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DX Performance Management vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

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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
38th
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
161
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (8th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of DX Performance Management is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
DX Performance Management0.8%
Other95.6%
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

"Spectrum is very good at monitoring all network faults and configurations."
"Scalability is the reason we bought the product to begin with; it was designed from the ground up for carrier-grade services, and we are in effect an MSP ourselves, so we were really interested in looking at something to be able to handle the multi-tenancy and scale as large as possible, and this was the only solution that we really considered at that level."
"​When devices are having performance issues, it proactively build dashboards which allow us to go and do health checks, and resolve problems before they become an issue.​"
"One of the most valuable features is the ease of use."
"The biggest selling point is putting the power of creating dashboards and reports into end users' hands."
"It makes things faster when we have our network operations center, they can look at their dashboards that we've created for them, and they can see problems immediately."
"It has improved efficiency because now there is the one-stop shop where you can view all your data, instead of needing to click around in four different tools."
"Great dashboards and good integration with other solutions."
"I can do everything remotely, including running PowerShell scripts or performing standard updates."
"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 valuable feature of this solution is the alerts."
"The advanced alerting system in SolarWinds NPM helps us for network analysis, even CPU and memory analysis."
"Outages have reduced by probably around 90% because we're able to take and proactively add space to a disk or add processors to a server before users know there's a problem."
"Provides instant visibility to our support team across all the networks we monitor, allowing us to zero in on the most urgent issues and easily identify root causes of problems."
"If your infrastructure is big, and requires a good kind of reporting tool, then SolarWinds fulfills all these requirements."
"SolarWinds provides a good enterprise level of tools and covers the essential components."
 

Cons

"DX Performance Management should increase high availability. If one of my two data centers goes offline and the other is operational, I need a seamless transition from the primary to the secondary data center. It's crucial to maintain consistent monitoring of the devices during this transition. Therefore, I require continuous, 24/7 monitoring of my system using this tool."
"For CA PM, there should be a way of easily migrating the reports coming from eHealth going to CA Performance Center, since CA PC is replacing eHealth."
"​Global synchronization errors. Sometimes it just doesn't finish in time due to the load."
"I would like to have more tasks, graphs, and possibilities for linking to the graphs and reports added to the solution."
"It seems like we escalate more than I would like to. If anything, they should look at how the tier support goes in place."
"It needs role-based administration."
"It could be a little easier to integrate new metrics."
"Since we are out of registered IP space, we are moving to ipv6 and we expect our vendors to move with us, and they have not delivered yet."
"In terms of scalability, there is room for improvement. When you start monitoring, if you have so many interfaces and you're trying to monitor them at a faster interval, or a shorter interval, you get to a point where you need to request another node."
"I would like to see integration with antivirus or other security endpoint solutions."
"Being able to detect devices that are trying to connect wirelessly would make using this solution much easier."
"This is a complex product to set up and I think it's really too detailed and could be simplified."
"There are issues with newer features so it can take a long time to adjust. The solution is in bad shape because of software hacks."
"I would like to have a Syslog server module for this product. That would make the solution better."
"For example, there have not been many updates to cloud monitoring, containerization or serverless environments."
"A need for improvement is in the technical support provided by SolarWinds. Customers have given feedback about the delayed response times from the technical team, especially during application-level issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I like the licensing model because it's device-based."
"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. ​"
"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."
"They should provide more scalable licensing for the product."
"The tool's pricing is based on the number of network devices."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
"SolarWinds is expensive. That's why it's primarily banks using the solution. Small businesses can't afford it. Due to its pricing, most smaller enterprises like manufacturing companies are not interested. For example, we have a client who is also interested in traffic monitoring, but they are not purchasing SolarWinds because of the cost."
"The NPM component of the system costs approximately $1,000 USD per year."
"It is not an expensive product."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
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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
Outsourcing Company
23%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

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 im...
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: November 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.