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FortiMonitor vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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

FortiMonitor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
21st
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
22nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
IT Alerting and Incident Management (9th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (7th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of FortiMonitor is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.4%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM4.4%
FortiMonitor0.8%
Other94.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

JaimeVasquez - PeerSpot reviewer
Monitoring capabilities keep operations running smoothly and alerts enhance proactive system management
We use FortiMonitor to monitor the infrastructure of our customers. We check on what is happening with their operations, monitor bandwidth, ensure configurations are appropriate for the customer, and identify if anything is going wrong The most valuable features of FortiMonitor are its redundancy…
Tochukwu Uzomba - PeerSpot reviewer
Rich modular monitoring capabilities offer tailored monitoring needs with good support
SolarWinds NPM is used for monitoring different solutions like database, infrastructure, and network performance. Each of these requires separate solutions, and SolarWinds provides modular options for monitoring Based on my experiences, SolarWinds NPM can handle large network infrastructures…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is what the devices are used for. We have big backups for our Cradlepoint solutions, but FortiMonitor is a great routing device and we love working with them."
"FortiMonitor is 100% stable."
"FortiMonitor has a very intuitive dashboard, which makes it particularly helpful for analyzing traffic, alerts, and other information."
"Fortinet's customer support is very good."
"Overall, I would recommend FortiMonitor to others."
"FortiMonitor offers comprehensive monitoring capabilities, allowing me to track network traffic in and out effectively."
"FortiMonitor is really easy to use for monitoring the logs on FortiGate...It is a stable product."
"It provides the best firewall features."
"Being able to easily, and quickly obtain disc space statistics from servers and determine how much was free or used on various volumes."
"Everything has been complete and stable for our needs over the past four years."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds NPM is the performance monitoring to see the memory, and CPU utilization."
"It combines and presents information from many different sources, giving a corporate-wide vision on a single pane of glass."
"We have configured multiple alerts for our network devices, including routers and switches, so that we are notified if any interface goes down."
"SolarWinds NPM has a colorful UI and many easy-to-use features. It does not need to be configured as much and is also easy to install."
"The most important feature is reporting. The reports that are generated are useful and they save a lot of time with respect to monitoring."
"The most valuable feature is the graphical user interface."
 

Cons

"I think the current features are really good for me, nothing else comes to mind right now. Maybe some small improvements could be made in the customization and configuration part of the UI to make it easier or more intuitive. Customizable UI options, like we saw in the demo, could be helpful for everyone. But in our operational environment, having clear health status and system details is crucial for us system engineers. One feature I'd really like to see is a credential management system. It would help us keep track of who's logged in and how many times, which is important due to user restrictions. Sometimes, we need to manage logins more efficiently, like logging off other users to free up credentials. So having a feature like that would be really helpful."
". Enhancements in the dashboard, such as clearer alerting, maintenance window management, software version tracking, and better visualization, would be beneficial."
"FortiMonitor's monitoring could be much better. It should be like, in Palo Alto."
"FortiMonitor could improve by having compatibility with other operating systems, such as Linux."
"Sometimes, we get corruption when upgrading from firmware to the new generation, causing a lot of issues."
"We use FortiToken, and it's a pain to use because you have to send things through your phone and then confirm by email. Only after this can you log in. It's dual-factor authentication. I wish that I could just log in or bring up a dashboard where I could log in from."
"There is room for improvement in the FortiMonitor report. It is not ideal for showcasing to tech customers or managers, especially when trying to display high CPU usage from logins within a specific range of months or the most recent month."
"FortiMonitor could be improved by making it more convenient for smaller workloads, such as when configuring a few branches."
"I would like to see some enhancement on the reporting side, such as making it a little bit easier to create reports or having a larger assortment of canned reports."
"The reporting module that got integrated into the system itself, used to be a standalone solution and I preferred that."
"The market is changing, and people are expecting automation. I think that's a disadvantage."
"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."
"We decided that we were no longer going to trust that their products have not been capitalized."
"One of the challenges with SolarWinds is that in order to pull the data, we have to have a lot of false positives."
"It would be nice if SolarWinds added some technical protocols like Modbus. The market needs a simple solution for monitoring a technical device."
"Robustness of network element mapping tool could be better"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing model in Vietnam is a bit high. I rate the product price as an eight out of ten."
"The price of FortiMonitor is approximately $200 annually for 225 users. The price is competitive."
"In terms of licensing, while it may not be the most expensive option on the market, it's relatively cost-effective. You can obtain licenses at a lower cost, with the calculation being straightforward. For example, if you onboard around 5,000 devices, you'll need approximately 5,000 licenses, as each device typically counts as one license."
"Compared to other solutions, FortiMonitor is a very expensive solution."
"On a scale from one to ten, I rate the pricing a nine since it is a good solution that is available at a cheap price."
"There are additional costs needed for certain functionality, such as scalability."
"We have a large customer base for Fortinet, and the additional buying power got us really great discounts."
"FortiMonitor's price is very high."
"You have to license it per year, for the support. You don't really need to have support once you've already set it up. Once you install SolarWinds, you can skip on the licensing. It will still work."
"We have a perpetual license for this solution, and my impression is that this solution is cheap."
"The NPM component of the system costs approximately $1,000 USD per year."
"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."
"The licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes."
"There can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on."
"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."
"Though I don't remember the price for SolarWinds NPM, its price is somewhat okay when you compare it with other tools in the market. The price isn't too high and isn't too low, so it's okay."
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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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
26%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise84
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have a clear bias because I work for Panopta. We aren't a fit for everyone, but I can confirm that Panopta is a lot less work to stand up and maintain. It's also a lot easier to use and onboard n...
What do you like most about FortiMonitor?
In FortiMonitor, we're linked up with our Netgear, CactusServer, and NOC. It's really valuable because everything's migrating to one dashboard for us system engineers. We can keep an eye on traffic...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiMonitor?
FortiMonitor does save time but not significantly on costs, as there are still expenses related to procurement, installation, and licensing.
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

Panopta
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SONY, GoDaddy, HCL, ING, ARMOR, billboard
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about FortiMonitor vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.