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OmniPeek 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

OmniPeek
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
47th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (37th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of OmniPeek is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
OmniPeek0.5%
Other95.9%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Vinal-Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Architect, internally known as Network Transformation Lead at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Real-time analytics and alerts improve application performance and network operations
OmniPeek's ability to convert application visibility into flow helps me quickly understand application performance over LAN, WAN, or wireless. Its real-time analytics, integrated with LiveNX, allow me to monitor business-critical applications and set up alerts for application performance issues. This centralized dashboard and alert system is highly valuable for maintaining network operations.
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 most valuable features are the voice bot, which checks the quality of service for voice, and the expert view that gives me insight on what and where to troubleshoot."
"The most valuable feature is OmniPeek is user-friendly."
"I believe the most crucial feature of OmniPeek search is the ability to sniff packets based on channel switching."
"OmniPeek shows the entire packet flow and structure, particularly in security-related scenarios, whereas Wireshark sometimes fails to capture all packets."
"The most valuable feature of OmniPeek is the ability to assign custom color codes to the different packets easily."
"The most valuable feature of OmniPeek was the ability it gave us to see the connection procedure."
"OmniPeek's ability to convert application visibility into flow helps me quickly understand application performance over LAN, WAN, or wireless."
"It's a solid piece of software. It's stable."
"In my experience with SolarWinds NPM Quality of Experience dashboard, it fulfilled all of our requirements."
"Network performance is the main issue clients are facing. SolarWinds checks if a node is down, and we can set thresholds for performance metrics. For example, we set it up to get an alert automatically if a value is over 80 percent. It has a full dashboard that covers CP, hard disk, and node monitoring."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the monitoring capabilities."
"SolarWinds is reasonably priced."
"The people in technical support are very good."
"I believe the ease of setup and use, including everything, from the initial installation to the discovery of devices is the most valuable."
"SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks."
"We had some interfaces where the SFP Ports were having some problems after a while. We found which of the SFP Ports was having the error and changed it, so the bandwidth become okay."
 

Cons

"I would like to see the saving feature improved. We have had issues if you do not save your progress then you have to start from the beginning."
"Making it more clear on how to configure the filters, or really automating them, would be an improvement."
"I don't see a clear roadmap in the future for improving this software."
"OmniPeek doesn't support Linux or Unix installations, which prompted the shift to Wireshark."
"I am not using OmniPeek for automation, we only do manual testing. Automation testing is tedious to do. The automation should be more user-friendly. I have exposed some APIs but the usage is not user-friendly."
"I would like to see the tool work in an open environment the same as how it does in a closed environment."
"The solution's automation has room for improvement."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"Technical support can be slow to respond."
"The console could be more user-friendly. It would be better if SolarWinds updated the user interface."
"GUI needs improvement with a more graphical dashboard."
"The initial setup of SolarWinds NPM is complex, and I find it challenging."
"It is not that stable. As a Windows software, I have seen issues with SolarWinds. The performance is slow."
"If they did some type of synthetic monitoring, it would have been better."
"The product is scalable, but at a cost. Extra modules have to be purchased for each extra server. The initial set up isn't complex, but will require someone who is experienced with the network monitoring system"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have only purchased the add-on once and have not paid for any subsequent versions as it was too costly for us."
"There are different types of licenses available."
"The pricing for this solution could be improved, as it is a very expensive product."
"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."
"SolarWinds is expensive. That's why it's primarily banks using the solution. Small businesses can't afford it. Due to its pricing, most smaller enterprises like manufacturing companies are not interested. For example, we have a client who is also interested in traffic monitoring, but they are not purchasing SolarWinds because of the cost."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"It is not an expensive product."
"It's expensive and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"We pay for SolarWinds NPM yearly. We buy it and then we renew it, but it's not subscription-based. I don't remember the value exactly, because it's my manager who manages pricing, but we pay $60,000 per year for all the solutions. Pricing will also depend on the number of devices. We have a lot of devices."
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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
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
9%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with OmniPeek?
There isn't anything specific that needs improvement in OmniPeek, as it performs better than Wireshark for our requirements. However, OmniPeek could benefit from supporting different platforms. Pla...
What is your primary use case for OmniPeek?
I have been working with the OmniPeek product for almost two years at the start of my career, primarily using it for wireless 802.11 Wi-Fi packets, sniffer, and analysis. My experience with OmniPee...
What advice do you have for others considering OmniPeek?
I didn't explore much about OmniPeek beyond its basic features. OmniPeek is user-friendly and easy to start working with, especially on the Windows platform. For beginners, it is very easy to handl...
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

Savvius OmniPeek
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Apcon, Aruba Networks, Avaya Inc., Cisco Systems, Ekahau, Gigamon Systems, HP, IBM, IXIA, Meru Networks, Napatech, NextComputing, Procera Networks, Qualcomm Atheros, Ralink Technology Corporation, Telchemy
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about OmniPeek vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,192 professionals have used our research since 2012.