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Cisco Intersight vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
Cisco Intersight enhances ROI by streamlining operations, saving time and costs, and reducing manpower through efficient technology.
Sentiment score
6.8
SolarWinds NPM is praised for reducing costs, offering quick ROI, and enhancing network management with reliable alerts and reporting.
It simplifies the onboarding of new hardware, reducing time spent on manual installations and configurations.
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
The return on investment is significant as the solution effectively reduces costs while being worth its expense.
Network Administrator at PT Bni Life Insurance
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Cisco Intersight offers 24/7 professional support, with users praising its responsiveness, despite occasional challenges in rapid expertise access.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM's customer service is praised, but technical support varies, with some users noting slow responses and availability issues.
For complex issues, it's challenging to get the right engineer quickly unless you have a specific contract like CX.
Senior Network Architect at ocp tech
Cisco provides better support than anyone else.
Sr. Network Engineer at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
Cisco technical support is helpful.
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
If there is no timely response, getting a resolution is more difficult.
Network Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Regarding technical support from SolarWinds, I find it excellent.
Assistant Manager at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
We had contact with SolarWinds regarding the implementation, and they were helpful.
Network Administrator at PT Bni Life Insurance
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Cisco Intersight is praised for its scalability, managing domains and tasks efficiently without maintenance, earning high user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM efficiently scales in large environments, but may require extra polling engines and face complex licensing challenges.
I rate its scalability a ten out of ten due to its capability to manage multiple domains and automate service requests.
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
Cisco Intersight is scalable enough for our needs, allowing management in a multi-environment setup and working remotely while deploying servers.
Student at University of Helsinki
SolarWinds NPM is scalable and effective in handling large network infrastructures.
Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Intersight is stable and secure, though upgrades pose challenges, with users valuing its accessibility and consistent performance.
Sentiment score
7.5
SolarWinds NPM is praised for stability, with resource allocation and documentation adherence mitigating most upgrade-related issues.
Some steps are not included in the official documentation, which can create challenges.
Senior Network Architect at ocp tech
It is always accessible online, secure, and allows access from any location, following strict authentication standards.
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
For stability, I rate SolarWinds NPM as a ten, which is the best.
Assistant Manager at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
The NPM product is stable, particularly when used for simple network monitoring.
Network Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Intersight struggles with integration issues, needing improvements in cloud management, automation, and third-party tool compatibility.
SolarWinds NPM requires enhancements in analytics, scalability, UI, security, integration, customization, monitoring, automation, stability, and cost-effectiveness.
There is a significant issue regarding migration from UCS Manager into Intersight without formatting the Fabric Interconnects (FI), which is problematic in a production environment.
System Presale at Bezeq
It would be great to have a chat session mode AI so that when I am on standby and encountering issues, I could engage with it, much like ChatGPT.
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
When registering our devices and servers using tokens, auto-detection could make it easier by automatically identifying resources and adding them to the platform.
Student at University of Helsinki
SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features.
Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited
Customers have given feedback about the delayed response times from the technical team.
Network Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
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.
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Intersight is competitively priced with flexible licensing, although some find initial costs high compared to AWS and Azure.
SolarWinds NPM offers a flexible licensing model with competitive pricing, though costs may rise for extensive setups.
The pricing is fair and reasonable, particularly for enterprises.
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
Cisco Intersight's license cost is very high compared to AWS and Azure solutions, which have lower initiation costs.
Student at University of Helsinki
The pricing mechanism sounds fair.
System Presale at Bezeq
The solution is considered expensive.
Network Administrator at PT Bni Life Insurance
Pricing-wise, SolarWinds NPM is more expensive than PRTG.
Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited
It is not too pricey and is adequate.
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Intersight offers integration, centralized management, automation, and analytics, enhancing data center operations, scalability, and decision-making efficiency.
SolarWinds NPM provides intuitive network monitoring with advanced customization, scalability, and proactive alerts, suiting diverse business needs.
This solution has provided time savings and required fewer people to operate this tool, rather than direct cost savings.
Sr. Network Engineer at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
It provides visibility into other products and storage, and is beneficial for environments where Cisco and other vendors coexist, allowing full visibility of the entire infrastructure.
System Presale at Bezeq
It also provides predictive analysis, predicting data leaks and making it easy to scale up servers remotely without requiring physical interference.
Student at University of Helsinki
Whenever any node is down in our network, whether it is a server or any network device, we receive information through email that the device is down.
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The ability to customize the dashboard in SolarWinds NPM provides key benefits like saving time and money, and streamlining some processes.
Assistant Manager at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable feature for us is the database performance analyzer, which we use a lot.
Network Administrator at PT Bni Life Insurance
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Intersight
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (15th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (2nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco Intersight is 1.4%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.5%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.5%
Cisco Intersight1.4%
Other95.1%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

HH
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
Automation and seamless incident handling transform operational efficiency
I would like AI to be more integrated into Cisco Intersight. It would be great to have a chat session mode AI so that when I am on standby and encountering issues, I could engage with it, much like ChatGPT. For instance, if I need to find commands for UCS Manager, it should provide that information.
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.
report
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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
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cisco Intersight?
The firmware management in the S-Series is not as Cisco described when we purchased it. You should be able to manage firmware without bringing the host down, but that is not the case. Unfortunately...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Intersight?
We are a cloud provider serving customers with IaaS.
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Intersight?
I have experience with B-Series, C-Series, and S-Series equipment. I would recommend the S-Series but not the C-Series. I would rate this solution an eight overall.
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

Intersight
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

EXMAR, RapidScale
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Intersight vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
904,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.