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DX Performance Management vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

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

DX Performance Management
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
41st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure Capacity Planning (1st), DX NetOps (2nd)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of DX Performance Management is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.7%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.7%
DX Performance Management0.6%
Other95.7%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1810893 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Operations Specialist at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Flexibility and detailed performance stats enable effective network monitoring
Spectrum is very good at monitoring all network faults and configurations. It enables me to take action based on network issues. The Performance Management provides detailed network performance stats, including CPU, memory, and interface bandwidth. Additionally, Spectrum is flexible and allows me to organize and treat devices uniquely without impacting other devices.
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

"You can create intelligent alerts so you have enough time to replace the router or interface before it's full. The same is applicable for CBQoS channels.​"
"The reporting feature has allowed us to quickly share information with customers, keeping them up to date on critical devices that are being monitored."
"When we deployed it, right out of the box we were able to stand up Performance Management within two weeks, in our production environment, with full discovery and relevant information, actual information, that we could use in our command center, our 24/7 operations center."
"My sales representative, I would not trade him in for the world. He has done a really good job. I am really happy with him.​"
"​The ability to quickly do drag and drop customized reports for dashboards.​"
"I think the product has matured a lot, and I’m impressed with CA when I hear about new features."
"Great dashboards and good integration with other solutions."
"My advice would be start today. The tool is great and is pretty flexible, also for integration in other tools using OpenAPI."
"Its GUI is very user-friendly."
"This solution has improved our organization because it saves time, in that I do not need to visit every workstation in order to update it, as I can do everything remotely, including running PowerShell scripts or performing standard updates, and I can also help customers remotely."
"The most important feature is reporting. The reports that are generated are useful and they save a lot of time with respect to monitoring."
"It is very extensible with 'SWQL' and APIs to where we are beginning to integrate it with network automation."
"SolarWinds NPM has helped our organization by providing a proactive approach to understanding the current trends in the environment, utilization of the resources, and providing inventory reports of the environment."
"In a few short years, SolarWinds has empowered us to provide robust infrastructure monitoring, including a converged view of our servers, both the physical and virtual servers, and the storage and application environments."
"All the features are very good. The monitoring of the equipment, the configuration manager, and the IP address monitoring are great."
"Performance history is the most valuable feature, especially when tracking down a problem."
 

Cons

"I have mixed feeling about the scalability. I feel like there are things which are being put into UIM right now that are not being included in Performance Center that we need to see in Performance Center."
"There are some areas in the technology right now, like with VMs, where we are lacking with our abilities to get inside the VM to monitor traffic within the machine."
"I would say the initial setup is complex."
"Policies could be improved."
"We would like to be capable of reporting network performance with a report strictly focused on the times outside business hours, which CA PM does not currently support. We have discontinued the use of the Business Hours Filtering until CA engineers are able to resolve or offer guidance."
"I would like to have more tasks, graphs, and possibilities for linking to the graphs and reports added to the solution."
"The dashboard features are very function rich, but the reporting feature is probably not as rich as we'd like it to be."
"This solution is not very scalable."
"SolarWinds NPM could improve the graphics of the interface and more customized reporting."
"There isn't a great deal of flexibility to create custom metrics that can be discovered easily or custom aggregation schemes."
"We also had to be attentive to vulnerabilities, because SolarWinds NPM have some issues in that area."
"There should be a little bit more integration in some of the other tooling and utilizing the APIs of devices or tools could be a little bit better."
"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."
"With regards to suggested areas of improvement for the product, I would like to see the price come down, and in addition I think the network element mapping tool is not as robust as it should be."
"It would be good to have high security."
"I have not had a good experience with technical support because most of the time when I contact them, they first want to know whether you have a license."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Do your homework and know how many devices you will be managing out of the gate. Be sure to project what your growth will be each year."
"We were looking at other vendors in the marketplace for NetFlow, and CA just beat everybody else in price, cost, and the size to implement. ​"
"They should provide more scalable licensing for the product."
"The tool's pricing is based on the number of network devices."
"I like the licensing model because it's device-based."
"We purchase a license to use the solution every three years and we have multiple contracts. They have been increasing the price annually. We have a baseline for three years and then we need to pay the difference from the baseline, and we are in the process of negotiating a new price for all the licenses we need. The price overall is affordable."
"I find that the pricing is acceptable."
"We pay approximately $700 per year for renewal of the license."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
"We pay for SolarWinds NPM yearly. We buy it and then we renew it, but it's not subscription-based. I don't remember the value exactly, because it's my manager who manages pricing, but we pay $60,000 per year for all the solutions. Pricing will also depend on the number of devices. We have a lot of devices."
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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
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise86
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with DX Performance Management?
Spectrum's topology view sometimes does not rebuild automatically when a device is shut down and reconnected. It requires manual discovery and rebuilding of the topology, which I hope can be improved.
What is your primary use case for DX Performance Management?
I have used Spectrum for monitoring all network faults, configurations, and troubleshooting network issues. It provides network performance stats, such as CPU, memory, and interface bandwidth detai...
What advice do you have for others considering DX Performance Management?
I would recommend this solution based on its functionality, flexibility, customizability, and ease of use. Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. I am just a customer and not a par...
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

CA Performance Management
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Jack Henry & Assoc, Target, CenturyLink, Bell Canada, BrightHouse Networks, Telus, Unisys, Verizon, Southern California Edison, GEICO, Fidelity Investments, Wells Fargo, American Family Insurance Group, Deutsche Telekom AG 
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Performance Management vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,915 professionals have used our research since 2012.