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SolarWinds NPM vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (4th)
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
14th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (17th), Container Monitoring (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.4%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 2.0%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM4.4%
VMware Aria Operations for Applications2.0%
Other93.6%
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Tochukwu Uzomba - PeerSpot reviewer
Rich modular monitoring capabilities offer tailored monitoring needs with good support
SolarWinds NPM is used for monitoring different solutions like database, infrastructure, and network performance. Each of these requires separate solutions, and SolarWinds provides modular options for monitoring Based on my experiences, SolarWinds NPM can handle large network infrastructures…
ToniLindberg - PeerSpot reviewer
Troubleshooting capabilities have improved application monitoring and support engagement
I can see what happens end to end, which is pretty beneficial. The solution has troubleshooting capabilities, providing a direct connection to knowledge base articles from VMware Broadcom. When I encounter an error, I can search directly within the system to see what solutions have been employed by others. It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The set up was very easy. We didn't have any problems with the setup. The deployment took less than an hour."
"This solution offers a very good view of our network and allows us to effectively monitor performance."
"Can easily be interconnected with other management systems."
"It gives us a map of the network setup and one console to see the entire network."
"A product that is well-tested and trusted in demanding situations."
"SolarWinds NPM provides an overview of network monitoring, extending its capabilities to cover other aspects, such as virtual machines and servers. The platform has features like NetPath, which is particularly beneficial for end-users, offering insights into issues like latency, packet loss, and connectivity problems with routers, switches, or servers."
"It combines and presents information from many different sources, giving a corporate-wide vision on a single pane of glass."
"The most important feature is reporting. The reports that are generated are useful and they save a lot of time with respect to monitoring."
"I find VMware Aria Operations for Applications to be very stable, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"It significantly improves application performance management by offering recommendations for resource allocation to avoid wastage or overcommitment."
"This solution allows me to have true visibility for any metrics when it comes to my cloud, and private."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are its ease of use and its ease of implementation."
"People are very pleased with the implementation."
"It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started."
"The solution provides single-console management for multiple VMware environments and cloud integrations, whether hybrid, private, or public cloud."
"The features I find most valuable is the querying and alerting capabilities."
 

Cons

"The solution's database performance could be improved."
"Having more technical and support resources available in Saudi Arabia would be helpful."
"I would like to see some enhancement on the reporting side, such as making it a little bit easier to create reports or having a larger assortment of canned reports."
"In terms of scalability, there is room for improvement. When you start monitoring, if you have so many interfaces and you're trying to monitor them at a faster interval, or a shorter interval, you get to a point where you need to request another node."
"It would be good to have high security."
"Better offline license management. I’ve had to get in touch with customer support several times simply to remove an expired license from our NPM servers."
"I think Solar Winds NPM needs to create a profile with documentation responsibility."
"If they’re going for a “cover everything” approach, then they need to do so and enable a bit more of the "cover everything approach" within every one of the tools."
"I would like to see integration with Kubernetes cluster and APIs so that you can manage the entire stack."
"I find that there could be improvements in the support service response time, as the urgency varies unless specified as Priority 2 or 1 cases."
"It could use a URL document server. Everything in the market is moving towards automation and everybody's looking for the single click operations as well relational data locality."
"Its billing model is consumption-based. I understand the consumption-based model, but it is not necessarily easy to estimate and guess how many points or how much we are going to consume on a specific application up until we get to that point. So, for us, it would be helpful to have more insights or predictability into what we can expect from a cost perspective if we are starting to use specific features. This can potentially also drive our consumption a bit more."
"The solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."
"I find that there could be improvements in the support service response time, as the urgency varies unless specified as Priority 2 or 1 cases."
"The implementation is a long process that should be improved."
"The solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing model is such that you can purchase only what you need; and then grow into the next level by paying only the difference in price and the associated maintenance costs."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"I’d suggest that people be aware that licensing has tiers."
"The pricing is in the middle. It's not particularly cost-effective, but it's not overly expensive either."
"Licenses depend on the number of devices, but all license levels come with technical support."
"There can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"I don't have the details. In our case, there is a mixture in place. We have production usage, and we are also doing training for VMware. So, we also have a training instance. It is worth the money you would spend on it. That's because if you were to build all of this yourself by using some of the open source tools, then you would need a lot of time."
"The licensing costs are very high, particularly when you consider that we have to purchase a level 1 license for every integration, such as the load balancer, HAProxy, and the MSSP. And if you want to use vSAN, that's another license. Then, of course, Tanzu Observability has its own separate license."
"I would rate the pricing as three out of five."
"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise84
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
The solution includes cost drivers that can be configured according to your environment. You can input server-wise, CPU-wise, storage, and memory costs per hour or day. Once cost drivers are provid...
What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
The new version 8.18 has brought significant improvements. The main purpose of using this tool is having a single console to manage all entities. The cloud integration capabilities, including priva...
What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
I have been involved in several projects where I had to implement automation and monitoring alerting. I performed automation using VMware Aria Operations for Applications. There is an automation ta...
 

Also Known As

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
1. Atlassian 2. Cisco 3. Databricks 4. DigitalOcean 5. Equinix 6. Fidelity Investments 7. Google 8. Hewlett Packard Enterprise 9. Honeywell 10. IBM 11. Intel 12. JetBlue Airways 13. LinkedIn 14. Lyft 15. Mastercard 16. Microsoft 17. MongoDB 18. Netflix 19. Nvidia 20. Oracle 21. PayPal 22. Pinterest 23. Qualcomm 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. SAP 27. Spotify 28. Square 29. TMobile 30. Twitter 31. Uber 32. VMware
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds NPM vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,922 professionals have used our research since 2012.