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Flowmon vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

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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) (15th)
SolarWinds NPM
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), 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 2.0%, up 1.8% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NPM, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 3.7% mindshare, down 4.4% since last year.
Network Detection and Response (NDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Flowmon2.0%
Darktrace13.2%
Vectra AI9.1%
Other75.7%
Network Detection and Response (NDR)
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.7%
Zabbix3.7%
NETSCOUT nGeniusONE2.9%
Other89.7%
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 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."
"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."
"Flowmon is more easy to understand and helps find network issues more quickly."
"The solution is stable."
"If people or users are complaining that the network is slow, Flowmon can easily detect the cause of the network problem."
"Technicians are aware of issues and 90% of the time exactly what caused the issue."
"A product that is well-tested and trusted in demanding situations."
"SolarWinds Orion NPM tracks bottlenecks in your network infrastructure and lets you troubleshoot them before a disaster happens."
"You can monitor performance counters effortlessly."
"With just three modules, I can monitor server performance (whether it’s a VM, in the cloud, or an on-premises server."
"SolarWinds NPM provides an overview of network monitoring, extending its capabilities to cover other aspects, such as virtual machines and servers. The platform has features like NetPath, which is particularly beneficial for end-users, offering insights into issues like latency, packet loss, and connectivity problems with routers, switches, or servers."
"The alerting and usage tracking notifications on disk space capacity, network and processor utilization."
"SolarWinds is one of those tools that work across the spectrum with different products, such as Cisco HP, and it is very customizable."
 

Cons

"The price of the license could be lower."
"If there was better visualization in Flowmon Solution it would be good."
"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."
"I do not know the detailed pricing."
"IPAM. We wish it would work with Cisco CNR and help us manage all of our DHCP servers from a centralized platform."
"The only other issue I have is that sometimes when upgrading, it becomes complicated to manage the upgrade."
"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."
"Back in the early days and new major releases, of course, there were some hiccups and gotchas."
"The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market."
"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."
"One of the challenges with SolarWinds is that in order to pull the data, we have to have a lot of false positives."
"They don't have a local support team."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution could be better."
"It works with a permanent license, and then you can pay for the support. For the gold support, you need to pay yearly."
"The licensing fee accrues only once, but that of support is annual."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"Licenses depend on the number of devices, but all license levels come with technical support."
"It is expensive."
"We pay approximately $4,000 annually for SolarWinds NPM. There are no additional fees required other than the standard fees."
"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."
"SolarWinds is expensive. That's why it's primarily banks using the solution. Small businesses can't afford it. Due to its pricing, most smaller enterprises like manufacturing companies are not interested. For example, we have a client who is also interested in traffic monitoring, but they are not purchasing SolarWinds because of the cost."
"The pricing is in the middle. It's not particularly cost-effective, but it's not overly expensive either."
"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
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

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...
 

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
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