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ExtraHop Reveal(x) for IT Operations 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

ExtraHop Reveal(x) for IT O...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
73rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Network Diagnostics (11th), IT Operations Analytics (14th), Network Packet Capture (6th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of ExtraHop Reveal(x) for IT Operations is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, 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 NPM3.6%
ExtraHop Reveal(x) for IT Operations0.6%
Other95.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Out West - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager and IT Management Consultant at a integrator with 1,001-5,000 employees
Great for identifying application interdependencies with helpful support but needs better visualizations
We're just trying to identify the application interdependencies, which normally reside on different servers, including web servers, database servers, enterprise service bus, et cetera, up to your presentation layer before we start moving stuff around. Normally, the reason why we use these tools is to understand what assets we have, where they're deployed, and how they enter and operate before we decide to go move something from point A to point B. The solution is going to allow me to establish a wave or migration plan where you have different waves of migration and then you actually have move groups to try and get your application moved from A to B seamlessly. A to B could be on-premise to on-premise. It could be on-premise to cloud. Et cetera. The solution can tell me what components can I deploy, for example, into a cloud space, without having to refactor my applications since that can be quite time-consuming and costly.
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 cannot hide from the wire; all truth lives in the packets, and ExtraHop gets them to talk!"
"This is a must-try product."
"Wire data analytics."
"There are many valuable features in this product, but probably the biggest is the customization capability it has."
"We have been able to improve the mean time to resolution by several hours in some cases."
"This solution is more applications reference architecture focused. Its benefit is that it specializes in that space."
"The most valuable feature is the way it handles data, from Layer 2 up to Layer 7. We can see everything that happens in the network."
"The most valuable features are security detections, perimeter detection, dashboards, and alerts."
"Its GUI is very user-friendly."
"This is a product that I recommend, although it requires technical skills in order to use it."
"The nice thing about SolarWinds is that it's kind of all-in-one; I can manage the status of my networking devices, whether they are up or down, I can see how much traffic is going across an interface, and I can run a report that tells me exactly what that traffic is."
"For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices."
"SolarWinds provides a good enterprise level of tools and covers the essential components."
"SolarWinds' network and server application monitoring features are strong."
"We can sometimes fix a problem before it is even recognized by our user community based on the thresholds we set up for various resources on a production server."
"The SolarWinds NPM framework, upon which most of their flagship products are built, empowers a wide variety of admins and users to quickly find value in their installed products."
 

Cons

"I would improve the Rule-Based Access Control (RBAC) by providing granular access control to the data."
"We've had some struggles getting it to see everything that we want to see. Network visibility is something that needs to be improved."
"I would improve the Rule-Based Access Control (RBAC) by providing granular access control to the data."
"Network visibility is something that needs to be improved."
"The improvement that would make the most impact would be expanding on the new EXA big data back end."
"Additional out-of-the-box solutions and use cases would be nice."
"This solution would be improved if it had the ability to retain data longer."
"The improvement that would make the most impact would be expanding on the new EXA big data back end."
"New, web-based interface lacks some features of traditional GUI."
"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."
"The aesthetic widgets should be dynamic widgets, so the customization can be even more customizable."
"However, the sales team at SolarWinds is extremely aggressive and I would give it probably a 1/10."
"This solution would benefit from expanding on the capabilities within the API."
"They should increase its accuracy rate as SolarWinds's monitoring accuracy is not good if you compare it with other tools, like NNM/ScienceLogic/Zenoss."
"User Interface needs improvement as it is not very attractive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is fair considering the value provided."
"The price of this solution for our environment is about £650,000 ($855,000 USD) for three years."
"The pricing is higher than other solutions, but with such good features, I think it's worth it."
"I believe the original setup cost was around $3500 with an annual cost of around $1200-$1500 to renew the support license. This would bring the average day-to-day cost of around $5-$6 over three years."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"The solution can become very expensive and commercially not viable in countries, such as India."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
"The pricing needs to be improved. It is too high. One full engine costs around $10 000, which is why we don't have high availability right now."
"When I compare the cost of CA Spectrum to that of SolarWinds NPM, the cost of CA Spectrum is way too high, and the cost of SolarWinds NPM is pretty low."
"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
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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
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
11%
Educational Organization
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Alaska Airlines, bet365, Concur, McKesson, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Practice Fusion, Seattle Children's Hospital, Steward Health Care System
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about ExtraHop Reveal(x) for IT Operations vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,286 professionals have used our research since 2012.