We compared IBM SevOne Network Performance Monitoring and Zabbix across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: IBM SevOne NPM users like its modular design, performance management reports, and real-time insights. The solution is also praised for its SNMP data collection and integration with ITSM solutions. Zabbix is highly regarded for its user-friendly interface, scalability, and reliable performance. It provides customizable dashboards, trigger dependencies, SNMP monitoring, and problem tracking.
Room for Improvement: IBM SevOne NPM could benefit from better SD-WAN capabilities and live maps. Users say the solution could also improve its AI/ML modules and provide more actionable insights. Zabbix could reduce false positives and improve integration, cloud monitoring, and reporting.
Service and Support: Customers reported generally positive experiences with IBM customer service, praising the support team's availability and responsiveness. However, some users said they would rather not have to rely so heavily on support for upgrades. Users had mixed opinions about Zabbix customer service. Some found it helpful, while others feel it needs improvement. Customers generally rely on online documentation and community forums for assistance.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for IBM SevOne NPM is described as quick and uncomplicated, although some users may require extra configuration. The complexity of Zabbix's initial setup varies, and it may require an experienced group of administrators and engineers.
Pricing: IBM SevOne NPM is seen as costly, particularly for smaller businesses. Zabbix is a free, open-source solution, but users can purchase support services and additional features.
ROI: IBM SevOne NPM offers features such as device maintenance and out-of-the-box reports that contribute to its value. Users say that Zabbix provides a cost-effective solution.
Comparison Results: IBM SevOne NPM stands out for its real-time insights, integration capabilities, straightforward setup, and top-notch customer service. Users say the solution could improve its AI/ML capabilities and lower its pricing to be more affordable for smaller businesses. Zabbix is a highly customizable open-source solution with a wide range of monitoring capabilities, including the ability to monitor virtual machines and databases. However, Zabbix’s setup can be complex and may require technical expertise.
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"Its ability to monitor practically any type of network device via SNMP is most valuable. This is the main functionality that we're using. If a network device exposes a metric, such as interface utilization, SevOne will monitor it for us."
"One of the most valuable features is the graphs, which you can build instantly. I have used some open-source platforms in the past, but they are not as good. With SevOne, the sampling in the graph can be every few seconds, not just every few minutes, and that's really helpful. It's really fast."
"The monitoring of the network is very customizable. That is its unique feature."
"SevOne’s data collection functionality is very good. From a collection point of view, we pull SNMP data, which is simple. It is easy to manipulate the pull in the estate. It is really simple compared to some of the other products that we have used. However, for deferred data, i.e., things that we import or don't pull directly, we tend to have a preplanned integration. So, its Universal Collector is really useful."
"It also gives us the closest thing to real-time insight into network performance that we have, with just a 10-second delay. It's very important for us to know the health of the infrastructure very quickly."
"We find that the reporting is particularly valuable in terms of not only communicating with our peer teams but also with the executives."
"The automation feature is good because if your CMDB is OK and it is already in sync, then the automation part is good to go."
"Data Insight reporting tool is the most valuable feature. They came up with it a couple of years ago. The most pleasing factor is the dark theme. You don't have a white background. It has templates that you can create for all kinds of reports that you can hit on the fly. It's much better printing of the reports. If you want to send PDFs to people, the reports are actually decent. Whereas for years, the old architecture of the PDFs was rubbish and even our customers said, "We have to manipulate your PDFs because they all have bad margin breaks. SevOne fixed that a couple of years ago with the new Data Insight. It's fantastic."
"The most valuable feature is network traffic monitoring."
"Setup was straightforward. Initial deployment took two or three months."
"Health and communication links availability."
"It not only provides the preconfigured item monitoring feature, but it is also easy to configure custom items."
"Zabbix helps to save time."
"The level of discovery-based configuration that lets us auto-configure the monitoring for various systems is a valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is the support for monitoring Cisco switches."
"The overall functionality of Zabbix is very good. The monitoring of bank applications that Zabbix provides is great. The information is displayed on a dashboard that is easily viewed."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"SevOne should work with the graphs legend functionality."
"There are some tweaks and enhancements that I've already requested. One is to be able to make changes per device rather than as a global setting. That has to do with naming. It's minor."
"The reports are easy to configure but they are a bit outdated in terms of appearance and visualization."
"Would benefit with the addition of AI modules for proactive data insights."
"High-frequency polling is data-intensive because you're pulling more. If SevOne could figure out a way to manage the impact of high-frequency polling on the system, that would be very popular."
"The GUI: both the dashboard/user view and the admin tool."
"One area that requires a little bit of improvement is the topology of visualization and being able to map out connections, end-to-end. It's able to do that, but it's not as impressive as we would like it to be. We would like to understand the different interface types and the connection points better, through the visualization. Heatmaps also need further development."
"In terms of having a complete view of our network performance, I would rate it a nine out of 10. The reason for not giving it a 10 is that there is no packet capture associated with SevOne, but we do have other tools in place to do that."
"Its UI needs to be improved a little bit more so that an end-user is also able to handle it. I can handle it, but others should also be able to handle it in a better way. It becomes complex when we are growing and need to add proxies. We need more scalability features and documentation for different use cases. A lot of articles are available, but they need to be in proper documentation. For example, when you have thousands of servers that have to be monitored in different regions of the world, there should be some kind of documentation to describe how you can create proxies and add them. Sometimes, when you are using the database, it can get overloaded. When the network is growing, the number of transactions becomes very high, and the database gets overloaded. There should be information about how to reduce the load on the MySQL database, which is what Zabbix is using. The market is growing a lot, and it should be enhanced for a lot more things. We are currently bringing enhancements at our end for different use cases. For example, when dockerization is going on, how can we check the logs inside the Dockers. We should also be able to monitor and check the number of logins and add features such as SSO login and two-factor authentication as a protocol. These are the security features and concerns that we have to deal with. Currently, we are developing modules to add features to Zabbix, but they should also work on these features."
"When we have a problem, we have to do a lot of research to solve it."
"The graphical user interface could be customized a little bit more, and also the dashboard could be more friendly."
"Zabbix is powerful, but it is difficult to understand initially. There are many things that can be improved, but we might not be using Zabbix to its fullest extent. The software has more features than we need."
"The documentation gets a bit messy between versions and is not too detailed, which is a bit painful for first-timers, especially when they run into issues."
"We would like to monitor other touchpoints such as ATM machines. It would be great if it can provide monitoring of ATM machines. Compatibility with other products would also be great."
"In the next release, I'm hoping for features targeted towards larger users with more customizable options. Despite this, I think pre-canned reports that can be used straight out of the box would be beneficial rather than having to configure each report individually. Additionally, a deeper dive into software configurations on the machines would be useful, although I understand there may be challenges in implementing this due to scripting requirements. More documentation would also be appreciated."
"As far as improvements, sometimes I get a bit frustrated when I move from a previous version to a new one because some configuration has changed—I need to investigate the documentation to deal with some configuration. But it doesn't take much time, so it's okay."
More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) Pricing and Cost Advice →
IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is ranked 26th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 52 reviews while Zabbix is ranked 2nd in Cloud Monitoring Software with 98 reviews. IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is rated 8.6, while Zabbix is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) writes "We can get a new vendor certified and monitored in our system significantly faster than before". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zabbix writes "Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes". IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is most compared with LogicMonitor, Instana Infrastructure Monitoring, SolarWinds NPM, Splunk Enterprise Security and Cisco Secure Network Analytics, whereas Zabbix is most compared with Centreon, Checkmk, SolarWinds NPM, Nagios XI and Nagios Core. See our IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs. Zabbix report.
See our list of best Server Monitoring vendors, best IT Infrastructure Monitoring vendors, and best Cloud Monitoring Software vendors.
We monitor all Cloud Monitoring Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
