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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

"Using this platform has allowed us to reach and assist our remotely based clients, regardless of their location provided they have an internet connection."
"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 gives you remote control and has a mobile app."
"So this solution allows for 24/7 support and is very handy."
"The solution has great workflow and server modules."
"We like the patching of the window updates in the client's systems. You can automatically do updates with a single click."
"They provide a lot of features; it's good and easy software."
"The setup is simple."
"SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks."
"Single pane for monitoring scales and creates new business opportunities."
"Whether you want basic enterprise network monitoring or a full suite of network diagnostic tools and monitors, I recommend Orion 9 for its full feature set and ease of use."
"In general, I think SolarWinds is one of the most stable solutions and it has a lot of useful features for network performance monitoring."
"At the moment, our main tool is SolarWinds NPM, and we keep using it, especially for monitoring cloud devices."
"Solarwinds network performance monitor is a strong product that combines management (SNMP), monitoring (SYSLOG) and configuration of routers and switches."
"All the features are very good. The monitoring of the equipment, the configuration manager, and the IP address monitoring are great."
"This product is extremely flexible and customizable, with significant out-of-the-box monitoring and, with custom properties and some ingenuity, you can get it to do pretty much anything else."
 

Cons

"GUI needs to be improved and the solution lacks a process for monitoring VOIP calls."
"There are some bugs or glitches."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"They have good technical support but it's not excellent."
"They have good technical support but it's not excellent."
"Another feature I would ask for is for them to have this solution available for Linux systems instead of Windows."
"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 needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features."
"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."
"The response time of the support team needs to improve"
"SolarWinds offers some options for scalability, but there is a bottleneck on some features."
"The solution's customer service is not very good because the support takes too long."
"NPM comes with a tool called Network Atlas. Currently, it can only link switches to switches and only if all the corresponding ports are monitored."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."
"We pay approximately $700 per year for renewal of the license."
"Price could be improved on"
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"The cost is based on the number of nodes, so it is expensive when you have a lot of them."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"
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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
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Educational Organization
6%
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

Ask a question
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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.
886,576 professionals have used our research since 2012.