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Alluvio AppResponse 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

Alluvio AppResponse
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
57th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (48th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Alluvio AppResponse is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.5%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM4.5%
Alluvio AppResponse0.5%
Other95.0%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmet Kilic - PeerSpot reviewer
It's a total solution that gives you end-to-end visibility at all levels
I rate Alluvio AppResponse 10 out of 10. If you work for a financial company especially, you probably face problems on the application side. The problem is easy to identify, but you need to determine the root cause. You can solve issues easily via AppResponse because it shows you all the details of your transactions so you can see the real problem in the database, network, software, etc. For example, you can find the solution easily if you create the right dashboard on your site. If you can't find the problem, you can observe or investigate PCAP.
Masud Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers alerting service to trigger alerts and easy to manage
For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices and device/interface monitoring. We have also used NCM (Network Configuration Manager) for our network. We use the alerting service to trigger alerts based on specific thresholds, like CPU or memory utilization exceeding a certain percentage. There are AI network initiatives in SolarWinds NPM for some lengthy issues. For example, it shows availability reports. But for bandwidth monitoring, it's not very clear how much bandwidth is being consumed. SolarWinds provide real-time bandwidth monitoring. It is not difficult to manage the network with SolarWinds. We have one customer with a satellite location. If we have a large network with, let's say, 43,000 elements, and our current SolarWinds license supports only 30,000, we would need to create another polling engine to accommodate the additional 13,000 elements. It's limited to the polling engine, so we can only support 30,000 elements per engine. So it's only for 30,000, but we have at least 40,000 elements in our network.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AppResponse is a total solution that gives you end-to-end visibility into applications at all levels, from Layer 1 to Layer 7. We can trace all those sections: physical, IP, transport, presentation, application, etc. It gives us the full picture."
"You need a packet capture device to perform any type of network monitoring. It helps ensure that network overloads don't happen with alerts allowing for proactive decisions."
"It provides us with complete visibility of every packet."
"We really like the scalability capabilities."
"Ability to see end to end user, application, server, and network response time and throughput data."
"It's a stable product. Riverbed has invested a significant amount of research and development into it, so it's a solid tool overall."
"The most valuable feature of Alluvio AppResponse is the actual response time for measuring performance."
"I have found the AppResponse, which is a packet capture solution, very good. It gives you the ability to drill down back in time. You've got all the packets there. You can troubleshoot it later, not immediately. It's very interesting."
"The alerting and reporting capabilities of the tool are impressive"
"The most valuable feature is the way it monitors the environment, and how user-friendly the console is for the end-user. The interface is also very easy and it captures all the information very well."
"I believe the ease of setup and use, including everything, from the initial installation to the discovery of devices is the most valuable."
"SolarWinds is user-friendly with a manageable console."
"I would rate the overall solution nine out of ten due to its capabilities, however, its complexity is a major drawback."
"The benefit of this solution is the reporting. We're able to report on and see our network in a graphical form. We are able to detect when a device is added to a network."
"It is scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface and the ease of deployment."
 

Cons

"The recent changes in corporate structure may have caused some decrease in support quality."
"Alluvio AppResponse should improve its ability to expand across multiple operating systems."
"Need to bring back the NetFlow module for AppResponse."
"The AI features should be addressed in respect of the analysis and intelligence that must be supported and delivered in the tool to predigest the large amounts of data."
"If Alluvio AppResponse reduces its cost, it will be more beneficial for customers to monitor their application and network performance."
"The pricing is on the higher side of things. If they could lower it, that would be ideal."
"The reporting models need improvement as most of the time, we have to customize the reports manually."
"The initial setup is straightforward, but you have to know a little about the product. It's not for everybody to just plug and play. If you know how the solution is implemented then it is straightforward."
"The dashboard of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"The integration with the APIs and the web servers deployed can definitely be improved."
"It is not that stable. As a Windows software, I have seen issues with SolarWinds. The performance is slow."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"It would be beneficial if NPM offered support for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), as currently, it does not support this and we are migrating our services there."
"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."
"SolarWinds NPM needs to increase its elements. One polling engine can only support 10,000 elements then it becomes slow. There are limitations even if you have the full SLX version license."
"The integration with video apps could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is a little bit high, especially because we have to pay an import tax."
"The solution is no more expensive than other products."
"It is costly for small and medium businesses."
"The licensing model is expensive compared to its competitors, but the service it gives to your business, and the data quality, means that it's worth it."
"The pricing is in the middle. It's not particularly cost-effective, but it's not overly expensive either."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"It is too expensive."
"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."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Financial Services Firm
16%
Performing Arts
11%
Energy/Utilities Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise84
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Riverbed SteelCentral AppResponse?
The most valuable feature of Alluvio AppResponse is the actual response time for measuring performance.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Riverbed SteelCentral AppResponse?
The pricing of Riverbed Alluvio AppResponse is really high. Very few customers buy Riverbed because many do not have the sufficient budget. Its pricing is comparatively higher than SolarWinds. Rive...
What needs improvement with Riverbed SteelCentral AppResponse?
The reporting models need improvement as most of the time, we have to customize the reports manually. Additionally, a feature similar to SolarWinds AppStack, which provides a holistic view of the i...
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

Riverbed AppResponse, OPNET SteelCentral AppResponse, ACE Live, OPNET, AppResponse Xpert
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

N11.com, OneMain Financial, China Bank, Halkbank, Kaust
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Alluvio AppResponse vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.