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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
86th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of NETSCOUT vSTREAM is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.7%, 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 NPM3.7%
NETSCOUT vSTREAM0.5%
Other95.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

KL
Network Engineer at Inniti Network Solution
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.
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

"Sometimes it took a month to troubleshoot something that we can now do within days."
"One of the valuable features is the packet decoding."
"The generation of KPI-like information that feeds to the nGeniusONE (management) server is the most valuable feature."
"vSTREAM gives us better visibility and reporting about our network infrastructure, allowing for cost-optimization."
"We were able to unify our entire company under one monitoring solution that works for everybody, saving a ton of time and significantly speeding up problem-resolution time."
"A product that is well-tested and trusted in demanding situations."
"You can monitor performance counters effortlessly."
"For a medium-sized customer, it has everything that you're looking for."
"SolarWinds provides a good enterprise level of tools and covers the essential components."
"Solarwinds NPM has lots of features not found in some other network performance monitoring tools e.g. seamless integration with Microsoft Active Directory."
"The most valuable features in SolarWinds NPM are the network search and diagnostic tools."
"It's just having visibility of the entire networking estate for myself and for my clients; that's the main benefit of it and it's probably the best product out there."
 

Cons

"I would like for it to have a smaller footprint of the virtual appliance and better performance."
"I would like to see improvements made to the user guide."
"Room for improvement exists in filtering in the packet decode."
"The stability is okay, but sometimes we see that the memory on the server is not 100 percent correct and we need to stop and start the software to have it reallocated again."
"I would say that this is not a scalable solution."
"There should be a little bit more integration in some of the other tooling and utilizing the APIs of devices or tools could be a little bit better."
"We previously used WhatsUpGold, which has a fraction of the features for a tenth of the price."
"It would be nice if SolarWinds added some technical protocols like Modbus. The market needs a simple solution for monitoring a technical device."
"They don't have a local support team."
"There are some issues when trying to monitor multiple networks with the same IP ranges. The solution for this is to purchase additional modules."
"Regarding the automated network topology and mapping feature in SolarWinds NPM, I am not satisfied with it."
"Technical support is average. Sometimes it took days to get responses and the responses were via email."
"There have been some versions that have had stability issues, but the current version seems pretty stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing is quite expensive."
"It is not an expensive product."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"It is too expensive."
"Though I don't remember the price for SolarWinds NPM, its price is somewhat okay when you compare it with other tools in the market. The price isn't too high and isn't too low, so it's okay."
"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 can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on."
"The solution can become very expensive and commercially not viable in countries, such as India."
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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
20%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
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

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: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.