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NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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

NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
31st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is 0.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.6%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Leandro Di Maria - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers real-time monitoring capabilities, which help businesses optimize their operations
The tools are part of managed environments, but when the capabilities of the routers need to be increased, we use NETSCOUT to manage things at an international level. The tool's user interface is okay. It would be great if the tool could provide alerts during attacks in Spanish. In the next release, if the traffic analysis could send our company an alert before an attack starts, it would be even better. Before an attack starts, seeing the traffic behavior and activities would be great. The tool should also share alerts since it is an area where the product has certain shortcomings.
MohitKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface
The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market. The solution supports many vendors by default and just included Meraki SDN with the new release, but continued expansion is important. We created a custom method to pair with unsupported vendors but that can produce a lag in performance so future releases should expand SDN support. The solution does a good job of automating features but could expand that even more.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the single pane of glass view. I like being able to go to one place instead of having to hunt around for everything."
"The most valuable features of this solution are monitoring and maintaining traffic queuing, as well as seeing who is using the bandwidth."
"This is a very reliable and complete solution for troubleshooting and monitoring environments."
"I like the single pane of glass view because it presents everything in one window, obviously. You can see it all. With a quick glance, you get a pretty good snapshot of what's going on in a particular situation."
"The solution's technical support team consists of good engineers and technicians."
"The most valuable feature of NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is the network troubleshooting analysis. You can pinpoint an issue before it could shut down the network."
"You can monitor performance counters effortlessly."
"It's easy to understand, even if you are not too technical."
"It covers everything from end to end, from the standpoint of endpoint machines and the routers and switches. The switch port also comes there."
"SolarWinds NPM is a scalable solution since it can handle a huge number of users."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface and the ease of deployment."
"I like that SolarWinds NPM is a strong tool for monitoring network devices, switches, and routers. It's also a user-friendly tool. My team also likes how scalable it is."
"The other valuable system is the DSS (decision support system). If there's a fault in the network, SolarWinds is basically capable of rectifying and resolving that problem on its own without any intervention from an IP assistant or administrator."
"SolarWinds dashboard is very fast. Also, their interface is very good, it looks very user-friendly. The product allows me to see a summary of the network being monitored at a glance."
 

Cons

"The GUI interface and dashboards could be more attractive to the customer."
"They require a lot of manual effort as traffic flows, networks, and formal times change."
"In terms of additional features, I would like to see better event notification. Right now, we put in an email address to receive an alert and it receives every event and every alert that comes out. We need something a little more granular."
"Before an attack starts, seeing the traffic behavior and activities would be great. The tool should also share alerts since it is an area where the product has certain shortcomings."
"Usability is the area with the biggest room for improvement. We've found that with NETSCOUT, while it's a fantastic product, the usability is a major factor because there are just way too many clicks. It's obvious, from our experience, that the people who are developing the product aren't using it."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
"SolarWinds NPM can be very slow at times. The database optimization can be done to improve the product performance."
"The solution's database performance could be improved."
"Real-time analytics is the major weakness of the SolarWinds NPM platform today. They've done a fantastic job enabling the collection of data. Users are now demanding the ability to generate their own graphs, views, and so on; all of this must be done by an admin today."
"Being able to detect devices that are trying to connect wirelessly would make using this solution much easier."
"SolarWinds NPM could improve by adding the deepest inspection, performance networking, and IP address discovery."
"Technical support can be slow to respond."
"SolarWinds could offer more support and insights for a broader range of devices. Currently, it focuses on routers, switches, and some load balancers. However, it lacks an out-of-the-box dashboard for monitoring firewalls and some other modern network security devices. We have to customize it a lot."
"SolarWinds NPM should be more flexible to accommodate specific customer requirements quickly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's price is okay. On a scale of one to ten, I rate it as a five, where one means it is not expensive, and ten means it is the most expensive."
"The price of NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is high. The other solutions are less expensive but we cannot depend on the other solutions, they are not as stable."
"Cost is contracted on a yearly basis. There is no additional cost beyond the standard licensing."
"It's expensive and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
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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
Government
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
6%
Educational Organization
54%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE?
The tool's price is okay. On a scale of one to ten, I rate it as a five, where one means it is not expensive, and ten means it is the most expensive.
What needs improvement with NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE?
The tools are part of managed environments, but when the capabilities of the routers need to be increased, we use NETSCOUT to manage things at an international level. The tool's user interface is o...
What is your primary use case for NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE?
I use the solution in my company to analyze international traffic.
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

nGeniusPULSE
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banco Votorantim
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.