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IBM Tivoli NetCool vs SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

IBM Tivoli NetCool
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (10th)
SolarWinds Network Configur...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (12th), Network Automation (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Tivoli NetCool is designed for Network Management Applications and holds a mindshare of 3.7%, up 2.0% compared to last year.
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager, on the other hand, focuses on Configuration Management, holds 3.1% mindshare, up 1.5% since last year.
Network Management Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Tivoli NetCool3.7%
Cisco DNA Center8.7%
OpenText Network Node Manager5.4%
Other82.2%
Network Management Applications
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager3.1%
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform10.3%
HashiCorp Terraform7.4%
Other79.2%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Petar Ganev - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Monitoring Engineer at Commerzbank
Reliable for enterprise monitoring but no longer actively developed
There are problems with the latest security requirements because many things have changed in recent years, and now the security audits are very strict. And we need to switch to something else. We need to patch it constantly. Moreover, it is a very old tool and a little bit difficult to support. Otherwise, they work okay.
reviewer1327239 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Automated configuration management has improved monitoring, backups, and policy control
I do not think there is anything I would like to improve at this point in time because SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager compares almost perfectly to what it is supposed to do. I think it is one of the best products in its category. Regarding the automation capabilities of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager, I think that is an area they will need to explore in making it more autonomous. Discovery happens through IP address scanning, but building out automation is something they need to focus on. I absolutely believe in providing automation for SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. It is essential to address how to deploy, discover, and remediate wherever possible. I think that is something they should already be looking at because AAFS is currently something everybody is focused on, and storage also needs to consider it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Support is one of the best aspects of this solution. NetCool is a good product that has good flexibility. There are a lot of documents available online which is one of the best features of IBM Tivoli Suite. Whenever an issue happens, rather than going to technical support, if you find the exact issue in Google, you can get tech notes for that particular issue."
"The solution has very good integration capabilities."
"The solution is a complete package; it has various useful elements including inventory management and incident management packaged inside it, and anything is possible with Tivoli since it is quite a robust system that offers a lot of useful integration capabilities."
"The tool had many built-in automation capabilities."
"Tivoli NetCool allows us to grasp a lot of data that can be applied toward predictive analytics and auto-remediation."
"The Netcool solution is great, and it's very easy to use."
"It's very easy to use."
"NetCool has a huge database that can collect and process about one million alarms a day."
"The network performance monitoring of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is a vital feature"
"We push all our configurations to the servers with ease and the logs capture almost all the transactions needed for an internal audit."
"Its main functionality is highly beneficial as it centralizes the management of configuration items across the network."
"What's nice with NCM is you can set up policies that you can then check against the configs to ensure that your device configs adhere to a baseline or standard that you've set in place."
"SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager improves the mean time to repair significantly, bringing measurable benefits to customers."
"We can proactively monitor our infrastructure in a single pane of glass, unlike before when there were a lot of network management tools that would need to be looked at."
"Configuration pushing, upgrade capabilities, job backup, configuration backup, and real-time configuration change monitoring are highly beneficial features of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager."
"The installation is straightforward."
 

Cons

"IBM's technical support takes a long time to do root cause analysis, and we have to go through several levels of help before getting a solution."
"In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release. IBM develops new features for Power BI or Cognos Analytics, which is good. As of now, we use Cognos Analytics, we are not using Power BI. They have the Insight concept but we don't like that."
"I think the UI should be updated and made more presentable and eye-catching. Compared to NCE in Huawei, NSN in Nokia, the UiPath and Ubiquiti, it feels very old legacy."
"The solution is not user-friendly."
"The solution is too expensive."
"From a customer perspective, it is quite an expensive solution to initially implement and then support."
"It was a bit expensive to purchase but the benefits outweigh all the cons by far."
"The product is pretty costly. It's definitely not the least expensive option."
"There are certain limitations of node-related monitoring"
"I will email them and I won't see the response for another two or three hours. I have to give them a call and it's a pain, it's a nightmare."
"Our experience has shown that most of the problems we've had with SolarWinds NCM are related to software issues."
"We had issues with the FailOver Engine module installation, due to the resources of each SolarWinds server."
"The network flow is a problem for this solution."
"The third-party plugins available in the solution could improve. I have received some issues with the templates."
"The integration with the network performance monitor wasn't complete as at the last time I used it."
"Regarding the automation capabilities of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager, I think that is an area they will need to explore in making it more autonomous."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the product is too expensive."
"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"It costs around 100k for every ten servers, which is lower than similar products from other vendors."
"Additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee are inevitable."
"You have a base license for 50 devices, and then you can add more licenses as you go."
"With a minimal bundle, we pay about $3000 a year in licensing costs. If you have multiple devices in your network, you must buy the bundle, which is 100% identical for your infrastructure. If you have 15 devices, you need 15 licenses, for example. That's one bundle. You don't pay for anything over and above that."
"Available at a moderate price"
"There is a license needed to use SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager."
"In Africa, the cost is a major factor in decision-making for many companies. As a result, some companies may choose cheaper solutions, even if they are open-source, over more expensive ones, such as SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. However, as an engineer, I believe that the functionalities and services offered by SolarWinds justify the cost. Nonetheless, many companies in Africa may still view the prices as unaffordable."
"The pricing is good."
"We have to pay additionally for its support and maintenance."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
6%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all kind of software in monitoring from infra to end to end, it depends on the funct...
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool?
The main challenge is its licensing model, which is very complicated.
What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool?
NetCool is the manager of managers in the stack. It basically combines the devices of the whole network. We are the mobile network operator, so we use it to assist us in cross-domain correlations a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager?
On pricing, I would rate SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager as one of the best in its segment among leading products and competitors. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is positioned as...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager?
I do not think there is anything I would like to improve at this point in time because SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager compares almost perfectly to what it is supposed to do. I think it is...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager?
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is used for managing a large number of IPs, distributing them within my enterprise, and addressing issues related to them. People typically manage this thro...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli NetCool
SolarWinds NCM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)
United Lincolnshire Hospitals, Air Rarotonga, NetSuite, Thai AirAsia, REA Group, 335th Signal Command, Agilisys, Marine Expeditionary Force
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: June 2026.
899,052 professionals have used our research since 2012.