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NETSCOUT nGeniusONE vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (19th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Server Monitoring (10th), Active Directory Management (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 1.6%, up 1.6% compared to last year.
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, on the other hand, focuses on Server Monitoring, holds 2.5% mindshare, down 3.2% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Ruslan Melnyk - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for network performance monitoring
My manager can explain the use cases attached to the product. I am a unit leader in my company, and I don't sell the product directly to our partners or customers. In my company, I manage certain processes and a team while building, developing, and providing them with a direction for the market. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is a good solution for network performance monitoring since it is not cloud-based. My company sells NETSCOUT nGeniusONE in eight to ten countries. I think the solution is not good for capacity planning, but it is better to help find problems in applications because not every infrastructure is good at managing working applications. I think it is a solution meant for applications. The tool is useful for solving problems attached to applications. The tool's real-time network monitoring capability was used when the product was more reactive. In our company, if we use real-time monitoring, then we need to deal with raw traffic. In our company, if we don't see any problem in the real-time systems, we have the possibility to rely on the tool since it acts like a time machine for us, which can allow us to get back to the areas of problem and solve them. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. For many users, it can be a good monitoring system that can be scaled up in the future. I think it is a good product to start with when working systems in an environment. NETSCOUT nGeniusONE is another tool used to manage raw traffic, and I find it to integrate well into our customers' network. I am not using it actively on the system. I use the tool for network packet brokers. I rate the tool a ten out of ten.
Carlos Camargo - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides user-friendly API features and has straightforward deployment process
One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules. The misalignment of licensing terms can present commercial challenges when adding new modules or additional pollers. Additionally, the granularity of polling times for specific components could be enhanced to better meet individual customers' needs without impacting the entire polling pool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When we have any type of outage, and we dig into it, we are able to tell what the root cause is instead of having to go through Wireshark, etc."
"The quick drill-down views are similar to Wireshark views. Those are quite nice, with the views on how you interpret some of the data. The granularity of how far you can drill down into milliseconds or microseconds is a very nice feature. It actually stores quite a lot of data in its database."
"The speed that you can get from the top of a problem all the way down to the packet layer of troubleshooting analysis."
"The product is very good. We have very few problems."
"The solution transforms packet wire data into real-time data that is actionable. It helps us with faster detection of issues and allows us to create alerts."
"It is the ability to collect data and analyze it, especially key performance indicators. This is before a customer would call to the service center to complain that they have had bad coverage or a dropped call."
"It is an easy-to-scale platform."
"The system's ability to prevent downtime represents a significant return on investment, but I do not have specific numerical data."
"Manage Groups: The capability to group appropriate devices gives better visibility of sites, categories, or critical regions. The same can be used to represent a dashboard for higher management."
"SolarWinds SAM has significantly improved our workflow by allowing us to develop a comprehensive knowledge base of known errors and automate responses to specific alerts."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"It is simple to implement and can provide fairly decent Windows-based monitoring, beyond simple SNMP. It is great for monitoring newbies and smaller shops."
"The solution can be deployed quickly."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
 

Cons

"NETSCOUT nGeniusONE's pricing is higher compared to the competitors. It is more than 15-18 percent of competitor costs. It also needs to add AI features."
"They can improve still on the workflows, document their workflows that are commonly used... We don't know some of the workflows yet, and it's not something that you can just read up in the manual. There is some stuff in the help manual and online, but it's to a point where you need to purchase extra training and services from them. You can't just go and read up on it yourself and learn from A to Z..."
"The feature I am looking for is the Arbor technology, especially to run in parallel with our firewall... It's getting there."
"We would like better end-to-end data flows. This is something that my users always complain about, as they don't know what the data flows are on the network. We would like to know every point along the line."
"Another thing that would help out is if they packaged the NetFlow monitor into nGeniusONE. Their NetFlow monitor works with nGeniusONE where you can actually get the netflow of pretty much anything you hook it up to. But it's a separate box that you have to buy. If there was a way that could package that into nGeniusONE, it would be a complete package straight out of the box."
"The product was lacking for awhile when they did the Arbor acquisition. I was waiting to see more security stuff, which they did eventually add, and is now impressive."
"here is a big issue with the special way they use InfiniStream to store data."
"Some of the filters could be easier to see and to set up. That's the only thing that I've ever had any trouble with."
"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."
"The tool’s report feature created issues for us. We needed to gain skills to use that feature. The tool’s customization is not easy since you have to reconfigure the whole system."
"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."
"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."
"The tool's AppStack needs to improve in the storage monitoring part. It should also include an analytics and recommendation approach. If I have found a fault in a server or application, I would like to know what caused it and how do I recover from it."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The platform is expensive."
"The product is too expensive compared to other products."
"If you are able and you are willing to use everything that Netscout provides to you, it's probably a relatively fair price. The problem is that it's such a large and such a complex tool that I'm not sure that many companies would be able to use it entirely, the way it's expected to be used."
"We have a premium customized contract for the solution."
"It is a little overall pricey and expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"This solution has saved us more than $50,000 a month and freed up 30 percent of our bandwidth."
"Cost is probably the biggest drawback. Compared to some of the newer vendors that have popped up in the space, it's definitely more on the expensive side... [But] it's been able to keep its value, even in the face of the cheaper competition."
"Licensing is flexible, it's not tied to anything else. We can easily switch up the licensing piece... Obviously, NETSCOUT is a little bit in the higher range, but it gives you value for money. You get what you pay for."
"The product is expensive."
"We are on an annual license to use the solution. The price of the solution is expensive. The price is based on a bunch of factors, such as the number of engines and elements."
"Nagios XI, WhatsUpGold, Uptime Software, PRTG, Manage Engine, and SpiceWorks are the other tools that have lower pricing and licensing costs. However, they can't compete with SolarWinds when it comes to the features and functionality that SolarWinds can provide."
"The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each."
"Understanding the counts of objects to monitor will determine the licensing need. In terms of pricing, it’s not cheap but it’s not expensive as larger vendors whose products don’t have all the features or integrations."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It is just the standard price, but it can vary depending on the current rate of the dollar."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"I have always said SolarWinds is very “proud” of their products, meaning they are expensive. I cannot afford to purchase all the licenses I need for all the SolarWinds products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
31%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
I would say if it’s an ISP that will build a scrubbing center, Netscout/Arbor is a good solution. In all other solutions, Imperva is a great choice.
What do you like most about NETSCOUT nGeniusONE?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NETSCOUT nGeniusONE?
The pricing is a bit high yet not overly expensive. The cost depends on the size of the customer, as sizing controls the pricing.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor at this time. I have not encountered any missing features or fu...
 

Also Known As

NETSCOUT nGenius, nGeniusONE
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cerner Corporation
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: May 2025.
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