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SolarWinds NPM vs Versa Director comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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 NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
Versa Director
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
53rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Versa Director is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
Versa Director0.4%
Other96.0%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Vivek Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Central monitoring has improved outage alerts and now needs smarter detection and modern dashboards
Regarding the automated network topology and mapping feature in SolarWinds NPM, I am not satisfied with it. For static monitoring, it is acceptable. However, if it is possible, I would need a feature in SolarWinds in the future for some kind of malfunctioning detection, such as malware attacks or that type of environment. We did not have any facility to detect that in SolarWinds. I think it would be better to incorporate those types of features. Regarding customization options in SolarWinds, the ability to customize the dashboard has room for improvement. The dashboard is quite old, and we need some improvement in it. Nowadays, we have multiple tools with AI-based monitoring and web-based dashboards. SolarWinds also has a web-based dashboard, but I think there is scope for improvement in the UI. There may be other areas I would like to improve in SolarWinds NPM.
reviewer2146131 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oracle Apps Functional Consultant at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
A cost-effective solution to monitor customer networks
We are not getting any issues with the integrations. Versa Director is the fastest engineering tool and is ideal for use without product management. People must rely on and utilize it to enhance anything they want to increase, as it helps minimize the product. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Whether you want basic enterprise network monitoring or a full suite of network diagnostic tools and monitors, I recommend Orion 9 for its full feature set and ease of use."
"SolarWinds NPM has a colorful UI and many easy-to-use features. It does not need to be configured as much and is also easy to install."
"SolarWinds' network and server application monitoring features are strong."
"The product covers our needs for the basic care and feeding of servers, whether they are physical or virtual."
"Feature rich produce suite that addresses many aspects of BSM."
"We had some interfaces where the SFP Ports were having some problems after a while; we found which of the SFP Ports was having the error and changed it, so the bandwidth became okay."
"Over the last couple of years, they have introduced features like NetPath and PerfStack, which are very helpful for any of the admins to troubleshoot issues and know precisely what is going on in nodes."
"The alerting system in SolarWinds NPM aids in proactive network management."
"Versa Director is the fastest engineering tool and is ideal for use without product management."
"The most valuable feature of Versa Director is analytics."
"Versa Director's best feature is the ease of configuration and customer and vendor management."
"Versa Director has easier customer reports, utilization monitoring, graphic shaping monitoring, configuration, template shaping, and deduplication compared to Fortinet and Cisco."
"The most valuable functionality is some of the policy pieces that are quite useful."
"Versa Director is a beneficial product for the environment my company has."
"I think the most valuable functionality is some of the policy pieces that are quite useful."
 

Cons

"Consolidation of platforms would provide a smoother experience."
"My team has had a lot of issues with support."
"I have not had a good experience with technical support because most of the time when I contact them, they first want to know whether you have a license."
"The cost for monitoring interfaces is ridiculous."
"They should increase its accuracy rate as SolarWinds's monitoring accuracy is not good if you compare it with other tools, like NNM/ScienceLogic/Zenoss."
"SolarWinds could offer more support and insights for a broader range of devices. Currently, it focuses on routers, switches, and some load balancers. However, it lacks an out-of-the-box dashboard for monitoring firewalls and some other modern network security devices. We have to customize it a lot."
"I think Solar Winds NPM needs to create a profile with documentation responsibility."
"The solution is expensive and may not be very affordable for startups or smaller companies."
"I think the one area that could be improved is that there are a lot of features; that is also an advantage but it makes things a little difficult, so I'd like to see some simplification so that there is less bloat."
"What needs improvement in Versa Director is maturity because, from an operating point of view, it's not mature enough."
"It requires some simplification."
"Versa could be more AI-oriented."
"Versa Director's deployment process is not the best."
"Versa Director's on-prem SD-WAN hardware and SSL VPN software are not integrated, so you have to buy a separate subscription for the SSL VPN."
"What needs improvement in Versa Director is maturity because, from an operating point of view, it's not mature enough. You'll still need to do a lot of research on Versa Director, so if it could mature faster, that would be very good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"It is expensive."
"There can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on."
"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."
"The pricing needs to be improved. It is too high. One full engine costs around $10 000, which is why we don't have high availability right now."
"The licensing model is such that you can purchase only what you need; and then grow into the next level by paying only the difference in price and the associated maintenance costs."
"The pricing is in the middle. It's not particularly cost-effective, but it's not overly expensive either."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"Having to buy separate licenses for the on-prem SD-WAN hardware and SSL VPN software makes Versa Director very costly compared to other solutions like Fortinet and Cisco."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
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
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
No data available
 

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...
What do you like most about Versa Director?
Versa Director is the fastest engineering tool and is ideal for use without product management.
What is your primary use case for Versa Director?
We use the solution to monitor customer networks.
 

Also Known As

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
Versa Networks Director
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds NPM vs. Versa Director and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.