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AppNeta by Broadcom 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

AppNeta by Broadcom
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
63rd
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
45th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (16th), DX NetOps (3rd)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
2nd
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of AppNeta by Broadcom is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
AppNeta by Broadcom0.8%
Other95.6%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Cliff Chapman - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at Linkstatus Ltd
Excellent support, easy configuration, and a reliable tool to know what the problem is and where the problem is
They should try and make diagnostics run a bit quicker. When the problem occurs on a network, AppNeta runs automatic diagnostics on the end-to-end path. The path it was testing only to the destination, it now runs the same test to all of the devices and all the intermediate devices. Depending on the number of intermediate devices, it can take several minutes to run. If we're trying to find or diagnose a problem that only lasts two or three minutes, it may be that the diagnostics is still running by the time the problem is cleared. The only thing, which I have also mentioned to AppNeta in the past, is that there should be much faster and much more lightweight diagnostics, which can be completed within 30 seconds or one minute, rather than in 5 to 10 minutes. Currently, when we have short-duration problems, we use a different tool, but we only use that different tool for short-duration problems. With AppNeta, as long as the problem exists for more than a few minutes, such as within 10 to 15 minutes, we can normally tell where the problem is. However, most of the problems that we deal with are intermittent. They're very rarely a permanent condition that needs to be addressed. That makes it more difficult to troubleshoot. We would look to see at least two or three events and hope they show the same results to raise our confidence that we've actually found the problem, rather than just a problem.
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

"This solution helps prove that, if we move to cloud, we'll still be as effective as we are on-premises."
"The solution's technical support is very good."
"We have peace of mind that our redundant circuits are fully operational and ready to take VoIP calls if they are needed."
"With one of our federal customers, we deployed these throughout their network and found multiple cases of misconfigured routers and NICs, which allowed the customer to move to a VOIP solution."
"Pathview is the most valuable feature."
"Technical support is exceptional. They are very available, willing to work with our technicians and engineers and very open to providing training to understand their product more thoroughly."
"Since we implemented it, we've seen multiple performance improvements, which in turn results in increases in revenue and efficiency."
"Delivery and experience are valuable. The usage in terms of the traffic application captures and other similar things is also valuable."
"We used it 24/7 and it had a great ROI."
"SolarWinds NPM has a colorful UI and many easy-to-use features. It does not need to be configured as much and is also easy to install."
"If you are almost in the dark, SolarWinds can give you a quick view of what you have and you can start basic monitoring."
"The product covers our needs for the basic care and feeding of servers, whether they are physical or virtual."
"SolarWinds makes it easy for us to monitor our environment."
"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."
"ROI for Solarwinds products is excellent."
"Graphs and easy correlation in SolarWinds are light-years ahead of what we were doing previously."
 

Cons

"As you really start to grow your deployments, it does become quite expensive."
"Because of the nature of how AppNeta works in terms of using bursts to depict how a network path performs, it is hard to correlate 24 hour performance 100% accurately."
"I think some of the product's documentation has shortcomings and needs improvement."
"I would like to see some advanced dashboard features. It could also be integrated with third-party tools. For example, an integration with a reporting solution would be helpful. Out-of-the-box, there are few dashboards or reports. What it does have is useful, but there should be additional dashboards."
"Alerting. We have so many paths in our environment that it is strictly a reactive tool, not proactive."
"Instead of integrating with other people, they should expand their interior capabilities."
"AppNeta by Broadcom needs to add more features to its dashboards. It also needs to work on providing out-of-the-box reports."
"I would like to see the following improvements in accessibility: The ability to see the details concerning incidents and their reasons right on the graph, the ability to open those events right from the graph, the ability to see the applications being used at that time."
"We decided that we were no longer going to trust that their products have not been capitalized."
"We previously used WhatsUpGold, which has a fraction of the features for a tenth of the price."
"The dashboards for this solution could be improved. We would like to divide the dashboards to give a clear view to our management team to show what we have and what deficiencies exist in our network."
"The cost for monitoring interfaces is ridiculous."
"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 (which have no connection to the public internet)."
"The integration with video apps could be better."
"Real-time analytics is the major weakness of the SolarWinds NPM platform today. They've done a fantastic job enabling the collection of data. Users are now demanding the ability to generate their own graphs, views, and so on; all of this must be done by an admin today."
"The solution's database performance could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I find the solution's price to be fairly good."
"AppNeta by Broadcom is not expensive."
"The small probe is probably around $3,000 and the very large probe that they make for massive data centers might be $50,000 or $60,000. It's a subscription model, so the payment is per year."
"It's worth the money."
"I inherited this from a different version, and I haven't yet gone through a renewal because we had purchased three years upfront. So, to me, that still remains to be seen. Once it comes up for renewal, we'll see what happens. Especially because now it is Broadcom, it is going to change anyway."
"Broadcom software is always a little expensive because they provide quality."
"We typically don't get involved in the commercial side, but the list price is probably something like $3,000 for a small probe. However, that gives all of the features that the probe can do, whether or not you use them. In the old days, up until two or three years ago, each of the separate features was a separately licensable module so that you could add things that you wanted, and you didn't have to add things that you didn't want. They've changed all that now, and everything the probe can do is a part of the base license."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"The pricing needs to be improved. It is too high. One full engine costs around $10 000, which is why we don't have high availability right now."
"You have to license it per year, for the support. You don't really need to have support once you've already set it up. Once you install SolarWinds, you can skip on the licensing. It will still work."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"SolarWinds NPM has different pricing models available. The cost of the solution is less than some competitors."
"The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
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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
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

What open source tool can one use to measure bandwidth from one's upstream service provider?
One I am looking closely at is AppNeta. They have an appliance that can digest the flow and do a better job than Netflow. The other one we are using is ExtraHop. This has both a Datacenter Hig...
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

No data available
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ebay, Citrix, National Instruments, Marriott, AT&T, Bon-Ton, McDonald's, Netflix, PayPal, Uber, QAD
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about AppNeta by Broadcom vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
912,022 professionals have used our research since 2012.