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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
6.8
Dynatrace boosts efficiency and cuts costs through automation, tool consolidation, enhanced monitoring, and improved application performance and stability.
Sentiment score
7.2
SolarWinds NPM enhances infrastructure visibility, delivering cost reductions, faster issue resolution, and significant ROI through optimized resource management.
ROI is hard to specify; however, incidents like impending ransomware attacks highlight its value, though those are exceptional events.
The return on investment is significant as the solution effectively reduces costs while being worth its expense.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Dynatrace's support is friendly, knowledgeable, and responsive, though complex issues sometimes face extended resolution times.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM support gets mixed reviews, praised for expertise yet noted for delays and aggressive sales tactics.
Their support is very fast and effective.
They have a good reputation, and the support is commendable.
Dynatrace's customer service and technical support for this product is good.
If there is no timely response, getting a resolution is more difficult.
We had contact with SolarWinds regarding the implementation, and they were helpful.
They have good technical support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Dynatrace is highly scalable, handling large-scale environments efficiently with minimal overhead, though scaling costs can be a concern.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM is scalable, adapts well to infrastructures, but may face performance and cost issues on virtual platforms.
If it's an enterprise, increasing the number of instances doesn’t pose problems.
SolarWinds NPM is scalable and effective in handling large network infrastructures.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Dynatrace is highly stable, with users praising its reliability, quick support for issues, and proactive development efforts.
Sentiment score
7.5
SolarWinds NPM is stable with issues from server limits and bugs, resolved through updates and proper configuration.
Generally, all are stable at ninety-nine point nine nine percent, but if the underlying infrastructure is not deployed correctly, stability may be problematic.
There have been no stability issues with Dynatrace.
The NPM product is stable, particularly when used for simple network monitoring.
 

Room For Improvement

Dynatrace users seek improved .NET support, customization, performance, security, integrations, support, pricing clarity, and interface simplification.
SolarWinds NPM users report issues with network discovery, UI features, costs, automation, support, and security improvements are needed.
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.
They have been the pioneers from inception, and they remain at the top of the Gartner chart.
I'm specifically looking at AIOps and how we can monitor AIOps-related things, considering we have LLMs and all that stuff.
Customers have given feedback about the delayed response times from the technical team.
SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features.
Features such as taking backup of the devices or configurations of the devices can be included in further versions of SolarWinds NPM.
 

Setup Cost

Dynatrace offers advanced monitoring but can be costly due to a complex pricing model and potential scaling expenses.
SolarWinds NPM pricing varies by setup size, with initial costs, tiered licensing, and maintenance fees influencing total expenses.
Dynatrace is known to be costly, which delayed its integration into our system.
If I would ask you to rate price from 1 to 10, where 1 is cheap and 10 is expensive, how many points would you give to it?
PRTG's package offers all features in one bundle, which is cost-effective.
The solution is considered expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Dynatrace excels in transaction tracing, AI analysis, and comprehensive visibility, enhancing operational efficiency with real-time insights and easy deployment.
SolarWinds NPM offers ease of deployment, real-time monitoring, customizable alerts, and user-friendly design for efficient network management.
The integration with Power BI for generating detailed reports is a standout feature.
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.
I find the classic service analysis, service analysis, distribution tracing, and the technology stack that it shows most valuable about Dynatrace, along with the Scape View.
It provides a detailed overview of the network, which is valuable.
SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks.
The most valuable feature for us is the database performance analyzer, which we use a lot.
 

Categories and Ranking

Dynatrace
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
350
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (2nd), Log Management (5th), Mobile APM (2nd), Container Monitoring (2nd), AIOps (2nd)
SolarWinds NPM
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), 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 8.8%, down 12.2% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NPM, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 4.5% mindshare, down 5.3% since last year.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dynatrace8.8%
Datadog7.2%
Sentry5.8%
Other78.2%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM4.5%
Zabbix11.7%
LibreNMS4.6%
Other79.2%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Q&A Highlights

Michael Bruen - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 11, 2022
 

Featured Reviews

Anand_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides a comprehensive view by integrating with other monitoring systems
There may be an issue since there are many tools like Splunk involved in network monitoring. From an IP perspective, Dynatrace is performing well. If they want to develop in network monitoring, they can, as it's part of their product line. It's not rocketry, so they can accomplish it. If I, as an SI, look at it from an enterprise perspective, considering the cost from the client, I prefer not to go with multiple systems, as they don't provide a complete 360-degree view. They need to improve on claims about being an enterprise system. 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.
Masud Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers alerting service to trigger alerts and easy to manage
For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices and device/interface monitoring. We have also used NCM (Network Configuration Manager) for our network. We use the alerting service to trigger alerts based on specific thresholds, like CPU or memory utilization exceeding a certain percentage. There are AI network initiatives in SolarWinds NPM for some lengthy issues. For example, it shows availability reports. But for bandwidth monitoring, it's not very clear how much bandwidth is being consumed. SolarWinds provide real-time bandwidth monitoring. It is not difficult to manage the network with SolarWinds. We have one customer with a satellite location. If we have a large network with, let's say, 43,000 elements, and our current SolarWinds license supports only 30,000, we would need to create another polling engine to accommodate the additional 13,000 elements. It's limited to the polling engine, so we can only support 30,000 elements per engine. So it's only for 30,000, but we have at least 40,000 elements in our network.
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
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
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
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
24%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business76
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise288
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise84
 

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
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