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SolarWinds NPM vs SolarWinds ipMonitor 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 ipMonitor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
75th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
55th
Average Rating
6.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds ipMonitor is 0.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.5%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM4.5%
SolarWinds ipMonitor0.1%
Other95.4%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Masud Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
IP address management improves network efficiency but licensing cost could decrease
We are using SolarWinds for NPM and NCM, and we use IP address management for IP address monitoring. It helps us track which IP address is live and which is not. It also provides DHCP reservation and allows us to declare IP addresses for our integration. We have been using it for IP address…
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

"The most valuable feature is the availability of end devices."
"IPAM is used for IP address reservation and tracking, helping us easily identify live IP addresses."
"IPAM is used for IP address reservation and tracking, helping us easily identify live IP addresses."
"The people in technical support are very good."
"Technical support has always been great. They are very responsive. We've been satisfied with their level of support."
"The most valuable feature is the graphical user interface."
"The connectivity of the solution is very good."
"SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks."
"Can easily be interconnected with other management systems."
"One of the best features is the reports feature."
"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."
 

Cons

"The licensing cost is high compared to open source tools."
"The licensing cost is high compared to open source tools."
"The solution does not include enough features and has some performance issues."
"I think Solar Winds NPM needs to create a profile with documentation responsibility."
"SolarWinds NPM needs to increase its elements. One polling engine can only support 10,000 elements then it becomes slow. There are limitations even if you have the full SLX version license."
"The tool can only monitor up to 1000 instances in a single SolarWinds console. Customers may have over 1000 instances. Hence, it needs to support a minimum of 1500 instances. It should also improve support."
"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."
"The reporting module that got integrated into the system itself, used to be a standalone solution and I preferred that."
"Consolidation of platforms would provide a smoother experience."
"If they’re going for a “cover everything” approach, then they need to do so and enable a bit more of the "cover everything approach" within every one of the tools."
"The price of the solution can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is a bit expensive because the annual license does not include new features that are priced as add-ons."
"The pricing is in the middle. It's not particularly cost-effective, but it's not overly expensive either."
"You have to license it per year, for the support. You don't really need to have support once you've already set it up. Once you install SolarWinds, you can skip on the licensing. It will still work."
"SolarWinds NPM has different pricing models available. The cost of the solution is less than some competitors."
"There can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"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."
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
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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
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise84
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds ipMonitor?
The licensing cost is high compared to other open-source tools. Being a corporate client, we require corporate licensing, which adds to the cost.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds ipMonitor?
The licensing cost is high compared to open source tools. The state monitoring tools could be improved with AI integration to track IP usage history. There is no local support; we must contact thei...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds ipMonitor?
We are using SolarWinds for NPM and NCM, and we use IP address management for IP address monitoring. It helps us track which IP address is live and which is not. It also provides DHCP reservation a...
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

No data available
 

Also Known As

ipMonitor
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 NPM vs. SolarWinds ipMonitor and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.