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SCOM vs SolarWinds Network Device Monitor 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

SCOM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (4th)
SolarWinds Network Device M...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
30th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SCOM is 1.6%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SCOM1.6%
SolarWinds Network Device Monitor0.9%
Other97.5%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

AK
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
Have integrated effective monitoring and seamless alerting with improved visualization capabilities
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool. We have implemented and integrated this to create dashboarding of the SCOM monitoring system for the database, SQL, and the Linux servers we have configured in SCOM. We have created separate dashboarding for it, and the monitoring and creating rules and monitors in the management servers and management packs that SCOM provides are very useful for us. The alerting mechanism of SCOM has benefited our operations because we have modified the thresholds as per our internal requirements. We have configured threshold modifications for the CPU, memory, and especially for disk space. For routine disk space usage on the system, we have provided a separate threshold configuration.
SG
IT Infrastructure Senior Network Technician at Autoliv
Offers some features but needs better customization and analysis tools
There are solutions that can perform better, but due to pricing for our corporate implementation, we had to stay with this solution. It accomplishes the necessary tasks, but there is room for improvement. The features are not as customizable as we would prefer, but they are workable. If configured properly, you can perform a drill-down analysis. However, I have not used this feature much for our infrastructure on the network side.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It discovers the components automatically, which is a fantastic thing."
"The product has helped our organization with in-depth monitoring."
"The inbuilt management pack that Microsoft provides is really helpful. I know it's a mature product, and they keep upgrading the management pack."
"The license is very cheap compared to other products, and with SCOM license you get a license for all system center products."
"ROI turned out to be pretty good since we had good centralized monitoring for our whole data center and all the outages were quickly escalated from the Command center to the relevant Team."
"The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool."
"I enjoy its integration with the Microsoft Active Directory functions, which means users, computers, or other group policies can connect with Windows Active Directory."
"Anything that can be accessed via SNMP commands, SCOM can retrieve via SNMP Gets."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is it shows you the utilization of devices to allow you to take proactive action before something goes down or reaches the saturation point. You can take proactive action to fix the problem before it occurs."
"The alerts we are getting when we start losing connection access have been helpful."
"This product proactively tells us about issues before the users notice."
"In terms of general network monitoring features, I find SolarWinds Network Device Monitor very flexible and comfortable to use. The software itself is extremely useful when it comes to monitoring how our data moves between different networks and environments."
"Overall, it is a good user experience and the dashboards are very usable."
"Since our devices are spread out across the world, we can see the status of these devices without having to send someone physically to a remote location, which saves money."
"I like the mapping that you could do and the dashboards were very pretty."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is it shows you the utilization of devices to allow you to take proactive action before something goes down or reaches the saturation point."
 

Cons

"SCOM is not as straightforward in terms of user interface or general experience, which could be improved."
"The management of the servers could be better."
"Third-party tools have had to be created to make SCOM management pack creation more efficient and effective. However, this weighs down the application as it just adds a resource requirement, which is ballooning the size of the necessary storage and all that for essentially substandard components."
"In future releases, I would like to see APM solutions and dashboards like Grafana."
"In terms of features that could be improved, I would say the agent integration into the operating system. We are having difficulties integrating Linux into some of the networking devices."
"The System Centre Operations Manager (SCOM) is great at alerting you when something breaks. It's not so great at reporting."
"In some ways, SCOM is a double-edged sword."
"All of the areas of reporting are very bad and need to be improved."
"If everything were in the package so that everything was ready to go out of the box, that would be ideal."
"There is no mobile version of this product, and our team should be able to access it using a mobile device."
"The initial setup is a bit complex. It's not for anyone who is a beginner to work in the products to do it."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor lacks the granularity of other monitoring tools like LiveNX."
"The main disadvantage of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is the licensing cost, which is expensive."
"The initial setup of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could be easier. It took us approximately one month to complete the implementation."
"The security could always be improved."
"It would be beneficial if SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could provide a feature to monitor CRC errors specifically on individual interfaces rather than the entire device. This would help in detecting intermittent issues and packet drops on main links more accurately, especially when there are CRC errors. It's important for us to be aware of these issues to avoid any voice quality problems or interruptions on our MTS links."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license needed to use this solution and it is paid annually."
"If you have a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, then this is part of the agreement."
"The pricing is good, and it's part of their system center suite."
"I don't know the exact cost because it's managed by our sales team, but Microsoft is on the higher side."
"Our Enterprise Agreement includes the price."
"It is the cheapest product available in the market."
"SCOM is part of the System Center suite and I am satisfied with the pricing."
"The platform is cost-effective due to our existing Microsoft support."
"The enterprise license is good for the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor. However, it is expensive, they should reduce their price."
"The product is expensive."
"Thankfully, it doesn't take a lot of manpower to install and deploy."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is not an expensive solution."
"I find the cost of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor reasonable for our company. Though, I'm not aware of the exact licensing cost."
"When compared with other solutions SolarWinds is more expensive."
"The price of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is good."
"Well, we had a perpetual license and the renewal was $20 to $25,000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SCOM?
The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCOM?
I am not aware of the exact pricing as it is managed by my supervisor. As an academic institution, we receive substantial discounts.
What needs improvement with SCOM?
We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting. We can work on deploying new ways of viewing things and modifying visualizat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
I am not a positive person regarding SolarWinds Network Device Monitor.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
There are solutions that can perform better, but due to pricing for our corporate implementation, we had to stay with this solution. It accomplishes the necessary tasks, but there is room for impro...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
I have experience regarding the AD part, but my focus for the last 15 years has been oriented to the network side. My experience with identity tools comes more from a network perspective. We used N...
 

Also Known As

System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
Network Device Monitor
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dialog Telekom
Air Rarotonga
Find out what your peers are saying about SCOM vs. SolarWinds Network Device Monitor and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,576 professionals have used our research since 2012.