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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
86
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (7th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th), Container Management (5th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is 0.9%, up from 0.6% 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.
Taiwo Ige - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Operations Engineer at ABC Supply Co. Inc.
Alerting improves incident response across teams and enables faster awareness before customer impact
Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved in terms of integrations with more technical add-ons, such as Zoom. Although they have one with Zoom, it's not available in the cloud, so having that feature would be beneficial. Essentially, Splunk should continue expanding to create easier ways to ingest logs from different products. The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders. However, there are aspects that could be improved, such as linking dashboards to one another. While IT leaders may not drill down, it's crucial to create levels of dashboards for technical users to find root causes, making it effective for stakeholders.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There are vital features of auto-plugin core ports"
"The deployment process is quick."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is a straightforward product with valuable functionality."
"The most valuable features of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor are the reports. We are configuring the reports, and the first reports are only about the devices. We are configuring the thresholds in order to monitor all the devices."
"The product is useful for switches and IP phones."
"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."
"We are doing more with SolarWinds Network Device Monitor than we were doing in the past with WhatsApp Gold; when we moved to SolarWinds Network Device Monitor, the whole observability part started to grow."
"The solution and its interface are elaborate and fully integrate all monitored items for easy analysis and troubleshooting."
"I find the monitoring console very helpful. With one click, I can see how we are performing, and at the same time, I can see what data is flowing."
"Comparing to Cloud, Splunk Cloud, or any other solution, the most valuable feature of Splunk Observability Cloud is that it is entirely based on metrics."
"I manage six tools, but Splunk Observability Cloud is one of my favorites, and I aspire to build my career specializing in it because it has great features, more attention in the market, and is a relatively new tool with promising growth."
"I like the fact that Splunk APM makes it easy to connect to the application database and run queries against the data."
"The feature of Splunk Observability Cloud that I prefer most is the easy deployment on the cloud."
"The product's deployment phase is good and very easy because it is done with OpenTelemetry for most of the parts."
"Customer service and technical support respond very quickly."
"Splunk APM helps us to find errors immediately and resolve them."
 

Cons

"There is no mobile version of this product, and our team should be able to access it using a mobile device."
"The solution lacks in performance monitoring."
"The security needs improvement, which is why we are moving away from Solar Winds. We have security concerns."
"Although I haven't explored all of the features available, I wouldn't mind if the software were made to be a bit more customizable."
"In terms of price, it could be less expensive."
"The security could always be improved."
"The initial setup is a bit complex. It's not for anyone who is a beginner to work in the products to do it."
"In terms of price, it could be less expensive."
"The monitoring of workloads when using SignalFx could be improved."
"The UI enhancements could be a way to improve the solution in the future."
"The only strain point we've encountered with Splunk Observability Cloud is that the search times can be lengthy for some things. We have a large environment, so that's expected."
"There are some predefined metrics.......we may want to create customized metrics."
"The clustering part of indexes can be more refined."
"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."
"To improve Splunk Observability Cloud, I wish they could develop more in the area of pricing and cost transparency, provide a smoother learning curve, and enhance the log management experience, ensuring that log navigation is not solely focused on metrics and tracing but also has good search performance to understand larger data sets."
"Splunk would be better if some tools were integrated to be able to take action on security or network concerns."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is good."
"I find the cost of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor reasonable for our company. Though, I'm not aware of the exact licensing cost."
"When compared with other solutions SolarWinds is more expensive."
"Thankfully, it doesn't take a lot of manpower to install and deploy."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is not an expensive solution."
"The product is 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 product is a bit expensive considering the competition but the company may negotiate the price."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"This is an expensive solution."
"I would rate the price of Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring as an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"The price of Splunk APM is less than some of its competitors."
"Splunk Observability Cloud is expensive."
"Splunk has been fairly expensive, but it has been predictable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
6%
 

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 Business30
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 do you like most about SignalFx?
The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.
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 ...
 

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: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.