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Pulseway vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

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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
77th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (28th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (17th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Pulseway is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.7%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.7%
Pulseway0.7%
Other95.6%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2132892 - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at Hogan's Systems Consulting, LLC
Great notifications, a wide variety of features, and excellent monitoring capabilities
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. It's nice to be able to do things remotely using my phone; however, in many cases, it would be very helpful to be able to do things from a desktop or laptop computer. This would be especially useful for things like remote access to computers. It's too hard to do much on a Windows computer using a tiny phone screen. Being able to do things from a desktop or laptop computer would be much more productive.
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

"We like the patching of the window updates in the client's systems. You can automatically do updates with a single click."
"The setup is simple."
"Using this platform has allowed us to reach and assist our remotely based clients, regardless of their location provided they have an internet connection."
"The solution has great workflow and server modules."
"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."
"It has made life a lot easier for the administrators."
"It gives you remote control and has a mobile app."
"They provide a lot of features; it's good and easy software."
"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 benefit of this solution is the reporting; we're able to report on and see our network in a graphical form, and we are able to detect when a device is added to a network."
"The product covers our needs for the basic care and feeding of servers, whether they are physical or virtual."
"We were able to unify our entire company under one monitoring solution that works for everybody, saving a ton of time and significantly speeding up problem-resolution time."
"As a large school district, I can tell you that NPM is very valuable to us."
"We use NPM to monitor our enterprise for up/down status on network devices."
"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, and with a click of a button you're able to, in one interface, look at historical data for those items."
"We found that it was easy to operate, and it was simple if anyone has entry-level working experience or even if someone is not experienced."
 

Cons

"Remote Desktop Assistance for Mac endpoints - not having this functionality is a major inconvenience in having to have two systems for clients using this platform."
"GUI needs to be improved and the solution lacks a process for monitoring VOIP calls."
"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."
"There are some bugs or glitches."
"However, the solution does not allow you to make a script for just one customer, so it would be great if that is improved."
"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."
"They have good technical support but it's not excellent."
"We have not had a lot of opportunities to use technical support. When we did I was not particularly impressed with their response time or expertise."
"We also had to be attentive to vulnerabilities, because SolarWinds NPM have some issues in that area. We had to work with our security team, so that they could help us check and backup the data, and check what they needed to secure."
"SolarWinds NPM can be very slow at times. The database optimization can be done to improve the product performance."
"Yes, plenty of those that our systems team has spent hours on the phone with Solarwinds support with trying to rectify."
"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."
"I would like to see integration with antivirus or other security endpoint solutions."
"I would say the NPM toolset has room for improvement."
"Better support and integration for vendors other than Cisco."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"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 price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"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 licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes."
"Licenses depend on the number of devices, but all license levels come with technical support."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"When I compare the cost of CA Spectrum to that of SolarWinds NPM, the cost of CA Spectrum is way too high, and the cost of SolarWinds NPM is pretty low."
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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%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
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...
 

Comparisons

 

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: September 2026.
915,383 professionals have used our research since 2012.