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Dynatrace vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.0
Dynatrace enhances efficiency and stability, offering time and cost savings, ultimately delivering significant ROI despite its high cost.
Sentiment score
7.0
SolarWinds NPM enhances network management and cost efficiency, providing superior monitoring, fast issue resolution, and significant ROI.
Using Dynatrace directly improved application uptime and reduced customer impacting incidents.
senior DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
ROI is hard to specify; however, incidents like impending ransomware attacks highlight its value, though those are exceptional events.
Enterprise Architect at DXC Technology
Save money by identifying problems, thereby reducing monetary losses on their application side.
Technical Manager, Consulting at PT. Mitra Integrasi Informatika
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
7.1
Dynatrace's customer service is friendly and responsive, though some highlight inconsistent service levels and suggest faster response times.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM support is knowledgeable and helpful but faces criticism for slow responses and aggressive sales tactics.
They have a good reputation, and the support is commendable.
Enterprise Architect at DXC Technology
The technical support from Dynatrace is excellent.
System Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Whenever we faced any issues, we could get timely resolution from their support.
senior DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
If there is no timely response, getting a resolution is more difficult.
Network Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
We had contact with SolarWinds regarding the implementation, and they were helpful.
Network Administrator at PT Bni Life Insurance
They have good technical support.
Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Dynatrace is praised for scalability, efficiently managing large data volumes, though some note increased costs as scale grows.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM offers scalable solutions for various environments, with possible increased costs and challenges on virtual platforms.
If it's an enterprise, increasing the number of instances doesn’t pose problems.
Enterprise Architect at DXC Technology
It is a powerful tool and helped us to reduce customer downtime and increase work efficiency.
senior DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
The scalability of Dynatrace is very significant, especially considering the current improvements in their features.
Technical Manager, Consulting at PT. Mitra Integrasi Informatika
SolarWinds NPM is scalable and effective in handling large network infrastructures.
Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Dynatrace is highly stable and reliable, with resolved early issues and praised for consistent uptime and robust performance.
Sentiment score
7.5
SolarWinds NPM is stable, with issues arising during upgrades; regular updates and support enhance its performance.
Generally, all are stable at ninety-nine point nine nine percent, but if the underlying infrastructure is not deployed correctly, stability may be problematic.
Enterprise Architect at DXC Technology
There have been no stability issues with Dynatrace.
System Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Dynatrace is a SaaS product with frequent agent management updates.
Principal Consultant at a tech consulting company with 11-50 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

Users desire intuitive interfaces, cost-effective licensing, seamless integration, and improved AI insights, support, and cloud interoperability in Dynatrace.
SolarWinds NPM users seek improvements in network discovery, interface, integration, resource usage, cloud support, security, and pricing adjustments.
The definition of enterprise is loosely used, however, from a holistic security perspective, including infrastructure, network, ports, software, applications, transactions, and databases, there are areas lacking, especially in network monitoring tools.
Enterprise Architect at DXC Technology
I'm specifically looking at AIOps and how we can monitor AIOps-related things, considering we have LLMs and all that stuff.
Performance Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
They have been the pioneers from inception, and they remain at the top of the Gartner chart.
Technical Associate at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
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

Dynatrace's advanced features are valued despite high costs, benefiting from cloud integration and robust monitoring with recommended training and support.
SolarWinds NPM pricing is competitive yet complex, appealing to some while being costly for smaller enterprises or multi-module needs.
Dynatrace is known to be costly, which delayed its integration into our system.
System Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
If setting up in a large scale environment, it is overwhelming because it is expensive.
senior DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
The cost can be controlled from our side, and it is very transparent with Dynatrace regarding DPS and licensing.
Technical Manager, Consulting at PT. Mitra Integrasi Informatika
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

Dynatrace delivers real-time insights, user experience monitoring, and AI-driven solutions for efficient performance tracking and issue resolution.
SolarWinds NPM offers easy deployment, strong monitoring, and seamless integration, enhancing network management with intuitive dashboards and real-time insights.
The integration with Power BI for generating detailed reports is a standout feature.
System Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Dynatrace's AI-driven Davis engine absolutely helps identify performance issues by showing root cause analysis for us up to 200%; whatever is integrated, if it is visible, it can stitch and show.
Technical Associate at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Dynatrace links compute with services and services with code and other components.
Principal Consultant at a tech consulting company with 11-50 employees
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 most valuable feature for us is the database performance analyzer, which we use a lot.
Network Administrator at PT Bni Life Insurance
SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks.
Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited
 

Categories and Ranking

Dynatrace
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
357
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (2nd), Log Management (6th), Mobile APM (2nd), Container Monitoring (1st), AIOps (2nd), AI Observability (3rd)
SolarWinds NPM
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (4th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Dynatrace is designed for Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability and holds a mindshare of 6.6%, down 11.4% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NPM, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 3.4% mindshare, down 4.6% since last year.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dynatrace6.6%
Datadog5.5%
New Relic4.1%
Other83.8%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.4%
Zabbix6.9%
PRTG Network Monitor3.3%
Other86.4%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Q&A Highlights

Michael Bruen - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Commissioner - Network Technologies and Telecommunication Services at City of New York
Feb 11, 2022
 

Featured Reviews

Manish Indupuri - PeerSpot reviewer
senior DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
AI-driven insights have reduced downtime and improved cross-team collaboration
We encountered some challenges while using Dynatrace. Although the initial setup was smooth, fine-tuning alert thresholds and custom metrics took some time. Another challenge was that Dynatrace charges based on host units, so we had to carefully plan our agent deployments. The licensing model is expensive. Additionally, the complexity of setup is an issue. While OneAgent and auto-discover services are powerful, the setup is more complex compared to other tools such as Prometheus and Grafana. These integrations are simple and basic, but Dynatrace setup requires more complexity based on the environment. For new users wanting to use Dynatrace, it is difficult. However, the AI-related solutions and metrics took us to the next level for identifying and fixing things. Dynatrace requires an agent for operation. OneAgent is powerful, but it is also resource-heavy. On lightweight nodes or older systems, the agent can slightly impact performance. If Dynatrace could implement a lightweight agent behavior, we could make things faster. Additionally, if Dynatrace could add a long-term retention policy so that we could store more data and find fine-grained details, that would help us. While Dynatrace managed edition supports on-premises deployment, the SaaS version depends on cloud connectivity. For highly regulated or air-gapped environments, setup and updates can be challenging. Although the initial setup is smooth, if someone wants to fine-tune it and fully understand the tool end-to-end, it could be tricky.
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…
 

Answers from the Community

Michael Bruen - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Commissioner - Network Technologies and Telecommunication Services at City of New York
Feb 11, 2022
Feb 11, 2022
Dynatrace is the leader in the APM market with reason, it is well worth giving it a decent evaluation for full end-to-end monitoring of infrastructure and code.
See 2 answers
Shibu Babuchandran - PeerSpot reviewer
Regional Manager/ Service Delivery Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Jan 27, 2022
Hi @Michael Bruen ​, Probably, the below data has already been published on PeerSpot and can help you identify the difference. Hope this helps. Please kindly share your views. https://www.peerspot.com/produ...
DF
Application Performance Analyst. at Nintex
Feb 11, 2022
Dynatrace is the leader in the APM market with reason, it is well worth giving it a decent evaluation for full end-to-end monitoring of infrastructure and code.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business78
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise297
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
 

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?
The key is to have a holistic view over the complete infrastructure, the ones you have listed are great for APM if you need to monitor applications end to end. I have tested them all and have not f...
What cloud monitoring software did you choose and why?
While the environment does matter in the selection of an APM tool, I prefer to use Dynatrace to manage the entire stack. Both production and Dev/Test. I find it to be quite superior to anything els...
Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Audi, Best Buy, LinkedIn, CISCO, Intuit, KRONOS, Scottrade, Wells Fargo, ULTA Beauty, Lenovo, Swarovsk, Nike, Whirlpool, American Express
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability. Updated: January 2026.
879,853 professionals have used our research since 2012.