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SolarWinds NPM 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

SolarWinds Network Device M...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
31st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.7%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.7%
SolarWinds Network Device Monitor0.8%
Other95.5%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can create an attractive dashboard and create a hierarchy."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is the best solution for closely monitoring how the link is performing when compared to ManageEngine OpManager."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is it can alert you when a device is not working."
"The product is useful for switches and IP phones."
"The solution and its interface are elaborate and fully integrate all monitored items for easy analysis and troubleshooting."
"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."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is a straightforward product with valuable functionality."
"I like the mapping that you could do and the dashboards were very pretty."
"SolarWinds NPM is a scalable solution since it can handle a huge number of users."
"Provides instant visibility to our support team across all the networks we monitor, allowing us to zero in on the most urgent issues and easily identify root causes of problems."
"Their support team is efficient, and it is easy to set up."
"In a few short years, SolarWinds has empowered us to provide robust infrastructure monitoring, including a converged view of our servers, both the physical and virtual servers, and the storage and application environments."
"Technicians are aware of issues and 90% of the time exactly what caused the issue."
"The abnormal traffic notifications are good. Most of them are remote, and it is very good for notifications and monitoring for the traffic."
"Solarwinds NPM was always the one that could check most of the monitoring requirements."
"It has helped us a ton to actually be proactive and not simply wait for customers to call."
 

Cons

"There are solutions that can perform better, but due to pricing for our corporate implementation, we had to stay with this solution."
"The way they are presenting the map of our devices needs to be improved."
"SolarWinds pricing is on the higher side, and in India, every customer is cautious about commercial aspects."
"The solution lacks in performance monitoring."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could improve the features. We don't have the complete model for the database, and the monitoring for the database is up and down. We expect that we could monitor the blocking items on the database but we don't have that feature."
"The solution should have AI-powered issue-resolving capabilities"
"There were certain aspects that weren't supported exactly. I was just able to monitor some basic things."
"Technical support needs to respond to its customers faster. We are not 100% satisfied with the level of support we get."
"The reporting is good, but I want it to be a little easier when creating custom reports. The reports are all on the website now, but it takes some know how to get some to display the way you would like."
"Having more technical and support resources available in Saudi Arabia would be helpful."
"In terms of scalability, there is room for improvement. When you start monitoring, if you have so many interfaces and you're trying to monitor them at a faster interval, or a shorter interval, you get to a point where you need to request another node."
"Complex and overly detailed setup."
"Real-time analytics is the major weakness of the SolarWinds NPM platform today."
"This product could improve by adding cloud monitoring. I want SolarWinds NPM to do much more integration, and have more involvement in cloud monitoring, like AWS or Google, or Azure. I feel like it requires lots of improvement for cloud monitoring in NPM."
"One of the challenges with SolarWinds is that in order to pull the data, we have to have a lot of false positives."
"The cost is based on the number of nodes, so it is expensive when you have a lot of them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"Thankfully, it doesn't take a lot of manpower to install and deploy."
"Well, we had a perpetual license and the renewal was $20 to $25,000."
"The price of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is good."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is not an expensive solution."
"When compared with other solutions SolarWinds is more expensive."
"The enterprise license is good for the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor. However, it is expensive, they should reduce their price."
"I rate the product's price as three to three and a half or on a scale of one to ten, where one means low price, and ten means high price."
"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."
"Though I don't remember the price for SolarWinds NPM, its price is somewhat okay when you compare it with other tools in the market. The price isn't too high and isn't too low, so it's okay."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
"Licenses depend on the number of devices, but all license levels come with technical support."
"The licensing model is such that you can purchase only what you need; and then grow into the next level by paying only the difference in price and the associated maintenance costs."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
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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
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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

Network Device Monitor
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Air Rarotonga
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds NPM vs. SolarWinds Network Device Monitor and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.