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Flowmon 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

Flowmon
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Network Detection and Response (NDR) (13th)
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 (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Flowmon and SolarWinds NPM aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Flowmon is designed for Network Detection and Response (NDR) and holds a mindshare of 2.2%, up 1.9% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NPM, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 3.6% mindshare, down 4.6% since last year.
Network Detection and Response (NDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Flowmon2.2%
Darktrace15.6%
Vectra AI12.2%
Other70.0%
Network Detection and Response (NDR)
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
Zabbix4.3%
PRTG Network Monitor3.1%
Other89.0%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Pifu Lin - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer at DYNASAFE TECHNOLOGIES PTE. LTD.
Quick identification of network issues enhances performance monitoring
We will try to Proof of Concept (POC) to a client in Taiwan. We just use the features for the Network Performance Monitor (NPM) Flowmon is more easy to understand and helps find network issues more quickly. We need this solution to monitor the network performance. We started using it three…
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 solution is stable."
"The artificial intelligence and automatic detection system in Flowmon Solution are perfect for every type of customer, such as government and commerce."
"The solution is both stable and scalable and we are happy with the product."
"The artificial intelligence and automatic detection system in Flowmon Solution are perfect for every, type of customer, such as government and commerce."
"Flowmon is more easy to understand and helps find network issues more quickly."
"Flowmon is more easy to understand and helps find network issues more quickly."
"It is an open platform, so in terms of integration, we are quite happy. We can integrate it with other SNMP solutions. We can also integrate it with security solutions, such as a SIEM solution."
"If people or users are complaining that the network is slow, Flowmon can easily detect the cause of the network problem."
"I found a lot of valuable features in SolarWinds NPM, such as the customized application monitoring that allows you to customize any monitoring and script customization, and you also have the option to deploy and upgrade SolarWinds NPM online, which is very useful for my organization."
"In general, I think SolarWinds is one of the most stable solutions and it has a lot of useful features for network performance monitoring."
"The product covers our needs for the basic care and feeding of servers, whether they are physical or virtual."
"We are now able to respond to problems before the customer is even aware of them."
"This solution provides one standardized platform for network device monitoring."
"Performance history is the most valuable feature, especially when tracking down a problem."
"SolarWinds' network and server application monitoring features are strong."
"We use NPM to monitor our enterprise for up/down status on network devices."
 

Cons

"If there was better visualization in Flowmon Solution it would be good."
"The price of the license could be lower."
"The licensing price could be better."
"It would be helpful to have more details about the monitoring of the infrastructure. It should have support for SNMP. This is something that is currently not there in the product."
"It would be helpful to have more details about the monitoring of the infrastructure. It should have support for SNMP."
"If there was better visualization in Flowmon Solution it would be good."
"I do not know the detailed pricing."
"Failover functionality does not exist without the purchase of the "Fail Over Engine (FoE)" license."
"The stability when multiple modules are added could be addressed. We have the need to restart the monitoring solution on a weekly basis as we've combined NPM with a variety of other SolarWinds utilities."
"Currently lacks integration with SMS services."
"The SolarWinds notification and alerting configuration could be simplified as it would be easier to find if it was within the NPM web application instead of in a separate client application."
"The user interface is not intuitive enough and needs improvements in certain parts."
"The user should be able to customize the dashboard to their own requirements."
"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."
"We also had to be attentive to vulnerabilities, because SolarWinds NPM have some issues in that area. We had to work with our security team, so that they could help us check and backup the data, and check what they needed to secure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution could be better."
"The licensing fee accrues only once, but that of support is annual."
"It works with a permanent license, and then you can pay for the support. For the gold support, you need to pay yearly."
"It is too expensive."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"We pay approximately $4,000 annually for SolarWinds NPM. There are no additional fees required other than the standard fees."
"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."
"We pay for SolarWinds NPM yearly. We buy it and then we renew it, but it's not subscription-based. I don't remember the value exactly, because it's my manager who manages pricing, but we pay $60,000 per year for all the solutions. Pricing will also depend on the number of devices. We have a lot of devices."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
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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
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Flowmon Anomaly Detection System?
I don't understand the price. I am in deployment, so I do not know the detailed pricing.
What is your primary use case for Flowmon Anomaly Detection System?
We will try to Proof of Concept (POC) to a client in Taiwan. We just use the features for the Network Performance Monitor (NPM).
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

Flowmon Anomaly Detection System
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SEGA
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Flowmon vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
886,719 professionals have used our research since 2012.