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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
35th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Unified Communications Monitoring (3rd)
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 September 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 4.5%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM4.5%
Ixia Hawkeye0.3%
Other95.2%
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

"Our customer was happiest with the price of this product."
"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."
"SolarWinds is user-friendly with a manageable console."
"The most important feature is reporting. The reports that are generated are useful and they save a lot of time with respect to monitoring."
"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 is very extensible with 'SWQL' and APIs to where we are beginning to integrate it with network automation."
"SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks."
"We have configured multiple alerts for our network devices, including routers and switches, so that we are notified if any interface goes down."
"The nice thing about SolarWinds is that it's kind of all-in-one. I can manage the status of my networking devices, whether they are up or down, I can see how much traffic is going across an interface, and I can run a report that tells me exactly what that traffic is."
"We don't have any issues with the stability of SolarWinds NPM."
 

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."
"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."
"The customization of tests and even the results can be improved."
"A feature I would ask for is for them to have this solution available for Linux systems instead of Windows."
"It is not that stable. As a Windows software, I have seen issues with SolarWinds. The performance is slow."
"The scalability can be better."
"The only real caveat that we have or that I have an issue with is when I go on vacation, it's a little hard for me to go and modify alerts so that I don't get alerted about things when I'm on vacation."
"They need to work on their automation and automatically discover devices. They are not very good at automatically discovering devices."
"I would like to see integration with antivirus or other security endpoint solutions."
"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."
"The console could be more user-friendly. It would be better if SolarWinds updated the user interface."
 

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."
"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"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."
"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."
"Licenses depend on the number of devices, but all license levels come with technical support."
"It is too expensive."
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
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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
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
9%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise84
 

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: September 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.