No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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
28th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Observability Cloud
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (6th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (5th), Container Management (6th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 1.3%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud1.3%
SolarWinds Network Device Monitor0.9%
Other97.8%
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.
PK
Project Manager at AGRICULTURE SKILL COUNCIL OF INDIA (ASCI)
Unified observability has improved real-time governance and now drives data-led decisions
Log Observer Connect is embedded here, but we are facing some delays in centralized log collection and analysis, which can be further fastened. We are collecting all the data metrics and decision-making insights, but all these data-driven decisions coming from different applications are not connected somewhere. A consolidated form or correlation of these insights is not happening between each other due to which we feel we are missing something significant. Some generalized feedback includes that predictive alerts or alarms which can be integrated with AI-driven alarms and alerting features should be established so that there is AI-driven intelligence and anomaly detection happening with a complete systematic process in service delivery. Application dependencies are huge, and business and operational dashboards should be improved. Right now there are very interactive custom dashboards, and every now and then, the personalization of enhancements keeps happening. KPI monitoring, executive reporting, and analytics have definitely been introduced to a great extent. There are few things in cloud-native monitoring, such as integration with AWS and Azure, where we sometimes do face lags. Those things can definitely be improved upon. I have used Datadog and Dynatrace before using Splunk Observability Cloud. Datadog was definitely recommended by most of our peers because of its very strong comprehensive observability and very strong and unique dashboard systems. Dynatrace was also very good because they have offered a lot of AI-driven analysis methods and processes, which was helping our organization a lot. Since our organization has a very strong IT ecosystem for agriculture, very different kinds of customized things are required.

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 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."
"Overall, it is a good user experience and the dashboards are very usable."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is monitoring."
"I like the mapping that you could do and the dashboards were very pretty."
"I rate the product's initial setup process a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is a difficult phase and ten is an easy process."
"This product has been quite stable and we are very likely to continue using it in the future."
"Overall, I rate SolarWinds Network Device Monitor ten out of ten."
"The deployment process is quick."
"The Add data feature lets you gather any type of log and easily analyze it, which is easier than using other solutions like ArcSight or Elasticsearch, and we can use these logs with our data processes to explain our situation."
"Splunk Observability Cloud has helped improve our operational performance and company's resilience, which was their initial offering."
"The solution monitors attacks or unauthorized access to the information we want to protect."
"The volume it handles is very good, including the number of metrics, the volume number of traces, and more."
"The solution overall is very valuable for me."
"Splunk Observability Cloud has enhanced our operational performance and our company's resilience, ultimately contributing to improved customer satisfaction."
"Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring provided our customers with visibility into their overall infrastructure."
"We utilize the APM and auto-detectors, as the core metrics and core alerts are available for us, which are the features of Splunk Observability Cloud that I appreciate the most."
 

Cons

"The initial setup is a bit complex. It's not for anyone who is a beginner to work in the products to do it."
"The main disadvantage of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is the licensing cost, which is expensive."
"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."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor lacks the granularity of other monitoring tools like LiveNX."
"The data is in the system but we are unable to pull it because reporting is not integrated and versatile."
"If everything were in the package so that everything was ready to go out of the box, that would be ideal."
"The solution should have AI-powered issue-resolving capabilities"
"In Splunk Observability Cloud, I notice room for improvement in synthetic monitoring. It does not provide output based on server names."
"In the next release, I would like to see more integration with other solutions."
"I would like to see a very detailed tutorial about it and how any newcomer can be able to use it."
"Particularly what we're having is disconnection from the cloud console, where we will be working in it and receive a message saying that we've been disconnected and have to wait for it to come up."
"The cost needs to be re-examined. It's extremely expensive to run. It's also expensive to expand. That's the number one complaint all of my customers have when it comes to Splunk. It's way too expensive compared to other solutions."
"Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved by having more integration with Splunk Cloud because at the moment they're two separate products. They're making great moves on what they call unified access; tighter integration is always a good thing."
"I need a tool that can deal with all the security solutions that will find security monitoring compliance requirements, so I'll stick to BigFix over Splunk because I'm not that big a fan of Splunk, to be honest."
"If it is a new deployment and you have a medium client with about 2,000 users or computers or servers, it will take about six months just to install and configure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is not an expensive solution."
"The price of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is good."
"The product is expensive."
"Well, we had a perpetual license and the renewal was $20 to $25,000."
"When compared with other solutions SolarWinds is more expensive."
"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 enterprise license is good for the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor. However, it is expensive, they should reduce their price."
"I find the cost of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor reasonable for our company. Though, I'm not aware of the exact licensing cost."
"Licensing cost is the biggest argument I get from those divesting from Splunk. There are those within our organization who say we are going to go to other tools since Splunk is too expensive."
"This is an expensive solution."
"Splunk has been fairly expensive, but it has been predictable."
"The pricing is based on several factors, including the scale of deployment."
"I am not in that circle, but we are currently licensing based on our queries. That is working out for us. Previously, it was by volume of data, and now, we can store as much data as we want."
"The solution's pricing is competitive. I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten. The price of the solution could be cheaper."
"Splunk offers a 14-day free trial and after that, we have to pay but the cost is reasonable."
"The product is a bit expensive considering the competition but the company may negotiate the price."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction 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 Business32
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise55
 

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 needs improvement with SignalFx?
Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and pr...
What is your primary use case for SignalFx?
The solution involves observability in general, such as Application Performance Monitoring, and generally addresses digital applications, web applications, sites, and mobile applications. I worked ...
What advice do you have for others considering SignalFx?
We're a customer and end-user. Currently, in France, we cannot use the artificial intelligence option. While this option is enabled for the United States and many countries, it's not yet available ...
 

Also Known As

Network Device Monitor
Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Air Rarotonga
Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs. Splunk Observability Cloud and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.