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SolarWinds NPM vs Zenoss Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zenoss Cloud
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
77th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
54th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
40th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (33rd), Event Monitoring (14th), Server Monitoring (23rd), Container Monitoring (10th), AIOps (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.6%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zenoss Cloud is 0.4%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

MohitKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface
The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market. The solution supports many vendors by default and just included Meraki SDN with the new release, but continued expansion is important. We created a custom method to pair with unsupported vendors but that can produce a lag in performance so future releases should expand SDN support. The solution does a good job of automating features but could expand that even more.
ClaudiaChen - PeerSpot reviewer
Generates close to real-time alerts so users can resolve issues, but needs more integration and public cloud monitoring features
As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I've found most valuable about the solution is that it's scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface and the ease of deployment."
"Technical support has always been great. They are very responsive. We've been satisfied with their level of support."
"The most valuable features in SolarWinds NPM are the network search and diagnostic tools."
"It is very extensible with 'SWQL' and APIs to where we are beginning to integrate it with network automation."
"You can monitor performance counters effortlessly."
"I can do everything remotely, including running PowerShell scripts or performing standard updates."
"The people in technical support are very good."
"It's easy to use."
"The product offers good documentation that helps with initial training."
"The most valuable feature is the flexible discovery mechanism."
"The custom built integration is one of the most valuable features because you can see all the especially critical items."
"What I like most about Zenoss Service Dynamics is that it monitors the devices and gives close to real-time alerts. For example, in case the device is not available, Zenoss Service Dynamics generates an alert so my team can resolve the issue."
"They have also accommodated many state-of-the-art technologies like Docker and ZooKeeper."
"Its Docker Container concept is mind blowing. It is the first monitoring tool which comes with Docker features."
 

Cons

"Complex and overly detailed setup."
"The aesthetic widgets should be dynamic widgets, so the customization can be even more customizable."
"The console could be more user-friendly. It would be better if SolarWinds updated the user interface."
"We decided that we were no longer going to trust that their products have not been capitalized."
"This product could improve by adding cloud monitoring. I want SolarWinds NPM to do much more integration, and have more involvement in cloud monitoring, like AWS or Google, or Azure. I feel like it requires lots of improvement for cloud monitoring in NPM."
"SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features."
"The integration with the APIs and the web servers deployed can definitely be improved."
"One of the challenges with SolarWinds is that in order to pull the data, we have to have a lot of false positives."
"Now it is stable, but they should design threshold parameters in percentage instead of raw values."
"The inclusion of a feature to show a graphical view of the network would be a helpful improvement."
"There is room for improvement with the administrative part. They introduced Control Center to manage things in Zenoss 5. The services that Zenoss provides remained the same, but the administrative part, since they introduced Docker, etc., has become a little complex"
"The AI aspect needs to improve."
"There was a problem with Zenoss and storage monitoring."
"It would be ideal if the product offered sound alerts."
"As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"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."
"SolarWinds is expensive. That's why it's primarily banks using the solution. Small businesses can't afford it. Due to its pricing, most smaller enterprises like manufacturing companies are not interested. For example, we have a client who is also interested in traffic monitoring, but they are not purchasing SolarWinds because of the cost."
"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."
"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."
"Quite highly priced"
"The pricing is in the middle. It's not particularly cost-effective, but it's not overly expensive either."
"There are additional costs you'll have to pay apart from the license fee for Zenoss Service Dynamics. I can't remember exactly how much my company is paying because I don't handle the finance part, but the cost is paid annually. On a scale of one to five, with one being the cheapest and five being the most expensive, I'm rating the solution three out of five."
"It is very cost-effective compared to the tools I worked with in the past. The company is gaining a lot with respect to the cost factor. It provides agentless monitoring and in a very cheap way."
"The pricing depends on the environment, the number of services, and the size of the data center. It can go from $100,000 to a million dollars."
"It depends on the customer, what he wants."
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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
54%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance 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 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 is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
In my experience, I worked with many monitoring software, but the one that gave me the most functionalities of a large-scale company is Zenoss, due to its ability to monitor completely hybrid and a...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
Cloud Monitoring, Zenoss Service Dynamics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
2degrees, Rackspace, State of North Dakota, El Paso Independent School District, NWN Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds NPM vs. Zenoss Cloud and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
850,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.