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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."
"SolarWinds NPM is used to monitor network components and solutions, and we used it to monitor downtime and latency between applications as well as the latency between services."
"The set up was very easy. We didn't have any problems with the setup. The deployment took less than an hour."
"The simplicity of this product is a valuable feature; everything you need is easily accessible and the maintenance is low."
"SolarWinds NPM features that I have found most valuable are the reporting tools and the ability to create customized reports."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"Implementing this product has given us detailed visibility and understanding of our network, and small teams are able to manage large enterprises with this tool."
"SolarWinds NPM has helped our organization by proactively indicating if we are low on resources for a particular server."
"Graphs and easy correlation in SolarWinds are light-years ahead of what we were doing previously."
 

Cons

"Customer service was below average and the local value added reseller did not know the product very well."
"This is a complex product to set up and I think it's really too detailed and could be simplified."
"The console could be more user-friendly. It would be better if SolarWinds updated the user interface."
"I would like to see some enhancement on the reporting side, such as making it a little bit easier to create reports or having a larger assortment of canned reports."
"The integration with video apps could be better."
"I would say the NPM toolset has room for improvement."
"The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market."
"It would be nice if SolarWinds could have a polling engine on the site that would collect the reporting and then manage everything itself."
"Two or three of the core functions are still nested in Win32 apps on the server; but it seems that the foundation was laid in the current website for porting those functions over in the near future."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Quite highly priced"
"We have a multi-year license for the use of this solution. There are additional costs for recourses in the environment."
"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
"We pay approximately $700 per year for renewal of the license."
"The pricing is in the middle. It's not particularly cost-effective, but it's not overly expensive either."
"We have a perpetual license for this solution, and my impression is that this solution is cheap."
"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
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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.