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ITRS Geneos 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

ITRS Geneos
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
68th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
45th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (33rd)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of ITRS Geneos is 0.6%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.4%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.4%
ITRS Geneos0.6%
Other96.0%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Durai CT - PeerSpot reviewer
Head FM Monitoring at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
A stable, scalable, and flexible monitoring tool
Real-time data is one of the unique features that ITRS Geneos offers. For example, if there is an impact on a particular server and a particular application, I want to see what the impact is or what the CPU or hardware usage information is, as well as the service in the same application. I can see the real-time data and the impact by accessing ITRS Geneos and looking at the tree. I don't want a tool that tells me when something is broken. I want the tool to tell me when something is going to break. That is the difference between ITRS Geneos and other tools. I want proactive monitoring, not reactive. I don't need to be notified after the fact that something has broken. If something is broken, I get a notification by email, and some of my customers are going to call me. ITRS Geneos provides proactive monitoring. The great advantage of this tool is real-time monitoring. ITRS Geneos not only alerts us but also gives us a real-time view of the data. This is the tool's first great advantage. It is also lightweight and flexible and can adapt to monitor even low-latency systems, which is the tool's second advantage. Another great feature of this tool is its good presentation layer, which allows us to build custom dashboards to present to business stakeholders. This gives them a high-level status of what is being monitored. If we compare ITRS Geneos to other tools, we will find that each one specializes in a specific area, but the ITRS Geneos tool is more comprehensive. This is its great advantage.
Vivek Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is used across the entire investment banking division, covering environments such as electronic trading, algo-trading, fixed income, FX, etc. It monitors that environment and enables a bank to significantly reduce down time. Although hard to measure, since implementation, we have probably seen some increased stability because of it and we have definitely seen teams a lot more aware of their environment. Consequently, we can be more proactive in challenging and improving previously undetected weaknesses."
"One of the best aspects of Geneos is that it has a broad scope and can cover a lot of use cases. You can write your own scripts to monitor really specific things. And the rules that you can put in place can be quite complex for the alerts."
"In my experience, being able to monitor our databases is a valuable feature as we can create our own queries and aren't reliant on the in-built ones."
"This tool allows one to analyse, integrate and customize as per the systems and allows you to set your own rules."
"It's also easy to implement. The implementation of Geneos is very easy and interesting. It's not complicated. It's very quick to implement. The installation is very easy. There are many topics about ITRS Geneos that explain more about the features of the function of Geneos."
"Geneos automatically sends email notifications when any batch job fails, the database is down or the website is down. It is automatically monitoring everything and reduces manual effort."
"The biggest benefit of Geneos is the fact that we can clearly see, if we have an alert, where that alert has come from. We can see the data around that alert and anything that might be relevant is also shown. We can very easily right-click and see why we've received that alert. That's the best part about it, that you've got all the data there with the alerting."
"The Netprobe is so lightweight compared to the agents that most monitoring tools use. It's really superior to the competition. The agent that is used by almost every competitive tool takes a lot more system resources. It's slower and it requires a greater effort and more compromises in terms of security to install on the monitored servers. With Geneos, because it lives outside the code, it is far easier and far less taxing on the monitored systems."
"In my experience with SolarWinds NPM Quality of Experience dashboard, it fulfilled all of our requirements."
"From web interfaces to custom monitors and alarms, this product has a high level of flexibility that can be molded to suit your business needs, regardless of the size of your organization."
"Monitoring capabilities are at a high level and it is easy to see utilization, access ports, and CPU memory in real time or through a lens for long-term visualization."
"It covers everything from end to end, from the standpoint of endpoint machines and the routers and switches. The switch port also comes there."
"The solution is user-friendly and has many options for customized monitoring that other tools don't have."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"All the features are very good. The monitoring of the equipment, the configuration manager, and the IP address monitoring are great."
"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."
 

Cons

"There is a part of the rules for monitoring alerts. I want to understand more about how to choose the samples and the requirements for the rules. That is the part that I want to understand better and get better training for."
"Backward compatibility with deprecated features and in system documentation on what configuration areas are needed to be updated."
"For the last year or two, I've been asking the vendor about the mobile app. This is something that probably everyone asks when they see the tool and they see how powerful it is. If there is any mobile app for this or if there is any way this tool can be more easily accessible other than having a big client installed, it would be great. I know you can build dashboards, et cetera, but there is no quick and easy way. I should be able to download an app, log in, and see my status. That will put this product above everything else out there. I believe it's on their roadmap."
"​It needs to be easier to configure, especially with the JMX plugins.​"
"I would like to see ITRS integrate its setup editor with a SVN to check-in setup XML after major changes."
"Mobile phone integration is probably not as rich as it could be."
"I would like better access to the data that is being collected."
"At the moment Geneos is excellent and handling real time monitoring, however not great at doing historical reporting."
"Real-time analytics is the major weakness of the SolarWinds NPM platform today. They've done a fantastic job enabling the collection of data. Users are now demanding the ability to generate their own graphs, views, and so on; all of this must be done by an admin today."
"The integration with the APIs and the web servers deployed can definitely be improved."
"SolarWinds could offer more support and insights for a broader range of devices. Currently, it focuses on routers, switches, and some load balancers. However, it lacks an out-of-the-box dashboard for monitoring firewalls and some other modern network security devices. We have to customize it a lot."
"The dashboard of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"The SolarWinds notification and alerting configuration could be simplified as it would be easier to find if it was within the NPM web application instead of in a separate client application."
"The reporting module that got integrated into the system itself, used to be a standalone solution and I preferred that."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"Time: A worldwide deployment can be confusing for dispersed users with non-local times. Each node should have a local time (with summer offset if appropriate) & each user should view & report in their local time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You will get the best price if you get a single global deal."
"When I first came in, their pricing was very high. ITRS had a high expectation of what their price should be based on perceived value. I think they have been realizing, more recently, that there are other competitors, so their pricing is a lot better. Licensing for on-premise is okay, however I feel there is quite some work to be done for cloud and containers. We're still working with them to try and work out what that pricing should look like."
"The organization is not just purchasing a license for the product, but also managing services and professional services from ITRS. Another factor is if the implementation is going to be in production, non-production, or both."
"Based on feedback from colleagues and friends working in the financial sector, Geneos is relatively costly. Many companies have been switching from Geneos to Dynatrace, Sysdig, or other monitoring tools in the past two years because of the price."
"Given our spend and the amount of service we have in it, the pricing is quite reasonable."
"The pricing is fairly market-related. They have been very lenient because we have been working with them for so long. An example is that we're currently migrating some of our services to AWS, and they've given us a grace period for some of the things to help with the migration and not to grow additional costs while we are migrating, but it's still on par with the market."
"The market tools are on par with this solution, but if the solution included more features, then it would be well within the range for the cost."
"The licensing cost may seem expensive upfront. However, the service is outstanding, the tool does things that no other tools can do, and the customizability more than makes up for the cost of licensing."
"The licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes."
"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"We have a perpetual license for this solution, and my impression is that this solution is cheap."
"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 price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
71%
Computer Software Company
5%
Construction Company
3%
Outsourcing Company
2%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise39
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ITRS Geneos?
The pricing is high. Licensing fees might be around 500$ per server monthly.
What needs improvement with ITRS Geneos?
ITRS Geneos is a legacy system. It predicts or provides proactive measures once an issue is resolved. It doesn't offer any predictive capabilities or root cause analysis. They throw a lot of data i...
What is your primary use case for ITRS Geneos?
ITRS offers multiple products, including upgrades for synthetic monitoring and a SaaS platform. Geneos is used for infrastructure monitoring, covering KPIs such as CPU, memory, processes, network l...
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

Geneos
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ITRS Geneos is used by over 170 financial institutions, including JPMorgan, HSBC, RBS, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Clients range from investment banks to exchanges and brokers.
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about ITRS Geneos vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,511 professionals have used our research since 2012.