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SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

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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
39th
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
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (5th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (3rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (4th), Container Management (5th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 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 Splunk Observability Cloud is 1.6%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud1.6%
SolarWinds Network Device Monitor0.8%
Other97.6%
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 deployment process is quick."
"Link monitoring is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"There are vital features of auto-plugin core ports"
"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."
"In real-time, we know when there's an issue on our network and it helps us to be proactive to solve the situation."
"The product is useful for switches and IP phones."
"The solution is very user-friendly and very easy to use."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is a straightforward product with valuable functionality."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We didn't find it to be too complex."
"The best features in Splunk Observability Cloud are the metrics; I can see any logs or anything related to the server or services we want to monitor, and the metrics are a good function."
"It supports proactive management, enhances security, and improves operational efficiency."
"Splunk Observability Cloud has helped reduce our mean time to detect by ninety percent."
"The value was visible to the relevant audience as soon as we started the implementation, where it took the people a lot of manual efforts and time to diagnose their systems, they were able to get automated insights as an available feature within Splunk Observability Cloud."
"Overall, I am satisfied with Splunk Observability Cloud, as it provides strong real-time monitoring, good visibility, and faster troubleshooting, being useful for improving our day-to-day operational efficiency."
"During this time, Splunk Observability Cloud was incredibly helpful as we drilled down into root cause analysis to assist those application teams in identifying what could have gone wrong—whether it was API calls, network issues, or pods being down."
"A problem that previously took four to five hours is now completed automatically through Splunk Observability Cloud and DevOps SRE agent integration in just a couple of minutes."
 

Cons

"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could improve by being more user-friendly. The network has so many features which make it difficult to find how to configure how to use it. It is not simple to customize."
"There are solutions that can perform better, but due to pricing for our corporate implementation, we had to stay with this solution."
"Integration with different tools, such as ServiceNow and Excel, can be improved."
"The data is in the system but we are unable to pull it because reporting is not integrated and versatile."
"The security could always be improved."
"It would be beneficial if SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could provide a feature to monitor CRC errors specifically on individual interfaces rather than the entire device. This would help in detecting intermittent issues and packet drops on main links more accurately, especially when there are CRC errors. It's important for us to be aware of these issues to avoid any voice quality problems or interruptions on our MTS links."
"In terms of price, it could be less expensive."
"The initial setup of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could be easier. It took us approximately one month to complete the implementation."
"The cardinality is pretty low."
"There's a lot of talk about AI-powered analytics and guidance in Splunk Observability Cloud. I didn't get a great sense of how much of it is actually working; there are a lot of AI hallucinations."
"They can get more integration with a few more products. They can also update some of the dashboards that are in there now."
"I haven't seen any return on investment yet, but I do definitely expect to see ROI soon, once we bring in everything and reduce workload."
"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 process terms. These categories of dashboards would be very helpful for customers."
"From an admin perspective, there are pain points such as difficulty exporting data into Excel and a cumbersome setup process."
"The price of this solution is very high and can be improved."
"Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring's data analytics can be improved by including suggestions for various types of continuous monitoring."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Well, we had a perpetual license and the renewal was $20 to $25,000."
"The product is expensive."
"Thankfully, it doesn't take a lot of manpower to install and deploy."
"The enterprise license is good for the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor. However, it is expensive, they should reduce their price."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is not an expensive solution."
"I find the cost of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor reasonable for our company. Though, I'm not aware of the exact licensing cost."
"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."
"When compared with other solutions SolarWinds is more expensive."
"Splunk APM is a very cost-efficient solution."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The price of Splunk APM is less than some of its competitors."
"Splunk's infrastructure monitoring costs can be high because our billing is based on data volume measured in terabytes, rather than the number of devices being monitored."
"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."
"I would rate the price of Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring as an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"It appears to be expensive compared to competitors."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

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 Business37
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise72
 

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: September 2026.
914,262 professionals have used our research since 2012.