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Power Admin PA Server Monitor vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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

Power Admin PA Server Monitor
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
73rd
Average Rating
6.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (32nd)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (2nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Power Admin PA Server Monitor is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.5%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.5%
Power Admin PA Server Monitor0.5%
Other96.0%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

it_user225771 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Network Engineer at a engineering company with 51-200 employees
The setup is straightforward, but t​he satellite service installation file could be separated from the server one.
* The status overview page provides a state of computers monitored and provides quickly what users need to focus on * The satellite service installed on remote computers is an easy way to add clients, plus it's easy to deploy and to configure * The licence is perpetual and not linked to one computer, so it's possible to remove a licence from one computer and use it on another with no extra cost
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 possibility to develop your own VB scripts."
"The satellite service installed on remote computers is an easy way to add clients, plus it's easy to deploy and to configure the licence is perpetual and not linked to one computer, so it's possible to remove a licence from one computer and use it on another with no extra cost"
"The most valuable feature is the way it monitors the environment, and how user-friendly the console is for the end-user. The interface is also very easy and it captures all the information very well."
"What I like about SolarWinds is the application health monitoring system, which is a very good system that I recommend to big companies in the pharmaceutical or the banking industries with large networks and very critical servers."
"We used it 24/7 and it had a great ROI."
"Provides instant visibility to our support team across all the networks we monitor, allowing us to zero in on the most urgent issues and easily identify root causes of problems."
"Monitoring capabilities are at a high level and it is easy to see utilization, access ports, and CPU memory in real time or through a lens for long-term visualization."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We deployed the solution from new and completed the upgrades."
"SolarWinds is user-friendly with a manageable console."
"SolarWinds has greatly helped us, especially in tracing when the SoundCloud Software goes down without any apparent reason."
 

Cons

"Basic monitoring on Unix was working really well but it didn't really help under machines in Windows Domain Controller."
"The satellite service installation file could be separated from the server one. It would reduce the size of the file, and reduce the time to deploy on weak connections."
"There were some version releases that had stability issues but the support team was very good at letting us know what we needed to do to fix the issues."
"EOC has been a pain."
"It would be nice to manage all network devces from just one single platform, instead of going to different platforms."
"SolarWinds is not an all-in-compassing product. We are looking to change away from this solution because of the documentation and the solution doesn't have enough integration in our country."
"One of the challenges with SolarWinds is that in order to pull the data, we have to have a lot of false positives."
"Scalability is a bit tricky because it requires more gateways in order to get the performance you may need. It also requires a lot of licensing."
"The dashboards for this solution could be improved. We would like to divide the dashboards to give a clear view to our management team to show what we have and what deficiencies exist in our network."
"The reporting module that got integrated into the system itself, used to be a standalone solution and I preferred that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The cost is based on the number of nodes, so it is expensive when you have a lot of them."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"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 licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
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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
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
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

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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

PA Server Monitor
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sauder Woodworking, Symantec, Microsoft, Skull Candy, NASA, Xerox, Chevron
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Power Admin PA Server Monitor vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.