sflow vs netflow

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nagnerd
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:10 am

sflow vs netflow

Post by nagnerd »

What's the difference between sflow and netflow? Is one better than the other?
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swolf
Developer
Posts: 209
Joined: Tue Jun 06, 2017 9:48 am

Re: sflow vs netflow

Post by swolf »

Hi @nagnerd, thanks for reaching out.

Technically, Netflow is a proprietary protocol introduced by Cisco for their routers back in the 90's. While there's nothing that stops other companies from being interoperable with Netflow, they usually indicate that their networking equipment uses a "similar" protocol under a different name (sflow, jflow, IPFIX, whatever). sflow ("sampled flow") in particular is slightly different in that only some data is sent along to the collector/analysis server.

I wouldn't say one is better or worse, it's mostly about what your device manufacturer and analysis tooling can support.

Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns

-Sebastian Wolf
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