PRTG Manual: Bandwidth Monitoring Comparison
The following table shows the differences between the four bandwidth monitoring methods available in PRTG:
Category |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Setup |
Medium |
Low Low to high (depending on filter rules used) |
Can be high (for example, the switch must be configured) |
|
Traffic filtering |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Differentiate bandwidth usage by protocol or IP addresses |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
PRTG can show Toplists (Top Talkers, Top Connections, Top Protocols, custom) |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Filter bandwidth usage by IP address |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Filter bandwidth usage by MAC address |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
Filter bandwidth usage by physical network port |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
Monitor network parameters other than bandwidth usage |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
CPU load on the PRTG core server system |
Medium |
Low |
Higher, depends on the amount of traffic |
Higher, depends on the amount of traffic |
Excess bandwidth usage of monitoring |
Small |
Small |
None (except when monitoring switch ports are used) |
Depends on the traffic |
KNOWLEDGE BASE
Should I use SNMP, Flow (IPFIX/NetFlow/sFlow) or Packet Sniffing for my monitoring?
How do I differentiate between excessive bandwidth usage with PRTG?
