Grafana Enterprise Stack vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

Grafana Labs and SolarWinds are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Grafana Labs is ranked #20 with an average rating of 8.6, while SolarWinds is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.3. Grafana Labs holds a 0.8% mindshare in IM, compared to SolarWinds’s 3.5% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Grafana Labs users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Grafana Enterprise Stack

Read 14 Grafana Enterprise Stack reviews

2,681 Views
2,654 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

SolarWinds NPM

Read 161 SolarWinds NPM reviews

23,097 Views
11,779 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Grafana Enterprise Stack

SolarWinds NPM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

SolarWinds NPM and Grafana Enterprise Stack compete in the network monitoring and analytics category. SolarWinds NPM holds the upper hand with its straightforward deployment and integrated features, while Grafana Enterprise Stack stands out with its customization and advanced analytics capabilities.

Features: SolarWinds NPM provides comprehensive network performance monitoring, real-time alerts, and a streamlined setup. Grafana Enterprise Stack offers highly customizable dashboards, robust data source integrations, and advanced analytics capabilities.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds NPM could enhance its customization and offer more advanced analytics features. Additional integrations with various data sources would also be beneficial. In contrast, Grafana Enterprise Stack can improve by simplifying its deployment process, enhancing traditional network performance monitoring features, and providing more direct customer support options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds NPM offers quick, straightforward deployment and robust customer support services, allowing seamless integration into existing infrastructures. Grafana Enterprise Stack, while more complex to deploy, provides extensive setup guides and community support.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds NPM is noted for its reasonable setup costs and effective ROI for standard network monitoring needs. Grafana Enterprise Stack commands a higher price due to its advanced features and customization capabilities; however, it demonstrates strong ROI for businesses needing in-depth analytics and data visualization.

To learn more, read our detailed Grafana Enterprise Stack vs. SolarWinds NPM Report (Updated: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Grafana Enterprise Stack vs. SolarWinds NPM

August 2026

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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

Grafana Enterprise Stack

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

20th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SolarWinds NPM

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

161

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (2nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Grafana Enterprise Stack is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.5%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM	3.5%
Grafana Enterprise Stack	0.8%
Other	95.7%

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Rajan M

Test Lead at Calpine Group

Efficient monitoring and alerting enhance operational insights

With Grafana Enterprise Stack, we can identify issues that New Relic cannot help with. While New Relic requires purchase and supports frontend and backend components, Grafana Enterprise Stack helps identify where issues are occurring. When we need to deep dive into issues, we use New Relic to trace transactions and determine where maximum impact occurs, whether in core size, DB side, or frontend components that slow performance. We first evaluate with Grafana Enterprise Stack, then move to New Relic if we identify performance degradation, such as DB queries taking too much time. Grafana Enterprise Stack responds to queries within 6 to 12 hours. They contact users through email immediately when available. Similarly, New Relic follows the same pattern, responding immediately when requests are raised and resolving issues promptly.

Read full review

Vivek Jaiswal

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.

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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 Grafana Enterprise Stack is the dashboards."

"The ability to graph actual, live, or on-the-fly activity is valuable; it is an added value to work with Grafana Enterprise Stack and to display results or logs, which are huge in nature, in graphical characters."

"The dashboards are pretty good."

"The most valuable features for us are dashboards; we can dashboard anything that we can think of, we can dashboard and measure."

"Compared to other packages, Grafana Enterprise Stack is user-friendly and easy to configure quickly."

"The most valuable features of Grafana for data visualization are its ability to create intuitive dashboards and its wide range of visualization options like graphs, charts, and tables."

"Grafana Enterprise Stack is a powerful open-source platform with robust capabilities in data visualizations, dashboard creations, and alerting."

"Grafana has enough features around dashboard management. It's got enough plugins to create your dashboards."

More Grafana Enterprise Stack pros

"The most valuable features of SolarWinds NPM are network performance monitoring and the overall benefit for servers."

"We can proactively fix historical issues, so we won't face those problems in future."

"The most valuable features of the solution are its graphical interface and reports."

"We are frequently able to attend to issues before our user community and customers are aware that a problem exists."

"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."

"SolarWinds NPM has helped our organization by providing a proactive approach to understanding the current trends in the environment, utilization of the resources, and providing inventory reports of the environment."

"I believe the ease of setup and use, including everything, from the initial installation to the discovery of devices is the most valuable."

"It did a good job of the collection and then an investigation of the net flow of information for understanding the applications that were being used at certain locations."

More SolarWinds NPM pros

Cons

"In terms of what Grafana provides, it just provides the charting tools. Everything else is third-party."

"The connection between metrics, logs, and traces could be improved."

"I have encountered occasional issues with false inputs or incorrect data in Grafana."

"The layout is good, but I think it needs some enhancement based on my experience."

"They could use more small tutorials to explain a bit about how Grafana works."

"I find Grafana really hard to configure. It's difficult to build the dashboard, and it's non-intuitive. In my opinion, it's very difficult to work with Grafana."

"The solution should include integration with Power BI."

"I believe there are some areas for improvement in the product. Something that could be better is the time series functionality."

More Grafana Enterprise Stack cons

"SolarWinds offers some options for scalability, but there is a bottleneck on some features."

"The aesthetic widgets should be dynamic widgets, so the customization can be even more customizable."

"The product is scalable, but at a cost. Extra modules have to be purchased for each extra server. The initial set up isn't complex, but will require someone who is experienced with the network monitoring system"

"The console could be more user-friendly. It would be better if SolarWinds updated the user interface."

"Currently lacks integration with SMS services."

"IPAM. We wish it would work with Cisco CNR and help us manage all of our DHCP servers from a centralized platform."

"My team has had a lot of issues with support."

"You certainly can have stability issues."

More SolarWinds NPM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I use the tool's free license."

"We have a multi-year license for the use of this solution. There are additional costs for recourses in the environment."

"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"

"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."

"It is expensive."

"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."

"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."

"It's expensive and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing."

"We pay a yearly licensing fee."

More SolarWinds NPM pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Energy/Utilities Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	59
Midsize Enterprise	33
Large Enterprise	87

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Grafana Enterprise Stack?

I am trying to think about its advanced alerting features; we do not use it too much for that. We do get it to report through to our help desk system and if a threshold gets broken, then a ticket i...

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What is your primary use case for Grafana Enterprise Stack?

I have switched to a different suite, focusing on customer edge solutions that are mostly Fortinet. To manage it, I use Grafana Enterprise Stack and a whole bunch of tools that we wrote ourselves. ...

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What advice do you have for others considering Grafana Enterprise Stack?

We use Grafana Enterprise Stack in all of our clients. I rate this product an eight out of ten.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

From my point of view, SolarWind is the best tool.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

NetApp Data Infrastructure Insights vs Grafana Enterprise Stack

Compared 20% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Grafana Enterprise Stack

Compared 8% of the time

AimBetter vs Grafana Enterprise Stack

Compared 7% of the time

LiveNX vs Grafana Enterprise Stack

Compared 5% of the time

VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs Grafana Enterprise Stack

Compared 4% of the time

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ManageEngine OpManager vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

Nagios XI vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

DX Spectrum vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 2% of the time

More SolarWinds NPM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Grafana Enterprise Stack

August 2026

Download Grafana Enterprise Stack product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds NPM

July 2026

Download SolarWinds NPM product report

Also Known As

No data available

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer

Overview

Grafana Enterprise Stack is a powerful tool for real-time data monitoring and visualization. With its flexible and scalable features, it is widely used for creating dashboards, analyzing metrics, and gaining insights into infrastructure, databases, and applications.

Its valuable features include powerful visualization capabilities, extensive data source integrations, customizable dashboards, a user-friendly interface, and a robust alerting system. Users appreciate its flexibility, scalability, and ability to integrate with different data sources, making it suitable for a wide range of industries and use cases.

Grafana Labs

SolarWinds NPM is a network performance monitoring tool offering a user-friendly interface with customizable dashboards. It provides real-time tracking of device health, latency, and bandwidth utilization, supporting diverse integration and scalability needs.

SolarWinds NPM's robust features include real-time monitoring of network performance and efficient tracking of device health, latency, and bandwidth utilization. The tool is appreciated for its ease of deployment, scalability, and support for integration with other tools. Features like SNMP monitoring, NetPath, and comprehensive reporting enhance its diagnostic capabilities and network visibility. However, users identify areas for improvement such as real-time analytics, advanced customization options, and enhanced scalability for larger enterprises. Better customer support, improved integrations, and security measures are also desired.

What are the key features of SolarWinds NPM?

User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies navigation and operation.
Customizable Dashboards: Allows personalized data views.
Real-Time Monitoring: Provides instant updates on network performance.
Strong Alerting Capabilities: Offers immediate notifications for issues.
Scalability: Supports growth with ease.
Integration: Works smoothly with other tools for comprehensive monitoring.
SNMP Monitoring: Tracks device stats effectively.
NetPath: Helps visualize network paths and performance.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Improved Network Visibility: Enables proactive issue resolution.
Enhanced Diagnostics: Facilitates quicker troubleshooting.
Real-Time Performance Data: Supports informed decision-making.
Ease of Deployment: Reduces setup time and complexity.
Infrastructure Monitoring: Ensures network stability and reliability.
Custom Integration: Adapts to existing IT environments.

In enterprise environments, SolarWinds NPM is deployed to monitor network health and device status, sending alerts for any issues. It provides visibility into network performance, tracking bandwidth utilization and server metrics efficiently. Its applications span from monitoring routers, switches, and firewalls to supporting infrastructure monitoring across industries.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

1. Uber 2. PayPal 3. eBay 4. Sony 5. Red Hat 6. IBM 7. Cisco 8. Adobe 9. Expedia 10. Booking.com 11. Airbnb 12. LinkedIn 13. Twitter 14. Netflix 15. Spotify 16. Pinterest 17. Slack 18. GitLab 19. Docker 20. Atlassian 21. Salesforce 22. Microsoft 23. Google 24. Amazon 25. Facebook 26. Apple 27. Intel 28. Oracle 29. SAP 30. VMware 31. HP 32. Dell

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard

Buyer's Guide

Grafana Enterprise Stack vs. SolarWinds NPM

August 2026

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