PRTG Network Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Zabbix comparison

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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PRTG Network Monitor

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between PRTG Network Monitor, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, and Zabbix based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software.

To learn more, read our detailed Network Monitoring Software Report (Updated: September 2025).

Network Monitoring Software

September 2025

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Helped 867,821 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Mindshare comparison

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
PRTG Network Monitor	4.2%
Zabbix	11.7%
LibreNMS	4.6%
Other	79.5%

Network Monitoring Software

Server Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	2.7%
Zabbix	25.9%
Checkmk	10.5%
Other	60.900000000000006%

Server Monitoring

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Zabbix	11.7%
LibreNMS	4.6%
SolarWinds NPM	4.5%
Other	79.2%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Noman-Saleem

Network Support Officer at Habib Metropolitan Bank Ltd

Detects suden changes but significant pricing concerns affect the effectiveness of network traffic troubleshooting

We use PRTG Network Monitor for monitoring traffic on interfaces and the behavior of network traffic. If there are sudden changes in traffic or any configuration issues, we can sort them out using PRTG. It's very helpful for troubleshooting and monitoring traffic utilization on our interfaces…

Offering reasonably good dashboarding features but needs to improve the application performance monitoring

VIVEK PATHAK

Solutions Architect at Airtel

My company uses Riverbed for application performance monitoring. I was doing research so that I could understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provide APM capabilities similar to Riverbed, which allows our company to get a packet capture of an entire session, and on the basis of it, we look at the application performance monitoring part. With SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, my company does SNMP polling, so it can drag an entire session, but it focuses more on availability, CPU memory, and server connection status. In Riverbed, my company catches an entire system, so when we deal with two applications, we have end-to-end app visibility. All the application monitoring happens through Riverbed. Our company's main problem is that, as of now, we have two different products in our organization, and we don't want to continue with the multiple products currently. I wanted to understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor already have capabilities like Riverbed, and if they do, then I wanted to figure out why our company should not go with SolarWinds and why we are using products from multiple vendors. My company needs to continue with either Riverbed or SolarWinds. I wanted to see which products are good for the organization and how much I want to continue with Riverbed.

Enables seamless global client monitoring with reliable remote connectivity

B Ahmed

Manager, Information Technology Zara & Inditex at Cenomi

I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients. Many tools that I require for system maintenance are included. I can easily monitor all of my clients throughout the world I did not give much thought to it, however, improvements could be made to Zabbix.…

More PRTG Network Monitor pros

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"It is very flexible, and we can monitor many aspects of IT as well as ERP and CRM services. It has a very powerful interface and APIs for customization."

"PRTG Network Monitor is user-friendly and offers flexible alerting systems."

"The reporting module is easy to configure."

"PRTG Network Monitor helps us quickly and easily discover a large number of sensors, so we can spend minimal time monitoring customer sites."

"We like the alerting system, the SNMP monitoring and the customization of the bandwidth."

"Its proactiveness is its most valuable feature. We already know when we come in, in the morning, if a server or site is down, as opposed to someone telling us."

"I really love the activity library. It gives the flexibility to discover data and metrics about my interface and data server."

"Stable solution for monitoring networks and bandwidth, with multiple functions and features such as NetFlow Collector, graphical monitoring, etc."

"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."

"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."

"I adore the NTA module that provides deep details on ingress/egress traffic for any interface. With a few clicks, you can correlate who is accessing what and when, beside the bandwidth consuming applications/users."

"The solution has good alerts. Notifications are sent via email to technicians. You can filter the kinds of alerts you want to receive as well. It's excellent."

"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."

"The solution can be deployed quickly."

"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."

"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"Dashboard and the customization of the items and triggers are the most valuable features."

"It provides high scalability, alerting, notification, templating, and end-to-end security."

"The solution allows you to configure and customize how you want to collect information from servers or other systems."

"The most valuable features are the monitoring and the ease with which we can set it up at customer sites with our custom Zabbix proxy and tools."

"It is a great product. The SNMP protocol tracking feature is good. I really like how it tracks SNMP. The alerts are also great."

"Zabbix is scalable."

"The integration with third-party tools and the alerts are most valuable."

"The solution is open-source, easy to manage, and user-friendly making it easy for anyone to use."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"The technical support could respond a little bit quicker."

"PRTG Network Monitor could improve the price."

"Sometimes, it is difficult to drill down further to get information, e.g., if we saw spike in traffic, then we would want to drill down and find out what is causing that spike in traffic."

"PRTG Network Monitor is okay to use, but you'll need some time to analyze the data. If it can automatically locate or identify the problem area, it would be more helpful to users."

"I would like a more straightforward ability to create dashboards and maps. The network maps should be a bit more flexibility in the GUI to do what we need to do."

"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."

"The only sort of limitation is the actual probes. So, if you don't have enough probes on there, you can over flip them and cause the WMI sensors and SNMP sensors to sort of overload. Sometimes, they might timeout for a minute, but they do come back."

"Other monitoring tools that I have used are easier to use."

More PRTG Network Monitor cons

"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"

"There is one feature that is a report writer. And they are currently trying to take it out from being a stand-alone application and integrating to the web. This doesn't give us the flexibility and it doesn't expand what we can get when it comes to reporting. So, putting it on the web is going to make it difficult to get some information. Leaving it where it is now will help us a lot."

"Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."

"The tool’s report feature created issues for us. We needed to gain skills to use that feature. The tool’s customization is not easy since you have to reconfigure the whole system."

"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."

"Currently SolarWinds SAM offers AppInsight for modern versions of: IIS, Exchange, SQL Server. They have shown to be powerful and insightful tools. However, AppInsight needs to be offered for more applications: Citrix, SharePoint, AX, etc."

"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."

"Mapping interactions between systems."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"Correlation of events would be a wonderful addition."

"The initial setup could be complex if you don't have templates. If creating templates from scratch, it's quite difficult, but if you are using already pre-created templates and setups for your needs, it looks very good."

"To improve Zabbix, adding more features to support the monitoring of modern workloads like containers would be beneficial."

"There are a lot of areas for improvement, specifically in the dashboards and reports functionalities."

"One of the things we don't like is that Zabbix has a license structure with a price that is high compared to the competition. It's very high, for example, compared to something like Microsoft Teams."

"Zabbix could improve when it comes to large-scale use cases. Additionally, the inventory could be better when connecting to other solutions, such as ServiceNow. There show to be better integration with other platforms and storage."

"I want Zabbix to improve the UX/UI. Zabbix doesn't use a JavaScript chart for images, and I want them to improve this."

"The dashboard and the graph section could be a little bit more professional."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have an unlimited license for this solution."

"I would like better pricing models for smaller businesses. The free version is fantastic, but it's too restrictive. If they could just get up to 200 sensors for a reasonable fee for on-premise, I would give PRTG my credit card right now."

"We pay for PRTG Network Monitor annually. The price is approximately 10,000 rupees annually."

"While I am not the person who deals with pricing, I would say that we pay around 1000 pounds a year."

"We pay for a perpetual license and we have a support fee."

"The pricing is reasonable for the features provided."

"One thing I like is that when you buy sensors, it's a perpetual license, so once you buy 2,000 sensors, you've got 2,000 sensors; it's not a recurring cost."

"We bought a license for 4000 sensors."

More PRTG Network Monitor pricing and cost advice

"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."

"The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each."

"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."

"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."

"I would advise potential buyers to wait until the end of the quarter, end of year, or other time to place orders. There are actually great deals to be had at those times if your budget cycle can match up."

"The product is expensive."

"The licenses start from USD 3000.00 and go up to USD 20,000.00 for the year. It's a perpetual license. Nothing is free in SolarWinds, anything that you need is an additional cost."

"SAM is not per server so the pricing model can be deceiving. If you have an enterprise environment, you will quickly exceed your licensing quickly. You should know this before going in."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"It is worth every cent to pay or even study to do your own installation."

"We use the open-source version of Zabbix."

"We were searching for an open source solution and Zabbix fit the bill because it is free and open source under the GPL license."

"This is an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"The solution is free to use but they offer support as a paid service. If you can go read the manuals and do the fine-tuning based on your needs, you do not need to pay anything and you will have a full solution."

"We purchased Zabbix for a good price, including support"

"I use the tool's free version."

"It is reasonable."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

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…

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	54
Midsize Enterprise	18
Large Enterprise	38

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	20

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	53
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	34

Questions from the Community

PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it a...

What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?

The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?

The pricing is in the middle. It's not too high, nor too low, but it's reasonable.

What do you like most about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

The initial cost is quite high, but the renewal cost is reasonable.

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and App...

What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

If you want to save costs, you can use Zabbix.

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

The reporting is lacking because this is an open-source tool, and nowadays, management's expectation is that the repo...

PRTG Enterprise Monitor vs PRTG Network Monitor

Comparisons

Compared 7% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Centreon vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

LibreNMS vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 4% of the time

Nagios XI vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 4% of the time

More PRTG Network Monitor Competitors

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 17% of the time

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 16% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 9% of the time

Prometheus Group vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Tanium vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 3% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Checkmk vs Zabbix

Compared 9% of the time

LibreNMS vs Zabbix

Compared 9% of the time

Icinga vs Zabbix

Compared 6% of the time

NetXMS vs Zabbix

Compared 4% of the time

Elastic Observability vs Zabbix

Compared 2% of the time

More Zabbix Competitors

Product Reports

Download PRTG Network Monitor product report

PRTG Network Monitor

September 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

August 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Download Zabbix product report

August 2025

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds SAM

No data available

Overview

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.

Paessler GmbH

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers powerful application and server monitoring capabilities for IT pros, enabling them to diagnose and troubleshoot performance issues faster. Do not let slow applications and downtime impact your end-users and business services. Pinpoint the root cause of application issues across various layers of the IT stack. SolarWinds SAM is affordable and easy to deploy, use, and customize. You can automatically discover your system's environment and start monitoring in about an hour. No professional services or consultation needed.

SolarWinds

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

Sample Customers

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

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba