# Network Monitoring: Every Flow Record, Never Sampled > Ingest NetFlow, VPC Flow Logs, and SNMP into one OpenTelemetry-native platform. Build topology dashboards, alert on network anomalies, and cut costs fast. Source: https://openobserve.ai/network-monitoring/ --- Identify root causes faster with native network-layer correlation. Unify NetFlow, IPFIX, sFlow, VPC Flow Logs, and SNMP with the rest of your stack's metrics, logs, and traces. - [Start Free Cloud Trial](https://cloud.openobserve.ai/web/login/) - [Talk to a Human](/demo/) ## Native network integrations Connect your network estate in minutes. OpenObserve ingests directly from the devices and services you already run - no agents, no custom glue code. ### One Platform, No Silos Flow data, device metrics, and app telemetry sit in the same backend you already query. ### Open Ingestion Send data over the OpenTelemetry Collector or a plain HTTP API. No proprietary agents. ### Your Data, Your Bucket Run fully managed, or bring your own object storage. Either way, cost stays predictable as traffic grows. ## OpenObserve’s Key Network Monitoring Capabilities ### Flow Level Traffic Analysis - **NetFlow, IPFIX, and sFlow Ingestion** - Routers and switches already export flow records. OpenObserve collects them through goflow2 and turns fields like source IP, destination port, bytes, and protocol into searchable data within seconds. No dedicated NetFlow appliance required. - **Find Top Talkers Fast** - Ask a direct question like "which source IPs are using the most bandwidth?" and get an answer in one query. Filter by destination port to isolate a single misbehaving service. Root cause in seconds, not a ticket queue. [Learn More](https://youtu.be/QB-0J2hdJuM?si=vsB3g1muffbQg8rR) ### Cloud and VPC Flow Visibility - **AWS VPC Flow Logs in Minutes** - Connect your AWS VPC Flow Logs to OpenObserve through Amazon Data Firehose. Accepted and rejected traffic across your cloud network flows in automatically, with no custom code to write or maintain. You see exactly which rule is dropping packets. - **Enrich Flows as They Arrive** - OpenObserve pipelines add geographic location and hostname context to raw IP addresses the moment data is ingested. A bare IP becomes a country and a recognizable name. Investigations start with context, not guesswork. [Learn More](https://openobserve.ai/blog/how-to-capture-aws-vpc-flow-logs-and-analyze-them/) ### Device and Interface Monitoring - **SNMP Without a Separate Tool** - The OpenTelemetry Collector polls your routers, switches, and firewalls over SNMP and reports interface throughput, status, and errors as metrics. It supports SNMP v1, v2c, and v3. No standalone SNMP poller to license or run. - **Catch Problems Before Users Do** - Track interface errors to spot a failing link early, or watch interface status to confirm a change landed. Because device metrics and flow data share one platform, you can line up an interface error with the traffic drop it caused in the same view. [Learn More](https://openobserve.ai/blog/snmp-monitoring-opentelemetry/) ### Topology, Alerts, and Incidents - **Build Network Topology Dashboards** - OpenObserve custom charts render node and link graphs from your flow data, so you can map how traffic actually moves between hosts. You build the view your network needs instead of accepting a fixed layout. - **From Alert to Incident, Automatically** - Set an alert on a traffic spike, a surge in rejected connections, or an interface going down. When it triggers, OpenObserve opens an incident directly, so the on call team is paged before a small issue becomes an outage. Detection and response stay in one place. [Learn More](https://openobserve.ai/incidents/) ## Measured against industry leaders Same telemetry, same workloads, one platform. Every number is OpenObserve against a named vendor - not an industry average. 8x cost reduction means you can unify your observability into a single platform. 140x storage means longer retention doesn't necessarily mean expensive bills. 5x to 15x faster queries mean dashboards load in milliseconds, not minutes. See how much you'd save switching today. - [Calculate Your Savings](/datadog_pricing_comparison/) ## Teams trust OpenObserve with their network monitoring ## Start in just a few steps From zero to network dashboards in minutes - no agents to babysit, no pipelines to wire by hand. ### Sign up Spin up a free OpenObserve Cloud account in the region closest to you. ### Connect your flows Point NetFlow, IPFIX, sFlow, or VPC Flow Logs at OpenObserve and load prebuilt network dashboards in a couple of clicks. ### Visualize Watch logs, metrics, and traces stream in - correlated and query-ready from the first event. - [See the guide](https://openobserve.ai/blog/analyzing-network-traffic-using-netflow/) ## Explore guides, videos, and articles to help you get the most out of network monitoring. ### How to Analyze Network Traffic with NetFlow [Learn more](/blog/analyzing-network-traffic-using-netflow/) ### SNMP Monitoring with OpenTelemetry and OpenObserve [Learn more](/blog/snmp-monitoring-opentelemetry/) ### How to Analyze AWS Network Firewall Logs [Learn more](/blog/how-to-analyze-aws-network-firewall-logs/) - [Explore All Blogs](/blog/) ## Network Monitoring FAQs ### What do I need to start collecting NetFlow, and does it slow down my routers? Use goflow2. OpenObserve maintains a version that sends flow data straight to the ingestion API. Your routers export flow records exactly as they do today, so there is no added load on network hardware. For production, run goflow2 behind a load balancer. ### How do I send AWS VPC Flow Logs to OpenObserve? Publish your VPC Flow Logs to an Amazon Data Firehose delivery stream and point it at OpenObserve's HTTP endpoint. Accepted, rejected, and skipped traffic across every elastic network interface in your VPC arrives automatically. ### Do I have to replace my existing SNMP monitoring? No. The OpenTelemetry Collector reads the same SNMP data your current tools use, across v1, v2c, and v3. Run it next to your existing setup during migration and switch over once your dashboards match. ### How is network data priced, per device or per flow? Neither. OpenObserve charges on the volume of data you ingest and store, not device or flow count. Run fully managed or bring your own bucket, so high volume flow data does not trigger surprise per device bills. ### Can I see network data next to my application logs and traces? Yes. Flow logs, VPC Flow Logs, SNMP metrics, syslog, application logs, and traces all live in the same OpenObserve instance. You query them the same way and view them on the same dashboards, so a network error and the service it affected sit side by side. ## Ready to get started with network observability? Monitor flows, devices, and network health with prebuilt dashboards, metrics, and alerting rules. Pick the plan that fits your team. ### Cloud Free trial Fully managed OpenObserve in the cloud. Start with a free trial - no infrastructure to run. [Sign up free](https://cloud.openobserve.ai/web/login/) ### Enterprise Professional Self-hosted Enterprise, free up to 50GB. Advanced features for growing teams. [Download for free](/downloads/) ### Enterprise Premium Enterprise-grade support, SSO, and SLAs for large-scale, multi-region deployments. [Contact sales](/contact-sales/) - [See Pricing Details](/pricing/)