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SCOM 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.4
SCOM users experience varied ROI, with advantages in monitoring and management offset by potential licensing costs and latency issues.
Sentiment score
7.0
SolarWinds NPM enhances network management and cost efficiency, providing superior monitoring, fast issue resolution, and significant ROI.
The return on investment is significant as the solution effectively reduces costs while being worth its expense.
Network Administrator at PT Bni Life Insurance
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Microsoft customer service is generally viewed positively, with efficient assistance and experienced staff, despite occasional consistency issues.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM support is knowledgeable and helpful but faces criticism for slow responses and aggressive sales tactics.
When I was working directly with Microsoft at TCS, my first company, the support experience was quite smooth, and we received solutions promptly.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
They often treat issues in isolation, not considering how one problem might relate to another.
Network Operations Center at Student Loans Company
If there is no timely response, getting a resolution is more difficult.
Network Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
We had contact with SolarWinds regarding the implementation, and they were helpful.
Network Administrator at PT Bni Life Insurance
They have good technical support.
Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
SCOM offers scalable management, efficient load balancing, and high availability but faces challenges with non-Microsoft integration and diverse device monitoring.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM offers scalable solutions for various environments, with possible increased costs and challenges on virtual platforms.
The scalability of SCOM, meaning its ability to adapt to our needs, is excellent because we are working with SQL systems and multiple servers.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
SolarWinds NPM is scalable and effective in handling large network infrastructures.
Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
SCOM's stability has improved significantly, especially in newer versions like 2019, with proper configuration and resource allocation.
Sentiment score
7.5
SolarWinds NPM is stable, with issues arising during upgrades; regular updates and support enhance its performance.
I have not seen many errors or frequent data loss because once we have installed the agent on the system and have the details, not much manual intervention is required.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
SCOM is a bit unstable lately, primarily due to a lack of resources.
Network Operations Center at Student Loans Company
The NPM product is stable, particularly when used for simple network monitoring.
Network Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

SCOM needs better dashboards, lower licensing costs, easier integration, improved reporting, enhanced support, and efficient alert management.
SolarWinds NPM users seek improvements in network discovery, interface, integration, resource usage, cloud support, security, and pricing adjustments.
SCOM is likely to be phased out in favor of more compatible tools like Icinga for application monitoring or when moving to cloud solutions like CloudWatch and Azure.
Network Operations Center at Student Loans Company
It would be beneficial to have a summary on one single dashboard, as there are many more possibilities available.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
I would like to see a software-as-a-service version in Azure to eliminate the need for on-premise infrastructure.
ICT System Administrator at College of Europe
Customers have given feedback about the delayed response times from the technical team.
Network Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features.
Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited
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.
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

SCOM pricing varies with agreements, often part of cost-effective Microsoft packages, though licensing can be complex initially.
SolarWinds NPM pricing is competitive yet complex, appealing to some while being costly for smaller enterprises or multi-module needs.
It is not too pricey and is adequate.
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
PRTG's package offers all features in one bundle, which is cost-effective.
Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited
The solution is considered expensive.
Network Administrator at PT Bni Life Insurance
 

Valuable Features

SCOM efficiently monitors Microsoft environments with integration, customizable dashboards, real-time reporting, and automated alerts for proactive management.
SolarWinds NPM offers easy deployment, strong monitoring, and seamless integration, enhancing network management with intuitive dashboards and real-time insights.
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool.
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
It assists me in detecting server downtime and delivers basic performance monitoring right out of the box.
Network Operations Center at Student Loans Company
SCOM integrates several systems and offers correlation features, like setting up everything around Active Directory or DNS.
ICT System Administrator at College of Europe
Whenever any node is down in our network, whether it is a server or any network device, we receive information through email that the device is down.
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It provides a detailed overview of the network, which is valuable.
Network Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks.
Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited
 

Categories and Ranking

SCOM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (5th)
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 (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SCOM is 1.4%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.4%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.4%
SCOM1.4%
Other95.2%
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.
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.
report
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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
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
 

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 Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
 

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 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

System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dialog Telekom
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about SCOM vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.