Centreon vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager comparison

Centreon and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Centreon is ranked #24 with an average rating of 7.3, while SolarWinds is ranked #92. Centreon holds a 1.4% mindshare in NMS, compared to SolarWinds’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Centreon users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 50% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Centreon

Read 31 Centreon reviews

7,170 Views
5,879 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Network Automati...

Read 2 SolarWinds Network Automation Manager reviews

1,673 Views
1,087 Comparison Views

50% willing to recommend

Centreon

SolarWinds Network Automati...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Centreon and SolarWinds Network Automation Manager compete in network management and automation. Centreon generally leads in pricing and support satisfaction, while SolarWinds Network Automation Manager offers more comprehensive features, reflecting a higher perceived value.

Features: Centreon provides robust monitoring capabilities with strengths in visual performance tracking, customized notifications, and scalable options. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager is strong in advanced network configuration management, automated troubleshooting, and comprehensive reporting features, providing a feature-rich experience.

Room for Improvement: Centreon could benefit from enhancing its feature set to compete with more comprehensive tools and improving advanced network management automation. Better integration capabilities would also be valuable. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager could improve by simplifying deployment. Reducing resource intensity and streamlining the setup process are key areas that need focus.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Centreon supports flexible deployments with a straightforward setup process and strong customer support channels, making it accessible for smaller teams. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager offers a complex deployment that can be resource-intensive, but provides specialized support for integration and troubleshooting, suiting larger operations with extensive IT infrastructure.

Pricing and ROI: Centreon offers lower setup costs and delivers substantial ROI for budget-conscious enterprises, appealing to small to midsize companies. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager requires a higher initial investment but tends to offer considerable long-term returns by reducing network management costs and improving reliability, ideal for enterprises prioritizing long-term benefits over initial expenses.

To learn more, read our detailed Centreon vs. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Centreon vs. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

April 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 894,738 peers since 2012

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

Centreon

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

24th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th), Cloud Monitoring Software (18th)

SolarWinds Network Automati...

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

92nd

Average Rating

5.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Automation (16th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Centreon is 1.4%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Network Automation Manager is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Centreon	1.4%
SolarWinds Network Automation Manager	0.4%
Other	98.2%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Sulesh PK

Monitoring and Operations Pilot at Egis S.A.

Experience enhanced monitoring with real-time alerts and efficient support

I would like to see automation in the poller features, as currently, the poller is not automated. If we could automate the addition or removal of hosts in the poller, it would improve efficiency. Sometimes, Centreon does not show the status of services as updated, which should be addressed. Additionally, enhancements are needed in identifying configuration issues, providing real-time alerts in case of issues, and improving the HTTP configuration tasks, as Centreon does not currently display issues with HTTP links, requiring manual investigation.

Read full review

Giulio Valeri

Owner at SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS SRL

Threat detection failures, poor technical support, and expensive

We use the solution to manage all of our customer's systems. We monitor and decide if everything is okay and if not, we do changes when needed. For example, if there is a need to change the antivirus software we can automate the process and install the new one. There are scripts within the software…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can concentrate and orchestrate several other solutions from other vendors. You can consolidate those solutions all in one place, then maintain and monitor from that single point. This creates ease of use. It is a very powerful solution from this point of view."

"Centreon is a really capable tool that increases efficiency and gives you more information."

"What we like about it is that, whereas with Nagios, by design, if you have five or six data centers, you have to open five or six web pages to see what's going on, In Centreon, this is all included in one page, a single site, one dashboard. You don't have to jump from one specific dashboard to the other."

"The most important feature is that it permits us to receive alarms if there is an incident within the infrastructure. The feature I love the most is the reporting feature, the MBI (Monitoring Business Intelligence) which permits us to send advanced reports to our customers in PDF format or in Doc format. We also deploy Centreon Map which gives our customers intuitive views of their information system."

"We have the business activity monitoring, the map, and the MBI modules and they are all very good."

"Centreon's most valuable features are preventative maintenance and cost-efficiency. Everything is monitored, and we get a log before the system fails. We have an opportunity to fix the issue and avoid downtime."

"Centreon allowed us to do it without having to look for another solution."

"It is decentralized, which is better, because you can reduce the load from a single system. Also, you get a better view because it's more independent. Then, for the management, it's nice because they have one central system. With that, they can manage all the other systems, as well. This means they don't have to configure each system by system. They can configure it from one single interface."

More Centreon pros

"The solution offers so many great resources, it makes them a powerhouse in the market."

"The installation is easy."

"We are satisfied with the stability of the solution."

Cons

"I went through a few things with them to do with Centreon MAP, to do with active polygons, being able to draw an area and make that active. The functionality was in the older version of Centreon MAP and in the new version, which was a complete rewrite, they dropped it."

"They only sell four hour slots for support, so if you have just one question, then you need to pay for four hours."

"Centreon introduced network discovery in the most recent update. However, it doesn't work well."

"The most important issue is the capability to interconnect with other systems."

"Centreon is very bad with auto-scanning. It's very monolithic software. It doesn't have microservices and it only has basic clustering. You cannot, for example, have six or seven nodes for Centreon's cloud processes."

"Centreon introduced network discovery in the most recent update. However, it doesn't work well. Our previous monitoring tool could discover networking equipment on the network and identify the relationships between the devices."

"This solution lacks service monitoring in the cloud."

More Centreon cons

"We did not like SolarWinds because it was not able to communicate between UPSA and our accounting system. They should have better integration."

"The price could be a bit lower."

"We now use ConnectWise because while using SolarWinds we were attacked by ransomware. The solution did not protect us."

"The price could be a bit lower."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is not too high. Licensing is driven by how many hosts you monitor, but because you can run the agentless version, you don't have to declare every host to Centreon, one at a time. That means you can drive your infrastructure supervision with a very low number of declared hosts."

"If you need basic monitoring without dashboards, just monitoring, the plugins are very useful and really cheap. If you want a more complete solution with dashboards and reporting, the EMS solution is great and it is not that much more expensive. It's a good value. Really good."

"The pricing starts at around 5000 euro. However, this depends on: Your environment, the size of your host, how many hosts you have, how many remote pollers you have, and if you want to use the Monitoring Business Intelligence or Centreon MAP functionalities."

"They only sell four hour slots for support, so if you have just one question, then you need to pay for four hours. Or, you need to wait until you have enough questions to fill those four hours. They are not flexible in this."

"For more complex tasks, we use prepaid support days and ask Centreon to come onsite."

"Centreon is always available to develop new plugins when needed. The most important thing is that their maintenance account yearly subscription fee includes the fact that they will maintain the new plugins that you requested them to deliver."

"It is perfect and very cheap if you are a little company or startup. After that, it is quite expensive for a big company."

"Centreon is better than Nagios XI in regards to cost and support response times, when you have a problem. If you have a problem, it costs money to contact the Nagios XI support."

More Centreon pricing and cost advice

"The price of SolarWinds Network Automation Manager is fair. However, it is more expensive than ConnectWise."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Government

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Performing Arts

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	14

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Centreon?

Centreon's pricing is not very expensive. Initially, I rated it seven, but corrected to five out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Centreon?

I have certain concerns with Centreon, such as being unable to set downtime for multiple devices at once due to the limitation of adding only 50 devices in a single go. Increasing this limit would ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Centreon?

We are using Centreon for monitoring devices, both LAN and WAN devices. There are subsidiaries for my company, so if any devices go down or there are any service alerts, we receive alerts through C...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Zabbix vs Centreon

Compared 11% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Centreon

Compared 9% of the time

Datadog vs Centreon

Compared 8% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Centreon

Compared 7% of the time

WhatsUp Gold vs Centreon

Compared 6% of the time

More Centreon Competitors

NetBrain vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

Compared 26% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

Compared 11% of the time

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

Compared 11% of the time

Cisco DNA Center vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

Compared 8% of the time

SCOM vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

Compared 7% of the time

More SolarWinds Network Automation Manager Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Centreon

May 2026

Download Centreon product report

Buyer's Guide

Network Automation

May 2026

SolarWinds Network Automation Manager report

Download SolarWinds Network Automation Manager product report

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds NAM

Overview

Centreon offers a robust IT infrastructure monitoring platform, featuring user-friendly dashboards and real-time monitoring. It excels in scalability and integration, making it suitable for monitoring diverse network environments.

Centreon stands out with its unified monitoring capabilities, providing businesses with user-friendly dashboards and extensive plugins for customization. Its scalability ensures companies can expand monitoring tasks without incurring additional costs. Integration capabilities allow seamless interaction with ticketing systems and automation tools. Centreon offers customizable reporting and effectively manages downtimes, providing real-time feedback and proactive maintenance through Business Activity and Anomaly Detection features. Despite its strengths, users find areas for improvement including downtime scheduling, API functionalities, UI enhancements, end-to-end monitoring, and documentation. Businesses are increasingly demanding better automation, network discovery, cloud monitoring, and notification options.

What are Centreon's standout features?

Unified Monitoring: Delivers a comprehensive monitoring platform for IT infrastructure.
User-Friendly Dashboards: Offers intuitive and customizable dashboards for efficient monitoring.
Extensive Plugins: Enables flexibility and customization through numerous plugins.
Scalability: Allows expansion of monitoring duties without additional costs.
Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly integrates with ticketing systems and other tools.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Cost Efficiency: Minimized resolution time through proactive maintenance features.
Ease of Use: Simplifies monitoring with its user-friendly interface.
Proactive Issue Resolution: Real-time monitoring and alerts help prevent service outages.
Customizable Reporting: Adapts reports to meet specific organizational requirements.
Diverse Network Management: Capable of handling diverse IT environments efficiently.

Centreon is implemented across industries to monitor IT infrastructures, including networks, servers, and applications. Companies leverage it to track server performance, manage network devices, and receive timely alerts on device status. Its ability to integrate with ticketing systems and automation tools streamlines operations, enhancing global IT infrastructure monitoring and customer service management with real-time feedback and issue resolution.

Centreon

SolarWinds Network Automation Manager is a comprehensive tool designed to streamline network management and automation, helping IT teams enhance efficiency and reliability in network operations.

SolarWinds Network Automation Manager offers a detailed interface for overseeing network assets, vastly improving operational efficiency. It ensures seamless integration with existing infrastructure and automates routine tasks, reducing manual errors and increasing administrative control. This tool provides network administrators with a robust platform to manage configurations, performance metrics, and security protocols, enabling them to focus on strategic tasks.

What are the key features of SolarWinds Network Automation Manager?

Configuration Management: Automates tracking and installation of network device configurations, simplifying updates and audits.
Network Performance Monitoring: Offers real-time visibility into network health, ensuring operational continuity.
IP Address Management: Efficiently handles IP address provisioning and documentation to prevent conflicts.
Network Traffic Analysis: Provides insights into bandwidth usage and traffic patterns for better resource management.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Increased Productivity: Frees IT staff from repetitive tasks, allowing focus on strategic initiatives.
Cost Reduction: Minimizes downtime and maintenance costs through efficient issue detection and troubleshooting.
Improved Security: Enhances network safety with automated compliance checks and vulnerability management.
Scalability: Supports growth with flexible architecture to accommodate expanding network requirements.

Industries including finance, healthcare, and education utilize SolarWinds Network Automation Manager to meet specific needs like regulatory compliance, operational continuity, and cost efficiency. By automating complex processes, organizations can maintain high-performance networks, adapt quickly to industry challenges, and optimize resource allocation.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Airbus, Bollore, BT, Canal Plus, Kuehne Nagel, Limagrain, LVMH, Oberthur Technologies, Orange, Darty, Addax Petroleum, Plastic Omnium, Auchan, Valeo, Saint Gobin, Clarins, Hugo Boss, JC Decaux, French Government (Defense, Justice, Environment, Agriculture), OptiComm, Thales, Zeiss.

Maalem Financing Company, School City of Hammond

Buyer's Guide

Centreon vs. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

April 2026

Free Report: Centreon vs. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager

Find out what your peers are saying about Centreon vs. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Centreon vs. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager report.

See our list of best Network Monitoring Software vendors.

We monitor all Network Monitoring Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.