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Microsoft System Center vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
8.6
Organizations reaped over 50% ROI with Microsoft System Center, automating tasks and enhancing efficiency while reducing costs.
Sentiment score
7.2
SolarWinds NPM enhances infrastructure visibility, delivering cost reductions, faster issue resolution, and significant ROI through optimized resource management.
The return on investment is significant as the solution effectively reduces costs while being worth its expense.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.0
Microsoft System Center's support is inconsistent, with mixed reviews on response times, cost, and users preferring self-resolution.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM support gets mixed reviews, praised for expertise yet noted for delays and aggressive sales tactics.
If there is no timely response, getting a resolution is more difficult.
We had contact with SolarWinds regarding the implementation, and they were helpful.
They have good technical support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft System Center is praised for its strong scalability, efficiently managing environments from small setups to large infrastructures.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM is scalable, adapts well to infrastructures, but may face performance and cost issues on virtual platforms.
SolarWinds NPM is scalable and effective in handling large network infrastructures.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft System Center is stable, reliable, and users rate its stability 8/10, with minimal issues in virtualized environments.
Sentiment score
7.5
SolarWinds NPM is stable with issues from server limits and bugs, resolved through updates and proper configuration.
The NPM product is stable, particularly when used for simple network monitoring.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft System Center struggles with integration, complexity, performance issues, and requires enhancements in interface, documentation, and cloud capabilities.
SolarWinds NPM users report issues with network discovery, UI features, costs, automation, support, and security improvements are needed.
Customers have given feedback about the delayed response times from the technical team.
SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features.
Features such as taking backup of the devices or configurations of the devices can be included in further versions of SolarWinds NPM.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft System Center costs $25,000 annually, requiring yearly licensing, rated mid-high in expense, with no extra charges.
SolarWinds NPM pricing varies by setup size, with initial costs, tiered licensing, and maintenance fees influencing total expenses.
PRTG's package offers all features in one bundle, which is cost-effective.
The solution is considered expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft System Center offers seamless integration, automation, intuitive GUI, third-party management, and efficient reporting, enhancing system control and functionality.
SolarWinds NPM offers ease of deployment, real-time monitoring, customizable alerts, and user-friendly design for efficient network management.
The most valuable feature for us is the database performance analyzer, which we use a lot.
It provides a detailed overview of the network, which is valuable.
SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft System Center
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
19th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (13th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Microsoft System Center is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.2%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ajinkya Mohod - PeerSpot reviewer
Makes user management and application management easy for users
Speaking about the impact of the automation feature that impacted our company's operational efficiency, I can say that the complete tool works on automation. You just have to configure it, and it works, especially in areas like auto-patching updates. I suggest that others can definitely go ahead with Microsoft System Center, especially beginners who choose it, can get hands-on experience with it, and acquire a good understanding of how things work. In terms of the value and benefits derived from the use of the solution, I can say that my company's operations have been made simpler because of the product, especially in areas like user management and application management where we have been benefited a lot. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
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.
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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
No data available
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 needs improvement with Microsoft System Center?
Microsoft System Center should be easier to manage. However, it is complex to deploy, so people hesitate to use it. Though it has many features, such as licensing, asset tracking, and software depl...
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

MS System Center
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Kassen_rztliche Vereinigung Nordrhein, Magyar Telekom Nyrt., Adeka, QualCare, Aeriandi, UniCredit Bank d.d., Mostar, Allianz Australia Ltd., Grupo Familia
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft System Center vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.