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SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Obs...
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
35th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.2%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ravi Khanchandani - PeerSpot reviewer
A unified platform designed to monitor the entire infrastructure
The tool's escalation process needs improvement. More support is needed for the new generation of solutions, particularly SD-WAN support and newer storage components. Additionally, as more vendors move towards API-based monitoring, we anticipate SolarWinds HCO will increase integrations with other solutions. Another area for improvement is reporting. With infrastructure becoming increasingly diverse, the static infrastructures of the past are evolving into dynamic setups. Traditionally, we had wireless in the office, a backend Internet connection, and connections to head offices and data centers. With the advent of SD-WAN, multiple service providers, and cloud-based options, infrastructure is more dynamic. Today, most customers are not using on-premise solutions exclusively; they are opting for Office 365, G Suite, or similar services. Therefore, monitoring requirements are no longer limited to on-premise infrastructure but span diverse environments—some on-premise, some in the cloud. This is why SolarWinds is moving towards hybrid cloud observability. We would like to see more integrations and support for third-party vendors. For example, current support for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is limited, and expanding this support would be beneficial.
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

"I rate my satisfaction with SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability at nine out of ten."
"The primary use cases are for customers who require complete infrastructure monitoring. I mean IT infrastructure, which includes network devices, security devices, and server environments, whether physical, virtual, or cloud-based. The platform can manage any infrastructure component that needs monitoring."
"SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability offers very good community support with many documents and best cases for various situations."
"The initial setup is straightforward and quick if prerequisites are met, taking only a couple of days."
"The ability to customize the views and dashboards is nice. SolarWinds also allows us to access the data via the API. That's probably the feature I liked the most."
"SolarWinds is user-friendly with a manageable console."
"It's easy to understand, even if you are not too technical."
"What I've found most valuable about the solution is that it's scalable."
"It is very extensible with 'SWQL' and APIs to where we are beginning to integrate it with network automation."
"The stability is fantastic."
"SolarWinds NPM provides an overview of network monitoring, extending its capabilities to cover other aspects, such as virtual machines and servers. The platform has features like NetPath, which is particularly beneficial for end-users, offering insights into issues like latency, packet loss, and connectivity problems with routers, switches, or servers."
"It's a very good tool and a very stable tool."
 

Cons

"The solution could improve in areas such as on-premises container monitoring, CICD observability, and providing additional documentation and support files in languages other than English."
"The solution could improve in areas such as on-premises container monitoring, CICD observability, and providing additional documentation and support files in languages other than English."
"Event management features can be added as it has limited capability to ingest events from external sources."
"SolarWinds HCO platform offers various features spanning components, such as network, security, server, virtual, and application components. Common features include dashboarding, reporting, and alerting. These features provide comprehensive visibility, allowing you to see how one area's issues affect others. For instance, if a network issue impacts server performance, this visibility is crucial."
"The price could be better."
"SolarWinds NPM offers limited customization options. Users and developers may find restrictions in modifying or customizing the dashboard and adjusting monitoring features such as polling intervals or SLAs for different nodes."
"Each model has different features, so clients need to purchase a separate model for SQL monitoring, database monitoring, network traffic analyzer, HTTP traffic, etc. So each feature they need is in a different model, but customers would prefer an all-in-one solution."
"Sometimes there are issues when upgrading to a new version of the product."
"The integration with the APIs and the web servers deployed can definitely be improved."
"The console could be more user-friendly. It would be better if SolarWinds updated the user interface."
"The market is changing, and people are expecting automation. I think that's a disadvantage."
"The price of the solution can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is quite reasonable. It has moved to node-based licensing, simplifying the process. They don't distinguish between different types of nodes, such as server nodes, physical routers, or switches. One node equals one license, making it easy to manage. If you have 500 devices, you need five hundred licenses to get all the features of this unified monitoring platform."
"It's expensive and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"We pay for SolarWinds NPM yearly. We buy it and then we renew it, but it's not subscription-based. I don't remember the value exactly, because it's my manager who manages pricing, but we pay $60,000 per year for all the solutions. Pricing will also depend on the number of devices. We have a lot of devices."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"
"The NPM component of the system costs approximately $1,000 USD per year."
"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."
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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
No data available
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability?
Event management features can be added as it has limited capability to ingest events from external sources.
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability?
I work day-to-day on SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability ( /products/solarwinds-hybrid-cloud-observability-reviews ). It covers network, server, storage, and networking.
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

No data available
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.