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Cisco Intersight 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

Cisco Intersight
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (12th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
157
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco Intersight is 2.3%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.1%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

David Fartouk - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps know whether a solution is deployed correctly, but the automation capabilities are difficult to use
We used the solution's automation capabilities, but it wasn’t easy. It was part of why we took some time to deploy the solution. It didn't give us much value. It wasn't that good. Intersight is a pretty complex solution. It can give you a lot of things, but nothing is simple. The usability must be better.
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

"It offers visibility and optimization of workloads, which are very important features for a company."
"What I like most about Cisco Intersight is its manageability."
"Intersight can validate our environment."
"Scalable portfolio of services for remote device management, with good cloud integration. It's also easy to set up."
"Intersight offers many features that provide great value to companies."
"The tool helps to manage Cisco servers."
"I like Intersight because of the integration with HashiCorp, Kubernetes, and each cloud because Intersight is the IO module."
"Cisco Intersight has valuable features for workflow automation and inventory administration."
"The set up was very easy. We didn't have any problems with the setup. The deployment took less than an hour."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its graphical interface and reports."
"Technical support is very helpful with our upgrades."
"Can easily be interconnected with other management systems."
"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."
"Their support team is efficient, and it is easy to set up."
"We don't have any issues with the stability of SolarWinds NPM."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We deployed the solution from new and completed the upgrades."
 

Cons

"When new features are added, the service becomes full of bugs."
"In the future, the solution needs to plan on an extension to cover a broader range of objects since, at present, there are some Cisco devices within the range of Intersight UCS that it can't manage."
"The product could be easy to use."
"More products should be made compatible with iWORK, including more software and hardware."
"The usability must be better."
"Cisco Intersight needs some improvement in terms of stability. Hybrid cloud management and proper hyperscaler tie-up are other areas for improvement."
"It's a very complex solution."
"Technical support from Cisco has been mixed. For complex issues, it's challenging to get the right engineer quickly unless you have a specific contract like CX."
"The root cause analysis and installation faults are not clear."
"SolarWinds NPM could improve the graphics of the interface and more customized reporting."
"Each model has different features, so clients need to purchase a separate model for SQL monitoring, database monitoring, network traffic analyzer, HTTP traffic, etc. So each feature they need is in a different model, but customers would prefer an all-in-one solution."
"I think Solar Winds NPM needs to create a profile with documentation responsibility."
"It has covered everything, so no improvement is required at their end. The only thing is the price."
"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."
"They don't have a local support team."
"The console could be more user-friendly. It would be better if SolarWinds updated the user interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco Intersight has competitive pricing. On a scale of one to five, my rating for its pricing is four."
"It's just the standard licensing cost. There are no additional fees."
"You can get a free license for monitoring but need to purchase a license if you need extra control."
"Cisco Intersight is not cheap, but it's not the most expensive product either."
"The product is cost-effective."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"The licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes."
"Quite highly priced"
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"Though I don't remember the price for SolarWinds NPM, its price is somewhat okay when you compare it with other tools in the market. The price isn't too high and isn't too low, so it's okay."
"It is too expensive."
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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
40%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Healthcare Company
5%
Educational Organization
57%
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 Cisco Intersight?
Intersight can validate our environment.
What needs improvement with Cisco Intersight?
More products should be made compatible with iWORK, including more software and hardware. There is also a need to increase the number of partners.
What is your primary use case for Cisco Intersight?
The most common use case was the HyperFlex deployment in the past. However, with HyperFlex being discontinued, I now focus my efforts on selling Intersight with iWORK Waterlog Optimizer. This is va...
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

Intersight
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

EXMAR, RapidScale
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Intersight vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
830,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.