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NetCrunch vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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

NetCrunch
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
73rd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
60th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (27th), Log Management (52nd)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
2nd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of NetCrunch is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
NetCrunch0.7%
Other95.7%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

it_user1038504 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Administrator, Technical Lead at Connectivity Wireless
A network monitoring platform with a useful reporting feature, but permission-based options could be better
The initial setup is fairly easy. Most of it's wizard-based. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to set it up. But if you don't know certain things related to protocols and everything else, it might be difficult. If you know how SNMP works, it'll be fairly simple to set up.
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

"Reporting on NetCrunch is pretty good; it's very similar to SolarWinds, just with a different interface, and the majority of everything there was beneficial."
"The setup is very intuitive and quick - it all just took a few minutes we were done."
"If your infrastructure is big, and requires a good kind of reporting tool, then SolarWinds fulfills all these requirements."
"SolarWinds makes it easy for us to monitor our environment."
"The product is scalable."
"From the product side, it covers everything; it is perfect."
"Feature rich produce suite that addresses many aspects of BSM."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds NPM is the performance monitoring to see the memory, and CPU utilization."
"The most valuable features in SolarWinds NPM are the network search and diagnostic tools."
"At the moment, our main tool is SolarWinds NPM, and we keep using it, especially for monitoring cloud devices."
 

Cons

"Our network is made up of a lot of Cisco devices, and it needs improvements."
"I didn't care for the role-based, permission-based options, which were not the best."
"The interface could be made more user-friendly."
"The only thing that can be improved is to continually add to the existing capabilities of the product."
"SolarWinds NPM could improve by adding the deepest inspection, performance networking, and IP address discovery."
"The improvement would be that SolarWinds NPM thoroughly checks its patches before releasing them to the market. Better testing, alpha testing, and then releasing it to the market."
"It is difficult for stakeholders to translate technical requirements, which results in difficulties selecting a platform or implementing a solution."
"New, web-based interface lacks some features of traditional GUI."
"Customer Service: 0/10 as there were no knowledge base articles when I used it, and every new patch required customer login to apply."
"Stability is an issue. We have installed SolarWinds (Server 2016) on a dedicated physical server and as a virtual machine in a brand new Hyper-V environment with brand new servers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
"Quite highly priced"
"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"It is too expensive."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"The cost is based on the number of nodes, so it is expensive when you have a lot of them."
"It is not an expensive product."
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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
Construction Company
22%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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

manufacturing, banking, utilities, energy, universities, healthcare institutions, school districts, military and police entities, non-profit organizations, 
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about NetCrunch vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.