offers filtering by address, port, interface, autonomous system, TOS, TCP flags, protocol, and next hop. More than 30 reports are available, and reports and filters can be saved. FlowGrapher charts bits, flows, and packets per second over a selected period; FlowMonitor provides RRD graphs for filtered traffic, with views from 24 hours to 3 years. Dashboards can give groups such as Security and Operations separate live views. FlowViewer is listed for Linux and web use and can be installed on a dedicated Unix server or virtual appliance; the software requires a Unix server. The free plan is free. Paid options include hourly support at a price agreed with the maker, router configuration at $500, paid once, training at $500, paid once, and installation at $750, paid once.