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SolarWinds NPM vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 11, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.4
SolarWinds NPM quickly proves cost-effective by enhancing network visibility, reducing support costs, and optimizing resource use for profitability.
Sentiment score
7.2
Users reported improved productivity and cost savings with AppDynamics, noting enhanced monitoring and up to 20% cost reductions.
The return on investment is significant as the solution effectively reduces costs while being worth its expense.
According to errors, exceptions, and code-level details related to their application performance on a daily basis, the application development team tries to help with Splunk AppDynamics to reduce errors and exceptions, which helps the end users get application availability and feel more confident.
To understand the magnitude of it, when the company asked to replace Splunk AppDynamics with another tool, I indicated that for the proposed tool, we would need five people to do the analysis that Splunk AppDynamics enables me to do.
It's very hard to find ROI because we are currently focused only on the on-premises applications.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM's service is knowledgeable but response times vary, with some customers finding direct support unsatisfactory.
Sentiment score
7.3
Splunk AppDynamics is praised for responsiveness and support but criticized for inconsistent response times and acquisition-related service quality issues.
If there is no timely response, getting a resolution is more difficult.
We had contact with SolarWinds regarding the implementation, and they were helpful.
They have good technical support.
AppDynamics is much more helpful.
We got a contact, an account manager, to work directly with for technical support.
They help us resolve any issues raised by our team relating to operations, application instrumentation, or any other issues.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM is scalable, integrates globally, but managing resources and licensing is essential for effective performance and expansion.
Sentiment score
7.4
Splunk AppDynamics is scalable and competitive but faces cost and configuration challenges in large, on-premise deployments.
SolarWinds NPM is scalable and effective in handling large network infrastructures.
We have reached maximum capacity in our tier, and extending capacity has not been cost-effective from Splunk's perspective.
I would rate the scalability of Splunk AppDynamics as a nine out of ten.
I did not find any Docker solution available with it, and a separate instance has to be installed.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Proper configuration and adherence to documentation ensure SolarWinds NPM's stability, though upgrades occasionally cause issues requiring support.
Sentiment score
7.7
Splunk AppDynamics is highly stable, with occasional issues, needing enhancements in agent stability and SaaS environment during heavy use.
The NPM product is stable, particularly when used for simple network monitoring.
It is necessary to conduct appropriate testing before deploying them in production to prevent potential outages.
There are no issues or bugs with the 20.4 version; it is very stable with no functionality or operational issues.
I can rate it nine out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

SolarWinds NPM needs UI enhancements, better integration, responsive support, and more flexibility for improved efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Users criticize Splunk AppDynamics for complexity, outdated tech, integration issues, challenging licensing, cost, and limited customization and support.
SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features.
Customers have given feedback about the delayed response times from the technical team.
Splunk AppDynamics does not support the complete MELT framework, which includes metrics, events, logging, and tracing for the entire stack.
If AppDynamics could develop a means to monitor without an agent, it could significantly improve application performance and reduce potential problems.
A good integration with Splunk would be very interesting, as Splunk is a good product for logs, and that part is currently missing in Splunk AppDynamics.
 

Setup Cost

SolarWinds NPM offers scalable, valuable monitoring solutions with flexible pricing, starting from $2,000, based on deployment size and modules.
Enterprise buyers find AppDynamics valuable but face high costs and complex licensing, requiring negotiation for better pricing.
The solution is considered expensive.
Pricing-wise, SolarWinds NPM is more expensive than PRTG.
Customers have to pay a premium price, however, they receive considerable value from the product.
All these solutions at the moment are cheap, but it is like paying for insurance; you pay insurance to avoid major damage.
We find its pricing reasonable and competitive.
 

Valuable Features

SolarWinds NPM provides comprehensive network management with customization, scalability, and real-time monitoring to enhance performance and integration.
Splunk AppDynamics provides real-time monitoring and analytics to identify performance issues, offering user-friendly operation across various platforms.
The most valuable feature for us is the database performance analyzer, which we use a lot.
SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks.
It provides a detailed overview of the network, which is valuable.
We have multiple tools, but end users prefer to use Splunk AppDynamics because their portal navigation is very simple and clear.
The feature that I appreciate in AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring is the intuitive and user-friendly dynamic mapping it creates for workflows.
What I like the most about Splunk AppDynamics is the end-to-end observability for the application, along with traces.
 

Categories and Ranking

SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
Splunk AppDynamics
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
249
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (3rd), IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Mobile APM (1st), Container Monitoring (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.9%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 3.1%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Gyanesh Rahatekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Application performance management and error resolution improved with data-driven insights
Dynatrace has multiple functions compared to Splunk AppDynamics, so Splunk AppDynamics should add those functions, which are not available as of now. Dynatrace has a universal agent that collects all information related to their CI, and if one CI has multiple languages, then there is no need to instrument multiple agents. However, Splunk AppDynamics requires multiple agents; if I have one server with multiple applications in different languages, then I need to instrument different agents for each application. Splunk AppDynamics should work with Dynatrace with one single universal agent that works with all application languages, eliminating the need for multiple implementations.
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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
Educational Organization
35%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
32%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...
APM tools for a Managed Service Provider - Dynatrace vs. AppDynamics vs. Aternity vs. Ruxit
Hi Avi! It's great to see your thorough approach to selecting an APM package for your MSP company. Considering your focus on SMBs and enterprises in Israel, Dynatrace seems like a solid choice with...
 

Also Known As

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Cisco, Sony, Nasdaq, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Edmunds.com, Puma, Fox News, DirecTV, Pizza Hut, T-Systems, Cornell University, OpenTable, BITMARCK, Green Mountain Power, Care.com, Overstock, Paddy Power, eHarmony, Kraft, The Motley Fool, The Container Store, and more See more customers
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds NPM vs. Splunk AppDynamics and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.