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BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance (BCIA) vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

BlueCat Infrastructure Assu...
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
39th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance (BCIA) is 0.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.9%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Bob Stiles - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers proactive issue detection through customized alerts enhances troubleshooting
We saw the benefits of BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance immediately after we deployed it. The enhanced analytics dashboard helps us prioritize troubleshooting. BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance detects potential issues and anomalies before they occur, provided we have set our thresholds. Without defined thresholds, the system may still identify problems, but we will only be alerted after the event. This proactive approach helps prevent issues rather than simply reacting to them. It provides diagnostic information to help with remediation. BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance significantly enhances our company's network stability by preventing outages. With over a hundred firewalls integrated into the system, it provides comprehensive monitoring and control, effectively minimizing potential downtime. BlueCat's solution has been instrumental in maintaining a highly reliable network environment, and its value in preventing disruptions is immeasurable.
MohitKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface
The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market. The solution supports many vendors by default and just included Meraki SDN with the new release, but continued expansion is important. We created a custom method to pair with unsupported vendors but that can produce a lag in performance so future releases should expand SDN support. The solution does a good job of automating features but could expand that even more.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance provides excellent analytic capabilities for early problem detection, offering beneficial diagnostic information and actionable remediation steps."
"BlueCat's solution has been instrumental in maintaining a highly reliable network environment, and its value in preventing disruptions is immeasurable."
"Thanks to BlueCat, we have not experienced any downtime in the past two years."
"The most valuable aspects of BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance are remote commands, a core functionality for us, and automated remediation options."
"BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance's most valuable feature is its ability to analyze integrity and perform interrogations, providing alerts based on configurable thresholds."
"The ability to quickly identify downtime is the most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface and the ease of deployment."
"The benefit of this solution is the reporting. We're able to report on and see our network in a graphical form. We are able to detect when a device is added to a network."
"SolarWinds NPM is a scalable solution since it can handle a huge number of users."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"What I've found most valuable about the solution is that it's scalable."
"The set up was very easy. We didn't have any problems with the setup. The deployment took less than an hour."
"Their support team is efficient, and it is easy to set up."
 

Cons

"Considering that some of our junior engineers have limited coding expertise, incorporating features that assist in query construction or provide clear textual translations of code would be valuable."
"BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance does not support all network security devices."
"We would greatly benefit from expanded BlueCat integrations, particularly through a robust API ingestion system that allows for custom integrations with other systems. Ideally, this would include a user-friendly message queue system that facilitates communication between BlueCat and any external system via APIs."
"Considering that some of our junior engineers have limited coding expertise, incorporating features that assist in query construction or provide clear textual translations of code would be valuable."
"BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance does not support all network security devices."
"The aesthetic widgets should be dynamic widgets, so the customization can be even more customizable."
"SolarWinds NPM should be more flexible to accommodate specific customer requirements quickly."
"My team has had a lot of issues with support."
"A feature I would ask for is for them to have this solution available for Linux systems instead of Windows."
"We decided that we were no longer going to trust that their products have not been capitalized."
"Application Performance Monitoring should be included in this solution."
"The response time of the support team needs to improve"
"We are looking to change away from this solution because of the documentation and the solution doesn't have enough integration in our country. The documentation is too weak."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance meets our budget requirements."
"BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance is reasonably priced."
"The pricing for BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance is fairly comparable."
"It is not an expensive product."
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
"We pay approximately $4,000 annually for SolarWinds NPM. There are no additional fees required other than the standard fees."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"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."
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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
No data available
Educational Organization
54%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance (BCIA)?
BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance does not support all network security devices. We currently use BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance on-premises, but it lacks the AI capabilities that are becoming inc...
What is your primary use case for BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance (BCIA)?
My organization comprises a financial institution and a technology company. BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance, an internal service, helps accurately pinpoint issues within our systems.
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...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Indeni
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MasterCard, Bloomberg, Comcast, Office Depot, O'Reilly Auto Parts, Prudential, Wyndham Worldwide, iRobot, Leumi, Pelephone, Sheetz, Travelex
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance (BCIA) vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,451 professionals have used our research since 2012.