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NETSCOUT vSTREAM 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 vSTREAM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
84th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of NETSCOUT vSTREAM is 0.3%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.4%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM4.4%
NETSCOUT vSTREAM0.3%
Other95.3%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

KL
A user-friendly solution that is easy to install and improves visibility
I would like to see improvements made to the user guide. From my personal experience, it is helpful to see a list of steps describing what to do next in different situations. An example is what to do and what to back up in the case of certain types of failure. There are also cases where a customer can't understand specific features. Enhancements to the user guide would be helpful for this. More features for network fragmentation would be helpful.
Tochukwu Uzomba - PeerSpot reviewer
Rich modular monitoring capabilities offer tailored monitoring needs with good support
SolarWinds NPM is used for monitoring different solutions like database, infrastructure, and network performance. Each of these requires separate solutions, and SolarWinds provides modular options for monitoring Based on my experiences, SolarWinds NPM can handle large network infrastructures…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the valuable features is the packet decoding."
"vSTREAM gives us better visibility and reporting about our network infrastructure, allowing for cost-optimization."
"The biggest thing for me is that it provided enough information for me to monitor. It alerts and provides you with the information you need."
"This has helped us to monitor the availability of our routers, switches, servers, and virtual environments."
"Can easily be interconnected with other management systems."
"The alerting and reporting capabilities of the tool are impressive"
"One of the best features is the reports feature."
"The product is lightweight in terms of memory use, requiring only 10 megabytes or less."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface and the ease of deployment."
"It covers everything from end to end, from the standpoint of endpoint machines and the routers and switches. The switch port also comes there."
 

Cons

"I would like for it to have a smaller footprint of the virtual appliance and better performance."
"Room for improvement exists in filtering in the packet decode."
"I would like to see improvements made to the user guide."
"A need for improvement is in the technical support provided by SolarWinds."
"The integration with video apps could be better."
"The only thing that can be improved is to continually add to the existing capabilities of the product."
"An area for improvement in SolarWinds NPM is the short retention period. Currently, it's just for seven days of data, which is very low, making it hard for my organization to keep that data. SolarWinds recommended a seven-day retention period, but my organization needs a fourteen-day data retention period. Hence, I'd like an increase in the retention period or the database limit in SolarWinds NPM because you can't go back to the data for any investigation if seven days have passed. Another area for improvement in SolarWinds NPM is the database, which needs to be a bit more mature. I want a modified database in the next release of SolarWinds NPM. I'd also like more options added to groups because, currently, it's very limited."
"It would be good to have high security."
"The price of the solution can be improved."
"This solution would benefit from expanding on the capabilities within the API."
"It is difficult for stakeholders to translate technical requirements, which results in difficulties selecting a platform or implementing a solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing is quite expensive."
"Price could be improved on"
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
"I find that the pricing is acceptable."
"When I compare the cost of CA Spectrum to that of SolarWinds NPM, the cost of CA Spectrum is way too high, and the cost of SolarWinds NPM is pretty low."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"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."
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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
Financial Services Firm
16%
Energy/Utilities Company
13%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software 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

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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

vSTREAM
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Metropolitan Police Agency, Banpara, PropertyRoom.com
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about NETSCOUT vSTREAM vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.