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Checkmk vs SolarWinds NPM 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

Checkmk
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
12th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
12th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (6th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
157
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Checkmk is 3.1%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 5.2%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Paolo Sala - PeerSpot reviewer
A reasonably priced tool for system and application monitoring
The main room for improvement is in the solution's presentation and the integration area. In our company, we use the integration capabilities from ServiceNow. We also have another big monitoring solution in place in our company, which is Dynatrace. At the moment, there doesn't exist an out-of-the-box integration for Dynatrace. I think that the integration and the exporting of the data collected are areas where Checkmk lacks but should try to improve the most. The only implementation of Checkmk that allows high availability is the virtual appliance that has the option for the availability of a different box. Otherwise, you have to find a way to implement it manually with some custom solution, which could be an improvement.
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

"We can monitor multiple sites using the product."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it has a lot of different pieces, and they all work together...It is a very scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The alerting system in Checkmk really works properly."
"The most valuable features of Checkmk are its resource monitoring, infra monitoring, and log factor configuration."
"It's versatile, scalable, and easier to use compared to other solutions like Nagios and OMD."
"I really like the auto-discovery feature."
"The initial setup of Checkmk was easy...It is a very stable solution."
"You can monitor performance counters effortlessly."
"It's easy to understand, even if you are not too technical."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The most valuable features of SolarWinds NPM are network performance monitoring and the overall benefit for servers."
"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 product covers our needs for the basic care and feeding of servers, whether they are physical or virtual."
"I love the GUI. Almost everything is accessible through the web interface. It is very user-friendly. It is easy to drag and drop resources wherever you want them."
"The interface is user-friendly, making it easy to use."
 

Cons

"It is easy for tech-savvy people, but newcomers might find it intimidating."
"If an alert is generated for a specific pattern in the log, and if Checkmk catches that log, it will stay there even after the alert is resolved."
"Sometimes we receive alerts, and it can become annoying when you acknowledge an alert. It is very clunky when you acknowledge the alert. The process is not very intuitive, and there are instances where it feels a bit cumbersome to acknowledge an alert."
"The main challenge for us is that we're moving from Nagios to Checkmk, and we're still getting used to the new way of working."
"In Checkmk, the documentation can probably be improved a bit more."
"I think that the integration and the exporting of the data collected are areas where Checkmk lacks but should try to improve the most."
"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"They need to work on their automation and automatically discover devices. They are not very good at automatically discovering devices."
"We are looking to change away from this solution because of the documentation and the solution doesn't have enough integration in our country. The documentation is too weak."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"The root cause analysis and installation faults are not clear."
"The dashboard of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"Being able to detect devices that are trying to connect wirelessly would make using this solution much easier."
"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."
"It would be nice if SolarWinds could have a polling engine on the site that would collect the reporting and then manage everything itself."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Checkmk is a fairly reasonably priced solution."
"The price of Checkmk is cheaper compared to other enterprise products."
"The product is affordable."
"You have to license it per year, for the support. You don't really need to have support once you've already set it up. Once you install SolarWinds, you can skip on the licensing. It will still work."
"SolarWinds NPM has different pricing models available. The cost of the solution is less than some competitors."
"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."
"There can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"
"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."
"Licenses depend on the number of devices, but all license levels come with technical support."
"We have a multi-year license for the use of this solution. There are additional costs for recourses in the environment."
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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
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
58%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Checkmk?
The most valuable feature of the solution is that it has a lot of different pieces, and they all work together...It is a very scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What needs improvement with Checkmk?
The main challenge for us is that we're moving from Nagios to Checkmk, and we're still getting used to the new way of working. But basically, we're okay with it. The difficult part was adapting fro...
What is your primary use case for Checkmk?
We use it to monitor mainly Linux servers, including operating system metrics, processes, services, and so on. We also use scripting and monitoring logs.
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Checkmk vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.