PRTG Network Monitor vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jul 29, 2023

We compared PRTG Network Monitor and SolarWinds NPM across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:

  • Features: PRTG Network Monitor customers like its user-centric approach, straightforward reporting, and customizability. SolarWinds NPM is commended for its adaptability and extensive network surveillance functionalities.

  • Room for Improvement: PRTG Network Monitor could improve its performance and resource efficiency. Other pain points include usability and cross-platform compatibility. SolarWinds NPM needs improvement in edge computing capabilities and data reporting. Users also said the performance could be better and that they would like to see expanded IPAM functionality.

  • Service and Support: PRTG Network Monitor received mixed reviews for its customer service. Some users commended the support team’s prompt service, while others reported slow response times and noted the lack of remote session support. While some customers described SolarWinds support as helpful and responsive, others reported delayed responses.

  • Ease of Deployment: PRTG Network Monitor’s setup isn’t considered to be overly complex. Deployment times may vary depending on the environment's complexity and device count. Some users said SolarWinds NPM was straightforward to set up, while others perceived it as complex.

  • Pricing: PRTG Network Monitor is deemed reasonably priced and cheaper than its competitors. The cost of SolarWinds NPM varies depending on the customer’s size and requirements. Some users find it costly.

  • ROI: Users said that PRTG Network Monitor has proven to save time and money through automation and proactive support. Some users reported immediate benefits from using SolarWinds NPM in terms of security and business outcomes, while others have not.

Comparison Results: PRTG Network Monitor is regarded as a simple, user-friendly, and cost-effective solution, but users would like to see improvements in performance, documentation, integration, and technical support. SolarWinds NPM is a customizable solution that’s easy to deploy and features comprehensive network monitoring capabilities. However, some users consider it costly and voiced concerns about technical support and user experience.

To learn more, read our detailed PRTG Network Monitor vs. SolarWinds NPM Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Q&A Highlights
Question: PRTG vs. SolarWinds: Which is a better Network Monitoring Tool?
Answer: I used both products. Without even thinking twice I will go with PRTG. Solarwinds will take you weeks to finish configuration and tweaking to your environment. I didn't like the user interface, too much data, difficult to navigate. It is way more expensive than PRTG. And they will charge you for every add on extra. I love PRTG. The installation is fast simple and clean. User interface easy to navigate. You can build your customized dashboards. They have 100s ready to go sensors and you can add your own. You can monitor almost whatever you want servers, networking, devices, circuits, ports on the switches, firewalls...They will charge you just for number of sensors you are using. Solarwinds is a monster, PRTG is much simple and doing better job than solarwinds. Definitely PRTG
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."

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"PRTG has improved our visibility and response time to issues related to remote sites.""The reporting module is easy to configure.""The product is simple and easy to implement.""It is able to satisfy all our requirements in terms of email notifications and specific errors on the devices.""We can see trends for a lot of different things, such as hard drive space and bandwidth usage. We can see and plan for the future by knowing, "We're sort of at 75% capacity now. In three months time, we know we're going to be up to 90%,so we need to plan ahead for it, getting upgrades booked in place." Since things like this take time and effort, it's handy to see trends into the future of where our company is going.""I can create my own program sensor. This means I can add extra monitoring capabilities into the already fundamentally strong foundation.""The solution is scalable.""The initial setup is very simple."

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"Technical support has always been great. They are very responsive. We've been satisfied with their level of support.""Their support team is efficient, and it is easy to set up.""We don't have any issues with the stability of SolarWinds NPM.""The most important feature is reporting. The reports that are generated are useful and they save a lot of time with respect to monitoring.""A product that is well-tested and trusted in demanding situations.""The stability is fantastic.""It's easy to understand, even if you are not too technical.""SolarWinds NPM has a colorful UI and many easy-to-use features. It does not need to be configured as much and is also easy to install."

More SolarWinds NPM Pros →

Cons
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."

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"Scalability is the only major sticking point for me. There is a recommended number of sensors, which is around 10,000 and we're double that... The only option we have to scale is to buy another core, which would be a separate, stand-alone instance...""I would like to have a VM version that can be installed on a cloud such as Azure. We're using Azure, and we're eliminating on-premise servers. It would be helpful to have a PRTG version that can be installed on the Azure cloud.""It probably has this already, but if it had a mobile app that would be helpful. For example, on a day like today when I'm out, if I could just fire it up and see green, green, green, green, green or red, that would be good.""The solution has to evolve as an end-to-end monitoring solution. It has to do better at understanding the application at the deepest level.""In the next release, PRTG Network Monitor should add a backup solution.""The remote probes seem to be a little bit buggy at times. They just stop working or they say they can't communicate. What we tend to do to is install the remote app onto the servers that we use. That seems to clear it up.""Mostly, this software has sensors for devices to monitor specs and you can build or develop or modify various sensors, according to your company's needs. But you may need to do that with coding or plugins or with the support of Paessler AG, the manufacturer.""This product can be improved by updating the net flow interface. The one that is in place works – I can get all the information I need from it – but it is a little bit clunky."

More PRTG Network Monitor Cons →

"GUI needs improvement with a more graphical dashboard.""The solution could improve in many areas, such as the marketing and description of the products, providing areas of improvement, cloud capabilities, and being able to be more streamlined with the current integration points with other applications.""The SolarWinds notification and alerting configuration could be simplified as it would be easier to find if it was within the NPM web application instead of in a separate client application.""SolarWinds could offer more support and insights for a broader range of devices. Currently, it focuses on routers, switches, and some load balancers. However, it lacks an out-of-the-box dashboard for monitoring firewalls and some other modern network security devices. We have to customize it a lot.""We'd like to see a bit more automation in the future.""Currently lacks integration with SMS services.""If they did some type of synthetic monitoring, it would have been better.""A feature I would ask for is for them to have this solution available for Linux systems instead of Windows."

More SolarWinds NPM Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
Information Not Available
  • "Licenses are very expensive, so I would like to see cheaper licensing."
  • "If you're looking for a cost effective software I’d suggest this product."
  • "Sensors on free version can run out quick."
  • "The ability to use the base version with 100 free sensors is great. The cost on other packages can be very reasonable."
  • "When you buy PRTG, everything comes in one bundle. Licensing is very easy."
  • "The price was pretty good, very competitive."
  • "The pricing is not too bad. It's not massively expensive, and the ability to upscale or even downscale licenses every year is brilliant for us."
  • "On a yearly basis, I believe it's between £1,200 and £1,500."
  • More PRTG Network Monitor Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I’d suggest that people be aware that licensing has tiers."
  • "Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
  • "I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
  • "The licensing model is such that you can purchase only what you need; and then grow into the next level by paying only the difference in price and the associated maintenance costs."
  • "The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
  • "I believe the original setup cost was around $3500 with an annual cost of around $1200-$1500 to renew the support license. This would bring the average day-to-day cost of around $5-$6 over three years."
  • "You have to license it per year, for the support. You don't really need to have support once you've already set it up. Once you install SolarWinds, you can skip on the licensing. It will still work."
  • "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."
  • More SolarWinds NPM Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    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 using these, but they require quite some expertise before you can use them. Then there are the ones that are not open source, the enterprise softwares and cost you some money, but on the other hand, they are extremely easy to set-up and learn. You can have them up and running in a matter of minutes. And then there are those which are completely cloud based. They can be free of cost or charge some money depending on the software. The good thing about these is that you don’t have to install any extra software, and it can be managed completely online but then again these have limited features and you cannot exploit them to the full extent as you can do with the open-source and to some extent the enterprise software, so I won’t suggest you to use these, because these are generally not the complete solutions and require other support software to achieve the same. Below I have listed the outstanding pros and cons of the various Network analyzers that you can look into Nagios Pros: Nagios offers an extensive set of collector plug-ins that allows users to gather performance and availability data from a broad range of operating systems, including  Windows and Netware Nagios… Read more →
    Answers from the Community
    Anonymous User
    it_user171936 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user171936 (Works at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees)
    Vendor

    PTRG would give you almost the same functionality as solarwinds at less cost. the key is to understand the protocols that run monitoring which would include SNMP, and netflows which actually show you human readable data in terms of monitoring your network bandwidth. in my opinion if you wnat cost savings go with PTRG if you can afford it then go with solarwinds.

    it_user539928 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user539928 (Consultant at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees)
    Real User

    My Pittsburgh experience shows that Zabbix is worth checking out:
    http://www.zabbix.com/product/
    add Grafana for custom charting and dashboards:
    http://play.grafana-zabbix.org/dashboard/db/grafana-zabbix-demo

    I would strongly recommend that you perform a Proof of Concept with at least two candidates. Look at how they will be able to scale both in number of input sources as well as handling for instance different data centers for storage... Also how is per node licensing or costs handled.

    it_user490464 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user490464 (Works)
    Vendor

    We're really happy with PRTG. It's a graphically-rich environment that really has helped us to diagnose difficult issues and solve them. And hey, Germans make good stuff...

    it_user629442 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user629442 (Network Analyst at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees)
    Vendor

    I used both and found SolarWinds to be the more intuitive, more full-featured, preferred product.

    it_user576222 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user576222 (Business Development Representative - Asia Pacific & Japan at a tech company with 201-500 employees)
    Real User

    I strongly recommend to use SevOne. The SevOne toolset is the fastest and most scalable on the market through our distributed architecture approach. Where similar tools can take hours to report once used at scale SevOne can monitor and report in seconds on all digital infrastructure including network, compute, storage, cloud, virtual, SDN etc.

    Moshiur Rahman Khan - PeerSpot reviewerMoshiur Rahman Khan
    Real User

    I used both in large network environments; Solarwinds outlook interface is quite simple than PRTG but if you want to monitor real time traffic using SNMP, PRTG is the best choice but Solarwind counts on an average basis from interface. Even PRTG better to monitor hardware ram, harddisk, processors utilization , SQL traffic status , AD information is good than Solarwind. Two separate PRTG server at remote place support clustering in WAN environments with same costing but Solarwind has limitations. I used to generate customs SLA with respect to defined time frame ; PRTG is good choice for best report generation than Solarwind. PRTG license cost is flexible against interfaces but Solarwind counts per device , users, interface basis.
    Now weak points of PRTG : 1) Log kills huge spaces as it counts per second basis. It doesn't have auto removal option based on duration. I made a scripts to remove logs earlier than 365 days. 2) Solarwind quickly detects interface up status than PRTG. Another fantastic NMS software is "whatsUpGold' which is better than Solarwind and cost is device based (not interface ) and cheaper than Solarwind. With respect to log/event management /SIEM /SOC Solarwind is good for SME type environments.
    -moshiur

    Ravi Khanchandani - PeerSpot reviewerRavi Khanchandani
    Reseller

    Would prefer Solarwinds for the following reasons -
    Tight integration with major vendors - Cisco, Arista, Juniper and more
    New NetPath feature enables faster troubleshooting
    Scales well to support larger setups
    Modular platform to include Servers, Applications, NetFlow, IPAM, DB's, Storage devices & more

    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points.
    Top Answer:The product is not expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
    Top Answer:The Wi-Fi side needs improvement. In most warehouse environments, there are shortfalls in such conditions. We often face… more »
    Top Answer:PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it… more »
    Top Answer:Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
    Top Answer:I rate the price of PRTG Network Monitor an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low… more »
    Top Answer:It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are… more »
    Top Answer:From my point of view, SolarWind is the best tool.
    Top Answer:We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
    Learn More
    Overview

    Juniper Mist Premium Analytics is a comprehensive network analytics solution that provides organizations with valuable insights into their network performance and user experience. The primary use case of this product is to enable IT teams to proactively monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize their network infrastructure.

    The most valuable functionality of Juniper Mist Premium Analytics is its AI-driven insights and recommendations. Leveraging machine learning algorithms, it analyzes vast amounts of network data to identify anomalies, predict potential issues, and suggest remediation actions. This proactive approach helps organizations minimize network downtime, improve user experience, and optimize network performance.

    By providing real-time visibility into network performance, Juniper Mist Premium Analytics helps organizations quickly identify and resolve network issues. It offers detailed analytics on network traffic, application performance, and user behavior, allowing IT teams to pinpoint the root cause of problems and take immediate action. This not only reduces troubleshooting time but also enhances overall network reliability.

    Furthermore, Juniper Mist Premium Analytics enables organizations to optimize their network infrastructure. It provides insights into network capacity utilization, application usage patterns, and user behavior, allowing IT teams to make informed decisions about network design, resource allocation, and capacity planning. This helps organizations to ensure that their network is efficiently utilized and can support the growing demands of their users.

    PRTG Network Monitor runs on a Windows machine within your network, collecting various statistics from the machines, software, and devices which you designate. PRTG comes with an easy-to-use web interface with point-and-click configuration. You can easily share data from it with non-technical colleagues and customers, including via live graphs and custom reports. This will let you plan for network expansion, see what applications are using most of your connection, and make sure that no one is hogging the entire network just to torrent videos.

    To monitor a large IT environment, it's important to be able to scale PRTG up. Paessler PRTG Enterprise Monitor includes all the proven capabilities of PRTG Network Monitor, which are enhanced by exclusive ITOps Board for a service-oriented, central overview of multiple PRTG servers.

    SolarWinds NPM is a network monitoring solution that enables you to detect, diagnose, and resolve network performance issues and outages quickly and efficiently. The solution is a powerful tool that can help you increase service levels, reduce downtime with multi vendor network monitoring, simplify the management of complex network devices, improve operational efficiency, and much more.

    SolarWinds NPM Features

    SolarWinds NPM has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Increased scalability
    • Fault, performance, and availability monitoring
    • Dynamic network discovery and mapping
    • Cross-stack network data correlation
    • Customizable topology
    • Dependency-aware intelligent alerts
    • Intelligent maps
    • Automated capacity forecasting, alerting, and reporting
    • Logical and physical network monitoring
    • Monitor Azure vNet gateway visibility

    SolarWinds NPM Benefits

    There are several benefits to implementing SolarWinds NPM. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Comprehensive monitoring for advanced network devices: With SolarWinds NPM, you can gain insight into the health and performance of your load balancers, Cisco ASA and Palo Alto Networks, firewalls, and Cisco Nexus switches.
    • Hardware health monitoring: SolarWinds NPM makes it easy for you to monitor, alert, and report on key device metrics, including power supply, fan speed, and temperature.
    • Customizable performance and availability reports: With this feature, you can choose from more than 100 templates to schedule and also generate custom network performance reports.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the SolarWinds NPM solution.

    PeerSpot user Andrew N., Senior Network Engineer at Element Critical, says, “The "Performance Analyzer" feature is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's able to do the bounded graphs of all the interface stats, from errors to broadcasts and to current traffic. With a click of a button you're able to, in one interface, look at historical data for those items.” He also adds, “From the troubleshooting point of view, just having that peace of mind is great. And, The solution is extremely stable. We haven't had any issues in that regard. We haven't had issues with bugs, glitches, or crashes."

    Daniel S., Systems and Data Warehouse Supervisor at MMSD, mentions, “The alerting and usage tracking is a valuable feature because it alerts us when we're getting near capacity on disk space, network utilization or processor utilization. It helps us manage our capacity and enables us to be proactive.”

    A Senior Vice President and CIO at a financial services firm explains, “As we look to add more servers to our virtual environment and to understand the impact, the solution allows us to dig into the historical charts related to capacity planning. It also gives us visibility of spikes and allows us to track down the reasons for their occurrences. So too, it makes room for potential processes that have gotten hung or runaway and to know when it's time to reboot a server or service.”

    Dinesh N., Digital Innovation at Bobcat Company, states, “The best part of the solution is the sharing display. It gives a general public ID wherein everyone can link to a public display. That's a good feature.”


    Fazal A., Implementation & Support Specialist at 360Factors, comments, “We have configured multiple alerts for our network devices, including routers and switches, so that we are notified if any interface goes down. In the event an interface goes down, we have multiple reports that include availability monitoring, network uptime monitoring, and network downtime monitoring. These reports are on multiple schedules such as the end of the day, end of the last business day of the week, monthly, and quarterly. This gives us the ability to provide reports to our management and let them know the performance of our network.”

    Offer
    Learn more about Juniper Mist Premium Analytics
    Get ahead of IT infrastructure issues

    With PRTG Network Monitor you can identify and solve potential issues before it affects anyone. Download a free 30-day trial today and experience the benefits of 24-hour IT Infrastructure Monitoring.

    Learn more about SolarWinds NPM
    Sample Customers
    Information Not Available
    Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank
    Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government8%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider14%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Construction Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization45%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Government6%
    Financial Services Firm4%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company12%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Healthcare Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization50%
    Computer Software Company7%
    Government5%
    Manufacturing Company5%
    Company Size
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise63%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business47%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise35%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise54%
    Large Enterprise29%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business12%
    Midsize Enterprise55%
    Large Enterprise33%
    Buyer's Guide
    PRTG Network Monitor vs. SolarWinds NPM
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about PRTG Network Monitor vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    PRTG Network Monitor is ranked 7th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 96 reviews while SolarWinds NPM is ranked 6th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 146 reviews. PRTG Network Monitor is rated 8.2, while SolarWinds NPM is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of PRTG Network Monitor writes "It's an all-in-one solution, and net flow is included in the licensing ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds NPM writes "High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface". PRTG Network Monitor is most compared with Zabbix, Nagios XI, Centreon, ManageEngine OpManager and Fortinet FortiSIEM, whereas SolarWinds NPM is most compared with Zabbix, ManageEngine OpManager, ThousandEyes, LogicMonitor and Meraki Dashboard. See our PRTG Network Monitor vs. SolarWinds NPM report.

    See our list of best IT Infrastructure Monitoring vendors, best Cloud Monitoring Software vendors, and best Network Monitoring Software vendors.

    We monitor all Cloud Monitoring Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.