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Grafana Enterprise Stack 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

Grafana Enterprise Stack
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Grafana Enterprise Stack is 1.2%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.9%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.9%
Grafana Enterprise Stack1.2%
Other94.9%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Gregory Diana - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers very good charting capabilities and capable of automatically generating dashboards, even for a large number of data points
In terms of what Grafana provides, it just provides the charting tools. Everything else is third-party. It's like Node-RED. Node-RED is free, and you can choose an application, but that application depends on the person who's supporting it. If they decide not to support it, then you're stuck. However, I believe that it can't be improved or changed because people have to make money and make a living from it. Nothing will ever be changed. It depends on the software. Same as Windward. Windward just decided it could not support a large number of customers, so it focused on high-income, low-volume clients. Whereas Node-RED has millions of followers and fantastic support, the same as Grafana. Grafana is partly free, but it's your problem. That's how all these companies work. If you're big and you pay a lot of money, they'll pay attention to you.
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

"Grafana has enough features around dashboard management. It's got enough plugins to create your dashboards."
"Our productivity has improved with its use."
"Grafana's full observability stack, known as LGTM, is highly valuable."
"It is truly reliable."
"The tool's most valuable feature is real-time monitoring. It helps in securing the application or the node by allowing us to monitor and manage resource consumption during peak times. For instance, from 10 AM to 2 PM, we may experience high memory utilization. It helps us to solve these issues."
"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's most valuable feature is its ability to provide a graphical representation of data collected from various sources."
"Compared to other packages, Grafana Enterprise Stack is user-friendly and easy to configure quickly."
"The ability to quickly identify downtime is the most valuable."
"The initial setup is easy."
"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."
"It covers everything from end to end, from the standpoint of endpoint machines and the routers and switches. The switch port also comes there."
"SolarWinds' network and server application monitoring features are strong."
"It combines and presents information from many different sources, giving a corporate-wide vision on a single pane of glass."
"We found that it was easy to operate, and it was simple if anyone has entry-level working experience or even if someone is not experienced."
"The other valuable system is the DSS (decision support system). If there's a fault in the network, SolarWinds is basically capable of rectifying and resolving that problem on its own without any intervention from an IP assistant or administrator."
 

Cons

"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."
"If Grafana Enterprise Stack could display transaction queries in dashboard format similar to New Relic, it would provide more options and capabilities for users."
"The tool needs to show only fewer updates."
"The solution should include integration with Power BI."
"In terms of what Grafana provides, it just provides the charting tools. Everything else is third-party."
"Integrating AI capabilities for automated self-healing and reduced manual interventions would be valuable."
"I have encountered occasional issues with false inputs or incorrect data in Grafana."
"They could use more small tutorials to explain a bit about how Grafana works."
"The integration needs to be improved."
"The price of the solution can be improved."
"The solution could be more secure."
"Technical support can be slow to respond."
"SolarWinds needs to be improved such that it is on par with the leading products in the market."
"SolarWinds NPM offers limited customization options. Users and developers may find restrictions in modifying or customizing the dashboard and adjusting monitoring features such as polling intervals or SLAs for different nodes."
"SolarWinds NPM can be very slow at times. The database optimization can be done to improve the product performance."
"Complex and overly detailed setup."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I use the tool's free license."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"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."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."
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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
Energy/Utilities Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
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 Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise84
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Grafana Enterprise Stack?
The tool's most valuable feature is real-time monitoring. It helps in securing the application or the node by allowing us to monitor and manage resource consumption during peak times. For instance,...
What needs improvement with Grafana Enterprise Stack?
The layout is good, but I think it needs some enhancement based on my experience. I might not have gotten deeper to understand more details, but I believe it needs more improvement. Scalability and...
What is your primary use case for Grafana Enterprise Stack?
I have been working for several months with Icinga, but after that, I moved forward to Zabbix, and now I might switch to Grafana Enterprise Stack. I am trying many alternatives to provide monitorin...
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

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Grafana Enterprise Stack vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.