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Network Instruments Observer vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

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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

Network Instruments Observer
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
106th
Average Rating
0.0
Number of Reviews
1
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
161
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (8th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Network Instruments Observer is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
Network Instruments Observer0.3%
Other96.1%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer197955 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data.
Ring capture buffer. Complex filtering The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data. The Observer application is very complex to use and setup, this should be improved. Windows is unstable, a possible Linux version in future will fix this. 4 years The…
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

"The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data."
"I like the tracking feature to track devices and see where they are connected, which is very practical."
"The advanced alerting system in SolarWinds NPM helps us for network analysis, even CPU and memory analysis."
"SolarWinds is user-friendly with a manageable console."
"SolarWinds NPM is useful for any company that has business-critical applications running over a network and they want to monitor the network behavior."
"It's a very good tool and a very stable tool."
"Having all 3 products tied together gives me the data I need to accurately pinpoint a problem within moments, instead of collating data from various applications and servers."
"Its GUI is very user-friendly."
"We don't have any issues with the stability of SolarWinds NPM."
 

Cons

"Customer service was below average and the local value added reseller did not know the product very well."
"It would be nice to manage all network devces from just one single platform, instead of going to different platforms."
"User Interface needs improvement as it is not very attractive."
"I faced a problem with GRE over IPSec tunnel traffic, it was not showing Netflow enabled traffic and without IPSec tunnel traffic Netflow was working fine."
"Having more technical and support resources available in Saudi Arabia would be helpful."
"The scalability can be better."
"One of the problems that SolarWinds has is when the data becomes too big, it will start getting slower."
"The user should be able to customize the dashboard to their own requirements."
"It needs group views with performance metrics."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It is expensive."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"The NPM component of the system costs approximately $1,000 USD per year."
"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."
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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
No data available
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

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

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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

Brno University of Technology
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.