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Ixia Hawkeye 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

Ixia Hawkeye
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
37th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
36th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Unified Communications Monitoring (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 (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Ixia Hawkeye is 0.3%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.4%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

José Enrique Cano Rodriguez - PeerSpot reviewer
A valuable tool for optimizing network performance and security with comprehensive network monitoring capabilities, user-friendly interface, and flexibility for scripting
Distinguishing itself from network management systems like SolarWinds Orion and Dataminer, Hawkeye offers a distinctive feature. It empowers network administrators to access specialized and detailed views for specific tests, including video streaming and performance related to specific applications like video games. In contrast, SolarWinds and Dataminer typically offer a more general evaluation of network health. Hawkeye's unique capability enables a detailed analysis of network performance through specific tests, allowing administrators to identify areas in need of improvement and take precise actions to enhance network performance.
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

"The most valuable feature is the deployment because it's very easy to deploy real flow through the network."
"The ease of setup is the most valuable aspect of this solution. It's easy to set up and run tests."
"It empowers network administrators to access specialized and detailed views for specific tests, including video streaming and performance related to specific applications like video games."
"Our customer was happiest with the price of this product."
"The most valuable features are language support and technical support."
"Being able to easily, and quickly obtain disc space statistics from servers and determine how much was free or used on various volumes."
"The most valuable features in SolarWinds NPM are the network search and diagnostic tools."
"We can proactively fix historical issues, so we won't face those problems in future."
"You can monitor performance counters effortlessly."
"SolarWinds NPM is a scalable solution since it can handle a huge number of users."
"I can do everything remotely, including running PowerShell scripts or performing standard updates."
"We have configured multiple alerts for our network devices, including routers and switches, so that we are notified if any interface goes down."
 

Cons

"You can't delete more than one thing at a time. It would be great to be able to highlight three out of five things and delete them, whether it's a test or an actual report."
"The customization of tests and even the results can be improved."
"Ixia has one flaw, which is that they do not print the license code on the paper licenses that are shipped to the customers."
"Improvements in network performance are essential."
"Scalability is a bit tricky because it requires more gateways in order to get the performance you may need. It also requires a lot of licensing."
"The solution's network discovery and node addition processes need more work."
"SolarWinds NPM can be very slow at times. The database optimization can be done to improve the product performance."
"If they did some type of synthetic monitoring, it would have been better."
"Technical support can be slow to respond."
"An area for improvement would be the use of modular licenses, which are not practical for big clients."
"The reporting is good, but I want it to be a little easier when creating custom reports. The reports are all on the website now, but it takes some know how to get some to display the way you would like."
"The price of the solution can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In larger networks, the costs for licenses tend to be more reasonable, but for smaller networks, it appears relatively costly."
"It cost us approximately 25,000 for two years. This is cheaper than ThousandEyes."
"SolarWinds is expensive. That's why it's primarily banks using the solution. Small businesses can't afford it. Due to its pricing, most smaller enterprises like manufacturing companies are not interested. For example, we have a client who is also interested in traffic monitoring, but they are not purchasing SolarWinds because of the cost."
"It is not an expensive product."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"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."
"Quite highly priced"
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
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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
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Ixia Hawkeye?
It empowers network administrators to access specialized and detailed views for specific tests, including video streaming and performance related to specific applications like video games.
What needs improvement with Ixia Hawkeye?
Improvements in network performance are essential.
What is your primary use case for Ixia Hawkeye?
Our objective is to evaluate the performance of GPON and DOCSIS networks which involves considering factors such as pricing, sales, and the technical aspects of conducting tests. To achieve this, v...
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

EMA
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Ixia Hawkeye vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,481 professionals have used our research since 2012.