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Pulseway 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

Pulseway
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
51st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (16th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (14th)
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 April 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Pulseway is 0.6%, up from 0.2% 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%
Pulseway0.6%
Other95.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Pieter Plas - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at Beerepoot Automatisering B.V.
A solution with a great monitoring system and ability to control access remotely
The initial setup was straightforward. Deployment depends on the size of a customer. We make the customer in the enterprise server, and there is a download per customer for the installation package. We can also roll it out very easily, and when we install it on one or two systems, it explores the network for more systems. We can then fire a deployment package on the other systems. So in one hour, we can do a lot. Most of the time, 90% of the work is very easy, and the last 10% are the business-critical systems from a customer. Also, we manually install important customer systems, like special applications where we like to monitor specific services in the server itself.
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

"It has been very helpful to get notifications about various issues with my servers and network to help me take action to resolve problems before they become major issues."
"One of the applications I have used the most was to troubleshoot users and I've never faced difficulties or issues with the application itself."
"It has made life a lot easier for the administrators."
"The setup is simple."
"They provide a lot of features; it's good and easy software."
"We like the patching of the window updates in the client's systems. You can automatically do updates with a single click."
"The solution has great workflow and server modules."
"It gives you remote control and has a mobile app."
"From web interfaces to custom monitors and alarms, this product has a high level of flexibility that can be molded to suit your business needs, regardless of the size of your organization."
"The most valuable features of SolarWinds NPM are network performance monitoring and the overall benefit for servers."
"I believe the ease of setup and use, including everything, from the initial installation to the discovery of devices is the most valuable."
"We use NPM to monitor our enterprise for up/down status on network devices."
"It is considerably cheaper compared to other tools and available technologies in terms of LMS or EMS."
"Without NPM monitoring, we would be in a world of hurt and constantly responding to outages and unexpected downtime."
"It gives us a map of the network setup and one console to see the entire network."
"I like the tracking feature to track devices and see where they are connected, which is very practical."
 

Cons

"Support needs to be improved because we've sometimes had to wait 24 hours to get a response."
"Sometimes the speed is a problem. When I've been remote controlling people, from time to time, there were some issues with people in Hong Kong."
"GUI needs to be improved and the solution lacks a process for monitoring VOIP calls."
"However, the solution does not allow you to make a script for just one customer, so it would be great if that is improved."
"There are some bugs or glitches."
"It would be nice if it also had a desktop application, similar to the phone app, which would allow me to monitor and control computers from my desktop."
"The solution does not allow you to make a script for just one customer."
"They have good technical support but it's not excellent."
"Dependencies: Created dependencies are not visible for management/editing by default until some tweaking is done. It would be better if this is enabled by default."
"The interface could be made more user-friendly."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"The integration with video apps could be better."
"The solution's database performance could be improved."
"We previously used WhatsUpGold, which has a fraction of the features for a tenth of the price."
"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."
"We do see issues, but not so many major ones."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The solution can become very expensive and commercially not viable in countries, such as India."
"The NPM component of the system costs approximately $1,000 USD per year."
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
"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."
"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."
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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
Construction Company
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
 

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

Dell, Canon, Siemens, Harvard University, Northwestern University
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Pulseway vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
890,071 professionals have used our research since 2012.