Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for determining sensor placement and topology. In some embodiments, a system can receive messages from sensors deployed around a network, each of the messages reporting a respective flow captured by a reporting sensor from the sensors. Next, the system can identify flows reported in the messages and, for each of the flows, generate a respective list of sensors that reported that flow. Based on the respective list of sensors, the system can infer a respective placement of the sensors within the network and a topology of the sensors. For example, the system can determine that a first sensor is deployed in a virtual machine, a second sensor is deployed in a hypervisor hosting the virtual machine, and a third sensor is deployed in a network device configured to route traffic associated with the hypervisor.