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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
43rd
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
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 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 3.6%, down from 4.5% 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 Management0.6%
Other95.8%
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

"The feature that is inherent to its core, of being able to graphically represent a trend and status, is nice."
"Downloads and records are the most valuable features."
"Since the implementation of the tool, it has cut down on probably 60% of our outages and letting us know what is going on."
"There is another component of the tool called Network Flow Analysis. It gives us the ability to troubleshoot issues which do not appear right away."
"Customer service is top-notch."
"It's a solution which is highly recommended."
"You can have thousands of devices inside and hundreds of thousands of interphases without a problem."
"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 is considerably cheaper compared to other tools and available technologies in terms of LMS or EMS."
"The most important feature is reporting. The reports that are generated are useful and they save a lot of time with respect to monitoring."
"Over the last couple of years, they have introduced features like NetPath and PerfStack, which are very helpful for any of the admins to troubleshoot issues and know precisely what is going on in nodes."
"As we look to add more servers to our virtual environment and to understand the impact, the solution allows us to dig into the historical charts related to capacity planning."
"SolarWinds is a great solution, and I think that for anybody looking for a nice infrastructure monitoring tool, this solution will do the job."
"We are now able to respond to problems before the customer is even aware of them."
"The most valuable feature is the way it monitors the environment, and how user-friendly the console is for the end-user. The interface is also very easy and it captures all the information very well."
"The most valuable feature is the graphical user interface."
 

Cons

"This solution is not very scalable."
"I would say the initial setup is complex."
"There are some issues. We started supporting UTA and began to see both major and minor problems."
"When it goes through discovery, or whatever it is doing in the back-end that slows it down, sometimes we get some failures with it. ​"
"It could be a little easier to integrate new metrics."
"The certificates are not complete. CA needs to provide more support for the product through certificates."
"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."
"This solution's implementation process could be quicker. They could also optimize the hardware requirements."
"Back in the early days and new major releases, of course, there were some hiccups and gotchas."
"It is not that stable. As a Windows software, I have seen issues with SolarWinds, and sometimes the performance is slow."
"SolarWinds NPM needs to increase its elements. One polling engine can only support 10,000 elements then it becomes slow. There are limitations even if you have the full SLX version license."
"The reporting module that got integrated into the system itself, used to be a standalone solution and I preferred that."
"SolarWinds could offer more support and insights for a broader range of devices. Currently, it focuses on routers, switches, and some load balancers. However, it lacks an out-of-the-box dashboard for monitoring firewalls and some other modern network security devices. We have to customize it a lot."
"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."
"SolarWinds is not an all-in-compassing product. We are looking to change away from this solution because of the documentation and the solution doesn't have enough integration in our country."
"Two or three of the core functions are still nested in Win32 apps on the server; but it seems that the foundation was laid in the current website for porting those functions over in the near future."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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. ​"
"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."
"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."
"The tool's pricing is based on the number of network devices."
"They should provide more scalable licensing for the product."
"Price could be improved on"
"It's expensive and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing."
"The solution can become very expensive and commercially not viable in countries, such as India."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"It is too expensive."
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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
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Government
7%
 

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: June 2026.
902,495 professionals have used our research since 2012.