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SolarWinds NPM vs ThousandEyes vs Zabbix comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.2
SolarWinds NPM enhances infrastructure visibility, delivering cost reductions, faster issue resolution, and significant ROI through optimized resource management.
Sentiment score
8.1
Users commend ThousandEyes for its effective ROI, cost-saving benefits, and high impact on network performance and issue resolution.
Sentiment score
7.7
Zabbix offers cost-effective, scalable monitoring with no fees, reducing downtime and commercial software expenses while increasing ROI.
The return on investment is significant as the solution effectively reduces costs while being worth its expense.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM support gets mixed reviews, praised for expertise yet noted for delays and aggressive sales tactics.
Sentiment score
7.9
ThousandEyes' customer service is praised for effective support and prompt response times, though some seek faster responses.
Sentiment score
6.9
Zabbix support is praised for responsiveness, community resources, and expertise, though documentation and non-paid support need improvement.
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.
We contacted the support team, and they resolved it within a couple of hours.
It is so straightforward that I have never had to use the support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM is scalable, adapts well to infrastructures, but may face performance and cost issues on virtual platforms.
Sentiment score
7.3
ThousandEyes scales effectively across industries, supporting diverse enterprises effortlessly, though costs may rise with added agents.
Sentiment score
6.9
Zabbix is praised for its scalability, distributed architecture, and efficiency, despite needing robust databases for larger deployments.
SolarWinds NPM is scalable and effective in handling large network infrastructures.
Zabbix has high scalability.
Zabbix is very scalable and lightweight.
I would rate its scalability ten out of ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
SolarWinds NPM is stable with issues from server limits and bugs, resolved through updates and proper configuration.
Sentiment score
8.3
ThousandEyes is stable and reliable, with smooth operation, minor bugs typical, and effective issue management ensures user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.6
Zabbix is reliable and stable, with minimal issues; users value its low resource use and effective monitoring.
The NPM product is stable, particularly when used for simple network monitoring.
Zabbix is very scalable and lightweight.
Zabbix is quite stable, and we haven't had any problems with Zabbix itself.
 

Room For Improvement

SolarWinds NPM users report issues with network discovery, UI features, costs, automation, support, and security improvements are needed.
ThousandEyes should improve server monitoring, integration, AI, UI, compatibility, documentation, and reduce operational noise for enhanced user experience.
Zabbix users seek UI improvements, better documentation, enhanced reporting, security, automation, integration, and modern workload adaptations.
Customers have given feedback about the delayed response times from the technical team.
SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features.
Features such as taking backup of the devices or configurations of the devices can be included in further versions of SolarWinds NPM.
Having a dedicated incident alert system for URL alerts would help manage noise and streamline operations, especially during patch upgrades.
The only issue I can note is that it's Linux-based, and Linux documentation is not the best.
 

Setup Cost

SolarWinds NPM pricing varies by setup size, with initial costs, tiered licensing, and maintenance fees influencing total expenses.
ThousandEyes pricing varies; some see it as expensive, favoring large enterprises, with potential monthly fee shifts.
Zabbix, a cost-effective open-source solution, offers free access without hidden fees, making it popular for enterprise adoption.
PRTG's package offers all features in one bundle, which is cost-effective.
The solution is considered expensive.
 

Valuable Features

SolarWinds NPM offers ease of deployment, real-time monitoring, customizable alerts, and user-friendly design for efficient network management.
ThousandEyes provides comprehensive network monitoring, detailed analysis, user-friendliness, scalability, and integration, aiding efficient troubleshooting and operational enhancement.
Zabbix provides open-source monitoring with customizable features, strong scalability, and robust support, ideal for cost-effective IT infrastructure management.
It provides a detailed overview of the network, which is valuable.
SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks.
The most valuable feature for us is the database performance analyzer, which we use a lot.
I find the most valuable feature of ThousandEyes is the ability to directly see the client's exact issue.
If disk usage surpasses a threshold, say 70%, I receive alerts and can take proactive action.
Zabbix has a lot of features, including monitoring, status updates, and collecting information telemetry from storages and servers as well.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.4%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThousandEyes is 3.6%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 12.7%, up from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

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.
Satyavrat Nirala - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers user monitoring and Internet insights and include customer journeys
It’s evolving; I feel it needs more holistic integration. It needs more improvement. It’s very good, but the integration can be slightly complicated on different platforms. I used it for a healthcare organization, and the integration was slightly challenging. In future releases, I would like to explore AI capabilities. AI would be more valuable because it works across different cloud and server systems. It looks into issue detection and insight modeling, so that is something I feel will be very helpful in the near future. More AI because of compliance and other challenges, not because of the product challenge. It’s about regulations, and we have HIPAA laws in the US and many different kinds of laws. Because of that, these specific elements and certain units don’t allow the tooling system to be fully utilized. We also support a certain segment of healthcare, which is the army healthcare segment, which is more government-controlled. There are certain restrictions in moving into the cloud. That’s where I thought those elements might need some more improvement. Also, looking into how we’ll be able to use more data visualization. It has it, but it doesn’t give you everything. If you look into the elements of use and so many other elements are there, but the UI/UX also has to be improved a bit, I feel. From a developer’s standpoint, it’s very easy, but from a consultant’s standpoint, there can be more enhancement, like one-click view and one-click report generation. Those things should be more seamless.
B Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless global client monitoring with reliable remote connectivity
I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients. Many tools that I require for system maintenance are included. I can easily monitor all of my clients throughout the world I did not give much thought to it, however, improvements could be made to Zabbix.…
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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
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 ar...
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 scalabil...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or requirements. Some tools are better for only network devices while others...
What needs improvement with ThousandEyes?
ThousandEyes could improve by implementing a similar incident management system like BigPanda ( /products/bigpanda-re...
What do you like most about Zabbix?
The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?
We didn't use the commercial version. We used the free version.
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
I think it's the best solution for monitoring. I don't know any better.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Wayfair, GitHub, Craigslist, Comcast, SurveyMonkey, Lyft, Box, HP, Zendesk, IO Data Centers, Good Technology, NNTCommunications, Proofpoint, Schneider, Crowdstrike, Avera, Pitney Bowes, InstartLogic, Shutterfly, Shutterstock, Condé Nast, Roche, Jive, Actelion, Brocade, Infor, Okta, JLL, DigitalOcean, Zuora, NetSuite, CloudFlare, One, DemonWare, Quantcast, Carbonite, CareerBuilder, Prosper, Oscar, Slack
1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: July 2025.
862,077 professionals have used our research since 2012.