We've been using SolarWinds for our network monitoring. It's basic advanced network monitoring, up-down of Rogers switches, as well as metrics, latency, wireless metrics, where users are, errors on interfaces, route cables, and things of that nature. We're just pulling as much data from our network devices as possible to present that in an easy pane of glass.
IT Infrastructure Analyst at Textron Systems Corporation
Simple to set up with good visualizations and helpful support
Pros and Cons
- "The stability is fantastic."
- "There should be a little bit more integration in some of the other tooling and utilizing the APIs of devices or tools could be a little bit better."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
I find the NetPath to be very valuable. It visualizes that traceroute that you can share with anyone in the business. For example, when they say, "Hey, what's going on? The network's slow because my application or my server's having issues" you can show them this nice graph that visualizes where there may be congestion or if there isn't any congestion at all.
Its initial setup is simple.
What needs improvement?
So far, it's been pretty good, however, due to the whole solar flare thing that happened two years ago, a lot of cybersecurity and leadership's kind of looking to replace it with something else. We're currently just trying to find other info or anybody else who's comparable in terms of other network monitoring solutions.
Wireless monitoring needs improvement. We need to get a little bit more information from the thin clients or wireless LAN controllers than we already do. It's very minimal at this point and getting more information would be pretty vital.
There should be a little bit more integration in some of the other tooling and utilizing the APIs of devices or tools could be a little bit better. It would help to present information - rather than trying to get the highest level of administrative access to present minimal information. There are a lot of aspects where they give you base information, however, for other necessary gleams of information, you may need to have high-low. For instance, for Linux servers, you need to have pseudo access to get the necessary information to monitor and that's kind of a hassle.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using the solution for about three years.
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SolarWinds NPM
June 2025

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is fantastic. We haven't personally had any issues other than a few gripes about the lack of information. However, as far as it being stable, for me, it's been pretty solid.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's possible to scale, however, it comes at a cost. You have to go through them and there's a whole nother license piece that costs a large lump sum to grow your polers to start importing more if your initial server is getting towards a limit. It's scalable, with the caveat of it's going to cost you.
We have about ten to 20 users. It's a mix of network analysts, CIS admins, storage administrators, and application administrators.
We do not plan to increase usage at the moment, mainly as we're pretty much utilizing it as much as we need to, however, it is pretty much monitoring our entire environment or maybe couple hundred switches, some routers, couple hundred servers, and applications and things like that. We pretty much monitor our whole environment and our environment's not really growing anymore. We're pretty good right now.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is pretty good. In the few cases we have reached out for any support, they've been pretty responsive. Also, their online resources and knowledge bases are very extensive as well.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We actually didn't use anything before this product.
How was the initial setup?
The implementation process is pretty straightforward. They give you an MSI and once you have your servers and databases set up, it's just a couple of clicks and it's set up.
For overall importing of everything may have taken a couple of weeks to have things up and running due to how our organization is structured and how we can gather information to pull into SolarWinds and our implementation strategy. For example, who set up servers and applications. We start getting with the appropriate aims to get whatever monitor or whatever polling method we need, whether it was S and NP strings or accounts for any server monitoring with administrative access or whatnot. Then we look at the network and do those automatic scans from there. Once we start pulling in that information, we start actually organizing all the nodes in there to properly alert and monitor. It takes maybe a month or so to get it to a baseline.
For deployment and maintenance, honestly, it's just me by myself doing it. It would be easier with a few more people.
What about the implementation team?
The setup was done in-house. We did not use any third party, like an integrator, reseller, or consultant.
What was our ROI?
As far as assisting in being proactive in our network, it's been a great help in helping us maintain a healthy environment and being proactive and making sure things are up to date and upgraded.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
There weren't any other options were evaluated. We saw SolarWinds and noted our other sister companies use that. We just went with it to be standardized within our entire conglomerate.
What other advice do I have?
We are a customer and end-user.
I would definitely advise others to do their homework. There are a lot of different modules you can buy with different licensing. You need to understand what you're looking to monitor, and what you're trying to present to your business, and then do the homework on the solution itself and see how that fits your needs before just going and buying it or even talking to a sales representative.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's pretty good at its job. I haven't really delved into too many other things. I've tried to look at other tools recently and in my opinion, solutions like Nagios or Zabbix aren't the best. I haven't really looked into other things like Datadog or LogicMonitor yet, however, I'd say this solution is kind of a leader in the pack for what it's doing. Still, there's definitely room for improvement.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Monitoring and Process Analyst at Seguros SURA
User-friendly and strong tool that monitors devices, routers, and switches, with good technical support
Pros and Cons
- "I like that SolarWinds NPM is a strong tool for monitoring network devices, switches, and routers. It's also a user-friendly tool. My team also likes how scalable it is."
- "We also had to be attentive to vulnerabilities, because SolarWinds NPM have some issues in that area. We had to work with our security team, so that they could help us check and backup the data, and check what they needed to secure."
What is our primary use case?
SolarWinds NPM is a good tool. It's a strong monitoring tool that we use to monitor our network devices, routers, and switches.
What is most valuable?
I like that SolarWinds NPM is a strong tool for monitoring network devices, switches, and routers. It's also a user-friendly tool. My team also likes how scalable it is.
What needs improvement?
There are some areas for improvement in SolarWinds NPM. One is that their dashboard needs to be friendlier. We want them to take their dashboard to another level. For example: with our databases, we develop services and we want to put those on the dashboard, while making them more visual. This would be good to improve in the tool.
The integration of SolarWinds NPM with other tools is also another area for improvement. For example, we'd like to have the ability to manage the unit with other tools, because we need to have better control to manage the alerts. How can you load that capacity with only that kind of information?
We also had to be attentive to vulnerabilities, because SolarWinds NPM have some issues in that area. We had to work with our security team, so that they could help us check and backup the data, and check what they needed to secure. You have to do a test, find what needs to be improved, then make the corrections on SolarWinds NPM. You have to be very attentive when using the tool, but it's an area to improve not just in SolarWinds NPM, but for any tool.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using SolarWinds NPM for a year and a half.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
SolarWinds NPM is a stable tool.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
SolarWinds NPM is a scalable tool. My team likes working with it because they really like its scalability.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support for SolarWinds NPM is very good. I'm rating their support five out of five.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup for SolarWinds NPM was easy. I didn't do the configuration, but I watched our installer very closely, and he installed the tool quickly. For example: if you have a new module or a new product, you can do the installation very quickly.
What about the implementation team?
The deployment of SolarWinds NPM was done in-house.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We pay for SolarWinds NPM yearly. We buy it and then we renew it, but it's not subscription-based. I don't remember the value exactly, because it's my manager who manages pricing, but we pay $60,000 per year for all the solutions. Pricing will also depend on the number of devices. We have a lot of devices.
What other advice do I have?
We have the SolarWinds NTA (NetFlow Traffic Analyzer), and we also use another solution from SolarWinds: the SolarWinds SAM to monitor some on-premise servers. It also monitors the GPU, memory, the availability status and processes. We are now monitoring databases, particularly Oracle databases, to check their status and also check internal information. We detect all this information and equip our system so that it has the information, and we're doing it manually because that doesn't happen automatically with SolarWinds.
We have 30 people who use SolarWinds NPM and they're part of the operations, network, and infrastructure teams that do the diagnostics when something is wrong. We also have team leaders and some managers that watch the data in real time, plus the configuration and monitoring teams. We have 2 engineers responsible for the deployment and maintenance of the tool.
As for plans of increasing our usage of SolarWinds NPM, we've bought more modules recently, and we keep using the tool to monitor our network and infrastructure, together with other tools. For example: we have some very practical tools that our monitoring team uses to make diagnostic alerts such as McAfee. At the moment, our main tool is SolarWinds NPM, and we keep using it, especially for monitoring cloud devices. This is very important to our organization because we've migrated to the cloud. If you're doing cloud migration, you have to picture how you can monitor devices on the cloud.
I would recommend SolarWinds APM to others looking into using it. We're using a lot of it. We also have the SolarWinds SAM, and I would recommend it for monitoring databases and servers, and you have to do a little development, but it's manageable. I would also recommend SolarWinds NPM because from experience, it's able to do its job.
My rating for SolarWinds NPM is nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds NPM
June 2025

Learn what your peers think about SolarWinds NPM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Presales Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Good monitoring with a user-friendly interface and smooth deployment
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface and the ease of deployment."
- "SolarWinds NPM should be more flexible to accommodate specific customer requirements quickly."
What is our primary use case?
I work as a technical consultant, and I suggest customers use SolarWinds NPM for cybersecurity monitoring purposes. We deploy it to monitor all network equipment, such as routers, switches, firewalls, and NetFlow within the network.
How has it helped my organization?
SolarWinds NPM is a very effective solution for monitoring. The interface is user-friendly, deployment is easy, and the support from SolarWinds is great, especially within India.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface and the ease of deployment. Additionally, the support from SolarWinds has been very helpful.
What needs improvement?
SolarWinds NPM should be more flexible to accommodate specific customer requirements quickly. It would be beneficial if their development team could develop solutions within a limited time, like three to five months. This flexibility is sometimes missing compared to local developers in India.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using SolarWinds NPM for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of SolarWinds NPM is very good; I would rate it 7.5 out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of the solution could be more flexible. I would rate it around 6.5 to seven out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
Customer service is good, but there is room for improvement. Sometimes, customers look for on-premises support directly from SolarWinds rather than through third parties or partners.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is relatively easy. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate it eight to 8.5.
What other advice do I have?
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Senior Systems Engineer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It's a reasonably priced solution with excellent support
Pros and Cons
- "SolarWinds is reasonably priced."
- "The integration with video apps could be better."
What is our primary use case?
I use SolarWinds for monitoring. We have around 300 people at my company.
How has it helped my organization?
I like the NPM and SAM features.
What needs improvement?
The integration with video apps could be better.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used SolarWinds NPM for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
SolarWinds NPM is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
SolarWinds NPM is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
I rate SolarWinds support nine out of 10. SolarWinds support is excellent.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The SolarWinds deployment was straightforward and took about two weeks. One support engineer can handle it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
SolarWinds is reasonably priced.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We considered Dotcom-Monitor, but we went with SolarWinds for financial reasons.
What other advice do I have?
I rate SolarWinds NPM eight out of 10. Before implementing SolarWinds, do your homework and compare it with other products. Contact the technical accounts manager and find out the latest features so you can see the pros and cons.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
CTO-OSS product development at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Great for monitoring but report customizations are limited
Pros and Cons
- "The solution ranks as one of the top five monitoring tools."
- "The solution does not offer much customization so is somewhat inflexible."
What is our primary use case?
Our company specializes in the development of a SaaS site. Often times, we look for solutions to complement our existing tool based on customer's needs.
We recommended the solution to a customer as an infrastructure configuration and monitoring tool that combines multiple domains in a single platform. The customer also wanted issue notifications to be provided in a real-time, viewable format.
What is most valuable?
The solution ranks as one of the top five monitoring tools.
What needs improvement?
KPIs should correlate and combine in one simple report.
The solution does not offer much customization so is somewhat inflexible.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Our customer does not have broad scaling needs. They have fifteen users and the solution works fine with no issues in this small environment.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup can take time because it requires proper security access from the customer side. Setup and implementation took our customer one week.
What about the implementation team?
Our customer utilized an internal team of four technicians to handle implementation themselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I recommend the solution if it is the best alternative for a customer's environment. It is one of five tools that I suggest for assessment of fit.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
ICT Design Manager at a hospitality company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Easy deployment, high stability, and reliable technical support
Pros and Cons
- "We found that it was easy to operate, and it was simple if anyone has entry-level working experience or even if someone is not experienced."
- "The improvement would be that SolarWinds NPM thoroughly checks its patches before releasing them to the market. Better testing, alpha testing, and then releasing it to the market."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case is for cybersecurity, as they did not want it on their own personal cloud.
What is most valuable?
We found that it was easy to operate, and it was simple if anyone has entry-level working experience or even if someone is not experienced.
What needs improvement?
The improvement would be that SolarWinds NPM thoroughly checks its patches before releasing them to the market. Better testing, alpha testing, and then releasing it to the market.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with SolarWinds NPM for the past one to two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good and informative.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We were able to quickly expand and include any other active equipment or any new buildings which became requirements. We were able to easily take into consideration everything and set it up.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is good, however somewhat delayed due to the time difference. We had some troubleshooting issues because new people were working on it, but SolarWinds NPM responded back and it was easy for everyone to go through it.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
Deployment was straightforward and we had an expert of SolarWinds NPM who we employed. The process was completed within a couple of hours.
What about the implementation team?
We had one person from a third party help us through the deployment process.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate SolarWinds NPM a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Solutions Consultant at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The network and server application monitoring features are strong.
Pros and Cons
- "SolarWinds' network and server application monitoring features are strong."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
We use SolarWinds for network monitoring. It's suitable for mid-sized or enterprise-scale companies. It can work for a small business, too, because it's not too expensive.
What is most valuable?
SolarWinds' network and server application monitoring features are strong.
What needs improvement?
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.
At the same time, some tools don't have the ability to customize, so SolarWinds is ahead of the competition, in that regard. I would also like to see more support for software-defined network platforms and enhanced API monitoring capacity.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using SolarWinds NPM for more than five years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
SolarWinds offers some options for scalability, but there is a bottleneck on some features. I hope the scale of NetFlow can be increased. Also, SolarWinds uses the Microsoft SQL database, which doesn't allow distributed architecture or scaling options.
How are customer service and support?
I rate SolarWinds support seven out of 10. The quality varies depending on who picks up the phone.
How was the initial setup?
In most cases, setting up SolarWinds is simple. However, when customers have some special requirements, the deployment can become highly complex.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I rate SolarWinds NPM six out of 10 for pricing. It isn't the cheapest solution, but it's still affordable.
What other advice do I have?
I rate SolarWinds NPM eight out of 10. I would recommend this product for medium-sized and enterprise-scale companies.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Director of Operations at 802BR
Useful diagnostic, beneficial network search, and good support
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features in SolarWinds NPM are the network search and diagnostic tools."
- "SolarWinds NPM could improve by adding the deepest inspection, performance networking, and IP address discovery."
What is our primary use case?
SolarWinds NPM is used for searching equipment in the network, troubleshooting the network, and mapping the networking.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features in SolarWinds NPM are the network search and diagnostic tools.
What needs improvement?
SolarWinds NPM could improve by adding the deepest inspection, performance networking, and IP address discovery.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using SolarWinds NPM for approximately three months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
SolarWinds NPM is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of SolarWinds NPM is easy to do.
We have three or four users using this solution.
How are customer service and support?
The support is very good for SolarWinds NPM.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of SolarWinds NPM is easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend this solution to others.
I rate SolarWinds NPM a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

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Updated: June 2025
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