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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
55th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (46th)
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 March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Alluvio AppResponse is 0.6%, up from 0.3% 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%
Alluvio AppResponse0.6%
Other95.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

SK
Senior Technical Engineer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Identifies and analyzes performance issues quickly using in-built AI and ML
With Alluvio AppResponse, there is an in-built analytical analysis with AI and ML, which identifies and provides data such as the number of TCP retransmits, web access time, total connection time out, total connections established, and server-side errors. The RTCC response time composition chart is crucial because it helps pinpoint the issue's origin, whether from the server, network, or application side. It's a superb product when compared to SolarWinds SAM, which is agent-based, while Alluvio AppResponse captures all traffic from the core switch.
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

"Riverbed's product is a superb product."
"It's a stable product. Riverbed has invested a significant amount of research and development into it, so it's a solid tool overall."
"We really like the scalability capabilities."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Alluvio AppResponse is the actual response time for measuring performance."
"With some APM solutions, it can take a long time to check a periodic report, but you can get all the necessary details quickly with AppResponse."
"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."
"The alerting and reporting capabilities of the tool are impressive"
"The SolarWinds NPM framework, upon which most of their flagship products are built, empowers a wide variety of admins and users to quickly find value in their installed products."
"For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices."
"One of the best features is the reports feature."
"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."
"SolarWinds is user-friendly with a manageable console."
"The ability to quickly identify downtime is the most valuable."
"I like SolarWinds support because it's 24/7. You describe your issues, your situation and maybe two or three hours later you can discuss a solution with a technical engineer."
 

Cons

"Integration between NPM and APM solutions would improve efficiency. There is no agent on the server site related to AppResponse."
"The recent changes in corporate structure may have caused some decrease in support quality."
"The reporting models need improvement as most of the time, we have to customize the reports manually."
"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."
"They need to better integrate with products and solutions from different vendors."
"The pricing is on the higher side of things. If they could lower it, that would be ideal."
"Need to bring back the NetFlow module for AppResponse."
"The recent changes in corporate structure may have caused some decrease in support quality."
"The price of the solution can be improved."
"This product could improve by adding cloud monitoring. I want SolarWinds NPM to do much more integration, and have more involvement in cloud monitoring, like AWS or Google, or Azure. I feel like it requires lots of improvement for cloud monitoring in NPM."
"The root cause analysis and installation faults are not clear."
"Time: A worldwide deployment can be confusing for dispersed users with non-local times. Each node should have a local time (with summer offset if appropriate) & each user should view & report in their local time."
"It would be nice to have a test to check if you can access a particular device via API without installing it and waiting for a poll cycle. You should have the capacity to initiate a test to see if it was reachable and get the results almost immediately."
"Regarding the automated network topology and mapping feature in SolarWinds NPM, I am not satisfied with it."
"The only thing that can be improved is to continually add to the existing capabilities of the product."
"The market is changing, and people are expecting automation. I think that's a disadvantage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is no more expensive than other products."
"The price is a little bit high, especially because we have to pay an import tax."
"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."
"It is not an expensive product."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"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."
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"It is expensive."
"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
"There can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on."
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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
Performing Arts
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Media Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

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 Enterprise85
 

Questions from the Community

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 your primary use case for Riverbed SteelCentral AppResponse?
We are the partner of Riverbed. Once any customer buys the Riverbed product, we deploy and configure it to meet their use cases. Alluvio AppResponse can identify if a page or an application is slow...
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: March 2026.
883,692 professionals have used our research since 2012.