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Alluvio AppResponse vs SolarWinds NPM 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

Alluvio AppResponse
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
60th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (47th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Alluvio AppResponse is 0.3%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.7%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmet Kilic - PeerSpot reviewer
It's a total solution that gives you end-to-end visibility at all levels
I rate Alluvio AppResponse 10 out of 10. If you work for a financial company especially, you probably face problems on the application side. The problem is easy to identify, but you need to determine the root cause. You can solve issues easily via AppResponse because it shows you all the details of your transactions so you can see the real problem in the database, network, software, etc. For example, you can find the solution easily if you create the right dashboard on your site. If you can't find the problem, you can observe or investigate PCAP.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have found the AppResponse, which is a packet capture solution, very good. It gives you the ability to drill down back in time. You've got all the packets there. You can troubleshoot it later, not immediately. It's very interesting."
"The most valuable feature is performance monitoring."
"We really like the scalability capabilities."
"Riverbed's product is a superb product."
"Ability to see end to end user, application, server, and network response time and throughput data."
"It's a stable product. Riverbed has invested a significant amount of research and development into it, so it's a solid tool overall."
"When it comes to the ability to scale up the product, this is suitable for small medium and large environments,"
"With some APM solutions, it can take a long time to check a periodic report, but you can get all the necessary details quickly with AppResponse."
"SolarWinds dashboard is very fast. Also, their interface is very good, it looks very user-friendly. The product allows me to see a summary of the network being monitored at a glance."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Provides a good level of tools and covers essential components."
"The alerting and usage tracking notifications on disk space capacity, network and processor utilization."
"It is very extensible with 'SWQL' and APIs to where we are beginning to integrate it with network automation."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its graphical interface and reports."
"From web interfaces to custom monitors and alarms, this product has a high level of flexibility that can be molded to suit your business needs, regardless of the size of your organization."
"I can do everything remotely, including running PowerShell scripts or performing standard updates."
 

Cons

"The recent changes in corporate structure may have caused some decrease in support quality."
"Alluvio AppResponse should improve its ability to expand across multiple operating systems."
"They need to better integrate with products and solutions from different vendors."
"The initial setup is straightforward, but you have to know a little about the product. It's not for everybody to just plug and play. If you know how the solution is implemented then it is straightforward."
"The AI features should be addressed in respect of the analysis and intelligence that must be supported and delivered in the tool to predigest the large amounts of data."
"Need to bring back the NetFlow module for AppResponse."
"If Alluvio AppResponse reduces its cost, it will be more beneficial for customers to monitor their application and network performance."
"The recent changes in corporate structure may have caused some decrease in support quality."
"If they’re going for a “cover everything” approach, then they need to do so and enable a bit more of the "cover everything approach" within every one of the tools."
"The solution is not always good with new features, so it's take a long time."
"An area for improvement in SolarWinds NPM is the short retention period. Currently, it's just for seven days of data, which is very low, making it hard for my organization to keep that data. SolarWinds recommended a seven-day retention period, but my organization needs a fourteen-day data retention period. Hence, I'd like an increase in the retention period or the database limit in SolarWinds NPM because you can't go back to the data for any investigation if seven days have passed. Another area for improvement in SolarWinds NPM is the database, which needs to be a bit more mature. I want a modified database in the next release of SolarWinds NPM. I'd also like more options added to groups because, currently, it's very limited."
"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."
"A feature I would ask for is for them to have this solution available for Linux systems instead of Windows."
"Real-time analytics is the major weakness of the SolarWinds NPM platform today. They've done a fantastic job enabling the collection of data. Users are now demanding the ability to generate their own graphs, views, and so on; all of this must be done by an admin today."
"A need for improvement is in the technical support provided by SolarWinds."
"It would be nice if SolarWinds added some technical protocols like Modbus. The market needs a simple solution for monitoring a technical device."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing model is expensive compared to its competitors, but the service it gives to your business, and the data quality, means that it's worth it."
"It is costly for small and medium businesses."
"The solution is no more expensive than other products."
"The price is a little bit high, especially because we have to pay an import tax."
"It is expensive."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"There can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on."
"It's expensive and there are costs in addition to the standard 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."
"It is too expensive."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"It is not an expensive product."
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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
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
14%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Insurance Company
8%
Educational Organization
58%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Riverbed SteelCentral AppResponse?
The most valuable feature of Alluvio AppResponse is the actual response time for measuring performance.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Riverbed SteelCentral AppResponse?
The pricing of Riverbed Alluvio AppResponse is really high. Very few customers buy Riverbed because many do not have the sufficient budget. Its pricing is comparatively higher than SolarWinds. Rive...
What needs improvement with Riverbed SteelCentral AppResponse?
The reporting models need improvement as most of the time, we have to customize the reports manually. Additionally, a feature similar to SolarWinds AppStack, which provides a holistic view of the i...
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...
 

Also Known As

Riverbed AppResponse, OPNET SteelCentral AppResponse, ACE Live, OPNET, AppResponse Xpert
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

N11.com, OneMain Financial, China Bank, Halkbank, Kaust
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Alluvio AppResponse vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.