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BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 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

BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
44th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (39th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.2%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

VB
Helps design blueprints in a cloud environment but the support is a major problem
One of the major problems is that support is not so good. I used to have a support expert in Spain but they left two years ago. BMC doesn't invest a lot in network automation but network automation is a major point in CLM. There aren't any experts here in Europe, maybe they have in America, I don't know. The main problem is the support in Europe. We had a lot of problems with the people who got put on our cases. The agents that we were assigned to were not so capable. They wanted to replicate the problem. If you have an incident, it takes a lot of time to troubleshoot the problem. The incident support is not so good. The technicians don't know the platform well. BMC doesn't want to invest in CLM. Two years ago we had a lot of problems. Maybe BMC realized that CLM is an end of life product.
Masud Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers alerting service to trigger alerts and easy to manage
For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices and device/interface monitoring. We have also used NCM (Network Configuration Manager) for our network. We use the alerting service to trigger alerts based on specific thresholds, like CPU or memory utilization exceeding a certain percentage. There are AI network initiatives in SolarWinds NPM for some lengthy issues. For example, it shows availability reports. But for bandwidth monitoring, it's not very clear how much bandwidth is being consumed. SolarWinds provide real-time bandwidth monitoring. It is not difficult to manage the network with SolarWinds. We have one customer with a satellite location. If we have a large network with, let's say, 43,000 elements, and our current SolarWinds license supports only 30,000, we would need to create another polling engine to accommodate the additional 13,000 elements. It's limited to the polling engine, so we can only support 30,000 elements per engine. So it's only for 30,000, but we have at least 40,000 elements in our network.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Supports unattended installs and image-based, script-based, or template-based provisioning."
"Automates Java EE Application Deployment from an SCM system."
"By allowing end users to request their own services, the request process for systems is much quicker and more accurate."
"Integrates role-based access control with pre-configured policies for CIS, DISA, HIPAA, PCI, SOX, NIST, and SCAP documentation and remediation."
"You can tie together your public and private cloud infrastructure into a "single pane of glass"."
"CLM has a multi-cloud portal because they have the resources to implement in various environments in various ports."
"Assesses change impact or completes an audit using multiple dashboard views."
"I found a lot of valuable features in SolarWinds NPM, such as the customized application monitoring that allows you to customize any monitoring and script customization, and you also have the option to deploy and upgrade SolarWinds NPM online, which is very useful for my organization."
"Monitoring capabilities are at a high level and it is easy to see utilization, access ports, and CPU memory in real time or through a lens for long-term visualization."
"We had some interfaces where the SFP Ports were having some problems after a while. We found which of the SFP Ports was having the error and changed it, so the bandwidth become okay."
"We found that it was easy to operate, and it was simple if anyone has entry-level working experience or even if someone is not experienced."
"It did a good job of the collection and then an investigation of the net flow of information for understanding the applications that were being used at certain locations."
"SolarWinds NPM is a scalable solution since it can handle a huge number of users."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface and the ease of deployment."
"The connectivity of the solution is very good."
 

Cons

"The installation and configuration can be tricky due to it being built on Remedy."
"Needs integrations with other providers to provide a custom public cloud environment."
"One of the major problems is that support is not so good."
"The market is changing, and people are expecting automation. I think that's a disadvantage."
"The solution does not offer much customization so is somewhat inflexible."
"The interface could be made more user-friendly."
"There needs to be more integration of widgets, especially for reporting purposes."
"Currently lacks integration with SMS services."
"The integration with video apps could be better."
"SolarWinds NPM should be more flexible to accommodate specific customer requirements quickly."
"It would be nice if SolarWinds could have a polling engine on the site that would collect the reporting and then manage everything itself."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"When I compare the cost of CA Spectrum to that of SolarWinds NPM, the cost of CA Spectrum is way too high, and the cost of SolarWinds NPM is pretty low."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
"The cost is based on the number of nodes, so it is expensive when you have a lot of them."
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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
35%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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

BMC CLM
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JDA Software, Morningstar, Orange Business Services, Wipro
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.