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InfluxDB 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

InfluxDB
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
22nd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
26th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Non-Relational Databases (1st), Open Source Databases (9th), NoSQL Databases (4th)
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 (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of InfluxDB is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.4%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

DeepakR - PeerSpot reviewer
An open-source database that can be used to insert data
InfluxDB is generally stable, but we've encountered issues with the configuration file in our ticket stack. For instance, a mistake in one of the metrics out of a hundred KPIs can disrupt data collection for all KPIs. This happens because the agent stops working if there's an issue with any configuration part. To address this, it is essential to ensure that all configurations are part of the agent's EXE file when provided. This makes it easier to package the agent for server installation and ensures all KPIs are available from the server. Additionally, the agent cannot encrypt and decrypt passwords for authentication, which can be problematic when monitoring URLs or requiring authentication tokens. This requires additional scripting and can prolong service restart times.
Masud Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers alerting service to trigger alerts and easy to manage
For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices and device/interface monitoring. We have also used NCM (Network Configuration Manager) for our network. We use the alerting service to trigger alerts based on specific thresholds, like CPU or memory utilization exceeding a certain percentage. There are AI network initiatives in SolarWinds NPM for some lengthy issues. For example, it shows availability reports. But for bandwidth monitoring, it's not very clear how much bandwidth is being consumed. SolarWinds provide real-time bandwidth monitoring. It is not difficult to manage the network with SolarWinds. We have one customer with a satellite location. If we have a large network with, let's say, 43,000 elements, and our current SolarWinds license supports only 30,000, we would need to create another polling engine to accommodate the additional 13,000 elements. It's limited to the polling engine, so we can only support 30,000 elements per engine. So it's only for 30,000, but we have at least 40,000 elements in our network.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"InfluxDB works as expected with excellent scalability and stability, which is critical for our application."
"InfluxDB works as expected with excellent scalability and stability, which is critical for our application."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is we can use InfluxDB to integrate with and plug into any other tools."
"In our case, it started with a necessity to fill the gap that we had in monitoring. We had very reactive monitoring without trend analysis and without some advanced features. We were able to implement them by using a time series database. We are able to have all the data from applications, logs, and systems, and we can use a simple query language to correlate all the data and make things happen, especially with monitoring. We could more proactively monitor our systems and our players' trends."
"The platform operates very quickly. It is easy to configure, connect, and query and integrates seamlessly with Grafana."
"The most valuable features of InfluxDB are the documentation and performance, and the good plugins metrics in the ecosystem."
"While I would rate InfluxDB a ten on a scale of one to ten, users should be thoughtful about matching the engine to their specific needs."
"InfluxDB is a database where you can insert data. However, it would be best if you had different components for alerting, data sending, and visualization. You need to install tools to collect data from servers. It must be installed on Windows or Linux servers. During installation, ensure that the configuration file is correct to prevent issues. Once data is collected, it can be sent to InfluxDB. For visualization, you can use open-source tools like Grafana."
"The set up was very easy. We didn't have any problems with the setup. The deployment took less than an hour."
"SolarWinds has greatly helped us, especially in tracing when the SoundCloud Software goes down without any apparent reason."
"The people in technical support are very good."
"The most valuable feature is the way it monitors the environment, and how user-friendly the console is for the end-user. The interface is also very easy and it captures all the information very well."
"It combines and presents information from many different sources, giving a corporate-wide vision on a single pane of glass."
"The ability to quickly identify downtime is the most valuable."
"I love the GUI. Almost everything is accessible through the web interface. It is very user-friendly. It is easy to drag and drop resources wherever you want them."
"It covers everything from end to end, from the standpoint of endpoint machines and the routers and switches. The switch port also comes there."
 

Cons

"It is challenging to get long-running backups while running InfluxDB in a Microsoft Azure Kubernetes cluster."
"The solution doesn't have much of a user interface."
"The solution's UI can be more user-friendly."
"The error logging capability can be improved because the logs are not very informative."
"In terms of features that I would like to see or have, in the community version, some features are not available. I would like to have clustering and authentication in the community version."
"I've tried both on-premises and cloud-based deployments, and each has its limitations."
"It is challenging to get long-running backups while running InfluxDB in a Microsoft Azure Kubernetes cluster."
"InfluxDB cannot be used for high-cardinality data. It's also difficult and time-consuming to write queries, and there are some issues with bulk API."
"The price of the solution can be improved."
"The solution's network discovery and node addition processes need more work."
"We decided that we were no longer going to trust that their products have not been capitalized."
"The root cause analysis and installation faults are not clear."
"One of the challenges with SolarWinds is that in order to pull the data, we have to have a lot of false positives."
"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."
"The aesthetic widgets should be dynamic widgets, so the customization can be even more customizable."
"I would like to have a Syslog server module for this product. That would make the solution better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the open-source version of InfluxDB."
"InfluxDB recently increased its price. It is very expensive now."
"The tool is an open-source product."
"InfluxDB is open-source, but there are additional costs for scaling."
"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."
"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."
"Price could be improved on"
"The solution can become very expensive and commercially not viable in countries, such as India."
"We have a multi-year license for the use of this solution. There are additional costs for recourses in the environment."
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
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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
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about InfluxDB?
InfluxDB is a database where you can insert data. However, it would be best if you had different components for alerting, data sending, and visualization. You need to install tools to collect data ...
What needs improvement with InfluxDB?
It is challenging to get long-running backups while running InfluxDB in a Microsoft Azure Kubernetes cluster. Replicating data for on-prem development and testing is difficult. Having a SQL abstrac...
What is your primary use case for InfluxDB?
InfluxDB is the main component in our large enterprise-scale streaming data application for maritime vessels. We collect position data from vessels around the coast once per second, put it on a Kaf...
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

No data available
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ebay, AXA, Mozilla, DiDi, LeTV, Siminars, Cognito, ProcessOut, Recommend, CATS, Smarsh, Row 44, Clustree, Bleemeo
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about InfluxDB vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.