SolarWinds NPM Reviews

We use this product to monitor our performance. It gives us visibility of our environment, especially for software.

The product is lightweight in terms of memory use, requiring only 10 megabytes or less.

The agent that we use is also light and does not block server memory.

SolarWinds makes it easy for us to monitor our environment.

The reports that it generates are useful for creating documentation.

The integration needs to be improved. SolarWinds has many modules for things like application monitoring and network performance monitoring, but sometimes they are not as good as others that are being used. This means that we use other tools and eventually, we want to integrate them into SolarWinds. It might also be the case that we have other tools, like Splunk and Windows Event Collector, and we want to integrate them but can't.

We began dealing with SolarWinds NPM about two years ago, in 2018

SolarWinds is quite stable. In the last couple of weeks, I have heard that they have a bug or a security hold in the RMM platform. Luckily, we do not use it, but instead, just use NPM. Nevertheless, we contacted the supplier and asked them to help us update to patch the security hole.

I think that it is easy to scale.

We receive our support from the local vendor and it is good. When we call and ask for support, the response is very good.

The initial setup is quite straightforward. It was easy for us to install and the deployment took about one month to complete. In the first week, we gathered the software that we wanted to install. From there, it took us another week to do the different installations. After that, we deployed the agent and the tools for working with it.

We use BigFix to deploy, so it's easy for us. 

The product is updated regularly.

Overall, this is a good product and I can recommend it, especially if you have a Windows environment and network. That would not be complex. My only issue is with the integration.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We primarily use this solution for network troubleshooting and monitoring.

The interface is user-friendly, making it easy to use.

This is a comprehensive product that covers security, networking, and more.

Having more technical and support resources available in Saudi Arabia would be helpful.

I have been working with SolarWinds NPM for one year.

Up to now, everything has been reliable.

In terms of scalability, it is very much so. It is not determined by the number of end-users for this type of solution, but rather, by the capacity of network flow. This is something that we expect will increase in the future.

Technical support is something that is very important for us. It is the number one factor.

We are dealing with the vendor directly and are satisfied, although having more local engineers, support, and other resources in Saudi Arabia would be helpful.

The initial setup is straightforward.

I find that the pricing is acceptable.

This is a valuable and powerful product that will provide users with more than they expect, all in one place. Other products, by comparison, often have limitations in the features. SolarWinds is comprehensive and covers everything, and I recommend it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We are a solution provider and we evaluated this product, amongst others, for one of our clients. This product is used as a network monitoring tool.

This product has a lot of good network monitoring features.

The interface could be made more user-friendly. There are lots of features but using them is a little bit difficult. For somebody doing network monitoring for the first time, it is quite difficult to use. For example, they could add better dashboards.

We evaluated this solution for one month.

It was used on a daily basis during the PoC and it was stable, once the configuration was completed.

We did not test scalability during the PoC. There were four or five network operators and the infrastructure included more than 200 devices.

This product is supported well. The people in technical support are very good.

The setup is a little bit complex and it took me about a week to deploy. It took time to configure everything.

Expertise is required in order to deploy this solution. I received some support during the implementation and deployment.

The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine.

I also tested ManageEngine while I was evaluating SolarWindws, and I prefer ManageEngine so that is what we decided to implement. It was more user-friendly, less expensive, and we didn't need to bring in any help for deployment.

My advice to anybody who is considering this solution is if they have expertise in SolarWinds then they should implement it. If they do not, then they should look at another option.

Overall, SolarWinds is a very good product. However, compared to ManageEngine, there is room for improvement.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

It would be nice if SolarWinds added some technical protocols like Modbus. The market needs a simple solution for monitoring a technical device.

I have been using SolarWinds for two years. 

It is an absolutely stable platform.

It's very easy to scale. The scalability is brilliant. If you need additional monitoring resources or if you need to plug in your secondary data center, it takes thirty minutes. It's easy to use.

I like SolarWinds support because it's 24/7. You describe your issues, your situation and maybe two or three hours later you can discuss a solution with a technical engineer.

The setup took approximately two to three hours. You need about two hours for tuning. If you use only two or three modules like network performance monitors or network traffic analyzers, you need two or three hours, not more.

The setup required two staff members. One network administrator who needs to pre-configure the network infrastructure and one administrator. You need only two administrators.

You pay for the license you need. You buy it and use. The next year you will have to buy a renewal.

I would recommend this solution to someone considering it. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

We are a reseller of SolarWinds, so that is our primary use. SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer is actually a marketing name. That is the brand name of a couple of products in a suite. The main product of the network management suite is NPM, or the Network Performance Monitor, which is qualified as a global market-leading product and has won a lot of awards in the past few years. It is the flagship for network management software.  

The cool thing about that product is that you can use it to also monitor your network cloud connections through the internet. That is quite a unique feature. With this NPM piece, called NetPath, users can see how their applications on the internet are behaving performance-wise. So, for example, you can see how your Office 365 use, status, and performance are doing on the internet. Our customers would otherwise not have a clue when they have performance issues without using this tool.  

What is good about this product is that the customers get real insights into the behavior of their network. They can see what is flowing over it. They will know what kind of data it is, like whether it is YouTube movies or if it is application information. This allows them to get an exact picture of how their network is being used.  

I see a tendency in the industry that a lot of software is going into the cloud. Customers now have to install it on-premises or they could install on-premises software in the cloud. That is also possible. So I see a tendency that software is becoming more cloud-related and I think that it is valuable for customers. SolarWinds should continue in this direction.  

As far as areas that can be improved, we already have NetPath functionality. Maybe that can be improved even more to add more options for visualization.  

We have been using the solution since 2013.  

This product is very stable. It has been a proven software solution for a couple of years. 
We have sold this to global banks who use it to manage their global networks. For this purpose, it needs to be very scalable and very stable.  

It is a very scalable solution as well. It is meant for large businesses but small and medium-sized businesses can also use this product. They can all use it, but I see more and more big companies — enterprise companies — coming to use this software. This includes data centers, global industries, banks, other financial institutions, insurance companies, and big brand names.  

We do not have to contact the technical support for SolarWinds that I am aware of. Sometimes I have heard of support cases that are resolved really quickly by SolarWinds for their clients. We can not have any kind of issues in production. The company knows this so takes this responsibility for support very seriously.  

So I would say that overall they have good support.  

I have been working with another HP product called OpenView a long while ago, but that software is now disappearing and it is being replaced by HP with SolarWinds. The big bank I worked with has already replaced all the HP OpenView software with the SolarWinds product.  

The main difference between SolarWinds network monitoring software and other software is the price and the ease-of-use of the tool. The software has also been made by network engineers for network engineers. The designers are in the industry as well. So they speak the same language and the software is being endorsed by other IT engineers.  

It is very easy to set up. We also deliver consultancy and I recommend to all our customers that they have us involved in the configuration of the software. It is easy to install but then when it is running, it has to be configured. We are good at that.  

We recommend an integrator or consultant while deploying it because this part is very important. That is a bit of marketing, of course. But we are experts with a lot of experience. We see what happens with the customers and we already know what they need and why they have the product, so we recommend they take some help from us with this. 

We do mostly one-on-one consultancy with someone who can do the job. He is engaged for a couple of days and depending on the customer's requirements he takes care of those needs. For example, some of them want to have an integration with other software, like ServiceNow.  

If they want to have SolarWinds integrated with something like ServiceNow it takes a bit more time because it adds a level of complexity. Then the client should also get training in the new product. We provide certified admin training for the software. We train about eight people at one time and they get a certification at the end of the week after a five-day training. Having a SolarWinds certified staff member is very valuable for our customers as then they are experts as well in-house.  

My advice to people who are coming to SolarWinds is that they do a training on the website and take advantage of exploring the trial version. The free trial will allow them to use the product and get to know the features before paying for it. I always recommend that smaller organizations start small. You can make the initial purchase of a very simple license which is not very expensive. Then you can build it out later to a bigger scale and then use the software company-wide.  

So the advice is really to begin small and build it out and take more licenses as you need them. You can pick the functionality that you need at the current time and scale-out. Sometimes you need more functionality or you may need more analysis as well. You can take another module and put it into the Orion platform to integrate it. Sometimes a customer might say they are having some database performance issues. We use the Orion module DPA (Database Performance Analyzer) and then they get to see a lot of information about how their applications are using the databases — like an Oracle SQL server. Another company is also producing a database performance monitoring tool for Progress Databases and some other open-source flavors. So over time, the picture is getting more and more complete to cover everything that clients want to do.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product as a nine. The reason I would give it a nine is that our customers are evaluating the software and they are big brands, like famous names in the banking industry. They really rely heavily on the software for their business. Before they purchase it, they go through a fairly strict selection procedure to get everything they need, find out if it is stable, and how well it is running. They make the product pass rigorous testing and evaluation. So if it is good for them, it is a proven solution. It is stable, scalable, reliable and not too expensive.  

We primarily use the solution for detecting weaknesses and portal connectivity with our client's machines. We also use it to analyze the stacks of data to figure out where downtimes are and for how long. 

It helps us figure out how to fix problems faster than we were able to before.

The connectivity of the solution is very good.

The solution is quite robust.

My team has had a lot of issues with support.

The solution should offering monitoring for the database and for the TC (traffic controller).

I've been using the solution for three years.

The stability of the solution is very good. We haven't faced any bugs or glitches.

The scalability of the solution is okay.

Currently, we have ten people in our organization using the solution. They are mostly admins.

Technical support hasn't been the most reliable. Sometimes it takes them a long time to respond or resolve the issues. Occasionally they aren't able to resolve issues at all. The solution is great, but they're really missing the support piece.

Out of ten, I'd rate support at three or four.

We didn't previously use a different solution. 

The initial setup was straightforward. We didn't have any issues at all. I don't recall how long deployment took. It does depend on what the company needs though. It can vary from company to company. Most installations don't take longer than six hours at a maximum.

Three people handled the implementation.

We handled the implementation process ourselves. We used our own team.

We did try out some other software before we decided on SolarWinds, but I don't recall the names of the other companies.

We use the solution on a daily basis. 

I'd advise others that if they just implement the software with an engineer that knows how to handle the installation they should be okay.

We've generally had a good experience using the product.

I'd rate the solution overall eight out of ten. I'd rate it higher if the support was better.

We primarily use the solution for our network.

All the features are very good. The monitoring of the equipment, the configuration manager, and the IP address monitoring are great. 

The UI needs improvement, although in the latest version we installed I've noticed it has gotten better. 

Improvement also is required the monitoring of multiple interfaces from different devices. 

The solution is stable.

Scalability is a bit tricky because it requires more gateways in order to get the performance you may need. It also requires a lot of licensing.

We have been very pleased with technical support. They respond quite quickly and the responses are always helpful.

The initial setup was straightforward. We had it up and running pretty quickly. The actual deployment takes a bit of time, but the initial configuration to import a few devices was about a day.

The solution was installed quite a long time ago. We may have used an integrator, but I don't think he did much more than I could have done myself.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.