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Alluvio AppResponse vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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

Alluvio AppResponse
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
50th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (45th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (8th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Alluvio AppResponse is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
Alluvio AppResponse0.8%
Other95.6%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

SK
Senior Technical Engineer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Identifies and analyzes performance issues quickly using in-built AI and ML
With Alluvio AppResponse, there is an in-built analytical analysis with AI and ML, which identifies and provides data such as the number of TCP retransmits, web access time, total connection time out, total connections established, and server-side errors. The RTCC response time composition chart is crucial because it helps pinpoint the issue's origin, whether from the server, network, or application side. It's a superb product when compared to SolarWinds SAM, which is agent-based, while Alluvio AppResponse captures all traffic from the core switch.
Vivek Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Central monitoring has improved outage alerts and now needs smarter detection and modern dashboards
Regarding the automated network topology and mapping feature in SolarWinds NPM, I am not satisfied with it. For static monitoring, it is acceptable. However, if it is possible, I would need a feature in SolarWinds in the future for some kind of malfunctioning detection, such as malware attacks or that type of environment. We did not have any facility to detect that in SolarWinds. I think it would be better to incorporate those types of features. Regarding customization options in SolarWinds, the ability to customize the dashboard has room for improvement. The dashboard is quite old, and we need some improvement in it. Nowadays, we have multiple tools with AI-based monitoring and web-based dashboards. SolarWinds also has a web-based dashboard, but I think there is scope for improvement in the UI. There may be other areas I would like to improve in SolarWinds NPM.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The full visibility that you get from the backend is excellent."
"The most valuable feature is performance monitoring."
"Opnet probes (AppResponse Xpert), now part of Riverbed, capture network traffic and calculate automatically many applicative and network KPI."
"With some APM solutions, it can take a long time to check a periodic report, but you can get all the necessary details quickly with AppResponse."
"Riverbed's product is a superb product."
"This product helps us to monitor performance of these environments."
"You need a packet capture device to perform any type of network monitoring. It helps ensure that network overloads don't happen with alerts allowing for proactive decisions."
"Each AppResponse implementation made our stability better across our 500+ applications."
"The biggest thing for me is that it provided enough information for me to monitor. It alerts and provides you with the information you need."
"If you’re looking to get a lot more insight and visibility into your network devices, servers, applications, and other devices, along with real-time alert notifications, SolarWinds NPM should be towards the top of your list."
"It's a very good tool and a very stable tool."
"SolarWinds NPM is used to monitor network components and solutions, and we used it to monitor downtime and latency between applications as well as the latency between services."
"SolarWinds core data is organized in a very good way and the solution can easily be interconnected with other management systems to get information not only from networking devices but also applications and servers."
"A product that is well-tested and trusted in demanding situations."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We deployed the solution from new and completed the upgrades."
"From web interfaces to custom monitors and alarms, this product has a high level of flexibility that can be molded to suit your business needs, regardless of the size of your organization."
 

Cons

"They need to better integrate with products and solutions from different vendors."
"The recent changes in corporate structure may have caused some decrease in support quality."
"Technical support needs to be more responsive."
"Disks are heavily used for traffic capture and may break times to times but RAID feature avoids any production pause."
"Need to bring back the NetFlow module for AppResponse."
"The pricing is on the higher side of things. If they could lower it, that would be ideal."
"The licenses are costly and are done per module."
"Alluvio AppResponse should improve its ability to expand across multiple operating systems."
"The solution could be more secure."
"The improvement would be that SolarWinds NPM thoroughly checks its patches before releasing them to the market. Better testing, alpha testing, and then releasing it to the market."
"NPM comes with a tool called Network Atlas. Currently, it can only link switches to switches and only if all the corresponding ports are monitored."
"I think Solar Winds NPM needs to create a profile with documentation responsibility."
"Going through the wizard to create these new pollers is quite cumbersome if you don't understand what you're doing."
"The market is changing, and people are expecting automation. I think that's a disadvantage."
"There should be a little bit more integration in some of the other tooling and utilizing the APIs of devices or tools could be a little bit better."
"The initial setup of SolarWinds NPM is complex, and I find it challenging."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing model is expensive compared to its competitors, but the service it gives to your business, and the data quality, means that it's worth it."
"It is costly for small and medium businesses."
"The solution is no more expensive than other products."
"The price is a little bit high, especially because we have to pay an import tax."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"Licenses depend on the number of devices, but all license levels come with technical support."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"Quite highly priced"
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"It is too expensive."
"We have a perpetual license for this solution, and my impression is that this solution is cheap."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
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
Construction Company
14%
Performing Arts
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Riverbed SteelCentral AppResponse?
The pricing of Riverbed Alluvio AppResponse is really high. Very few customers buy Riverbed because many do not have the sufficient budget. Its pricing is comparatively higher than SolarWinds. Rive...
What needs improvement with Riverbed SteelCentral AppResponse?
The reporting models need improvement as most of the time, we have to customize the reports manually. Additionally, a feature similar to SolarWinds AppStack, which provides a holistic view of the i...
What is your primary use case for Riverbed SteelCentral AppResponse?
We are the partner of Riverbed. Once any customer buys the Riverbed product, we deploy and configure it to meet their use cases. Alluvio AppResponse can identify if a page or an application is slow...
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...
 

Also Known As

Riverbed AppResponse, OPNET SteelCentral AppResponse, ACE Live, OPNET, AppResponse Xpert
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

N11.com, OneMain Financial, China Bank, Halkbank, Kaust
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Alluvio AppResponse vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.