IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

IBM and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Server Monitoring category. IBM is ranked #18 with an average rating of 8.0, while SolarWinds is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.3. IBM holds a 0.9% mindshare in SM, compared to SolarWinds’s 2.6% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

Read 54 IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) reviews

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230 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 42 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

1,122 Views
747 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor compete in network performance and server/application monitoring. SolarWinds appears to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive monitoring capabilities and cost-effectiveness.

Features: IBM SevOne NPM includes extensive network analytics, real-time performance metrics, and advanced analytics. SolarWinds offers comprehensive server and application monitoring, performance tracking, and a broader range of monitoring capabilities.

Room for Improvement: IBM SevOne NPM could enhance customization options, reporting features, and dashboards. SolarWinds should improve scalability, the setup process, and user-friendliness of initial deployment.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM SevOne NPM users find deployment straightforward but seek more responsive customer service. SolarWinds users commend ease of deployment and supportive customer service, with smoother overall deployment experiences.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SevOne NPM has higher setup costs but offers satisfactory ROI for complex environments. SolarWinds has more affordable setup costs and favorable ROI, with better cost-effectiveness appreciated by users.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

April 2025

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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

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

Ranking in Server Monitoring

18th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (37th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (43rd), Log Management (44th), Cloud Monitoring Software (29th)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Server Monitoring

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (16th), Active Directory Management (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is 0.9%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.6%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Grzegorz Nowak

Solution Architect at Wingu

Improves infrastructure planning by helping us analyze network traffic

We use SevOne to collect and report on network flows SevOne improves infrastructure planning by helping us analyze network traffic. We can look at bandwidth for specific endpoints on the customer's network and analyze traffic to identify issues. For example, maybe some connectors are unavailable.…

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Subhajit Nag

Senior Process Associate at Tata Consultancy Services

The component and cable monitoring features are good, but the interface is slow

SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern. Every SolarWinds user complains about the sluggishness. The response is slow. If you browse from one page to another, you have to wait. Our company is a massive user with plenty of licenses, so the performance issues could be due to the load per license. Ten thousand components can be mapped under one license. So SolarWinds needs to take care of the speed problem. It cannot be this slow. That is a huge complaint. Otherwise, the tool is good. It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle. The upgrade time matters because you only install the solution once, but you'll need to upgrade the solution repeatedly over the life of the product. A complex installation isn't an issue, but I mind if the upgrade takes too long because it's already in production.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We've had great feedback from our customers about SevOne support. They're willing to set up a remote session upon request. You have to go through three tiers of support with most vendors, and they ask a lot of screening questions before they will do a remote session. You need to spend a lot of time before an engineer will host a remote session to look at your problematic system."

"I like the tool’s scalability and real-time reports. Earlier, we struggled to give real-time reports to clients. I also like the tool’s deployment model where we can deploy it either on-premises or in-house. We don’t have to carry the data all over the globe. Also, I am impressed with the tool's flow reporting and Wi-Fi."

"It's given us the ability to create various real-time network performance reports and distribute them to any colleague who can access these reports immediately."

"In 90% of the cases, new devices are plug-and-play, so when a new version comes out then SevOne has support for it out of the box."

"The automation feature is good because if your CMDB is OK and it is already in sync, then the automation part is good to go."

"Data Insight reporting tool is the most valuable feature. They came up with it a couple of years ago. The most pleasing factor is the dark theme. You don't have a white background. It has templates that you can create for all kinds of reports that you can hit on the fly. It's much better printing of the reports. If you want to send PDFs to people, the reports are actually decent. Whereas for years, the old architecture of the PDFs was rubbish and even our customers said, "We have to manipulate your PDFs because they all have bad margin breaks. SevOne fixed that a couple of years ago with the new Data Insight. It's fantastic."

"The network data collection has been very flexible for us. It's been thorough in areas that were lacking. They have a team that I've worked with to add other pieces to it. So if it's missing something out of the box, they work with me to add it. I was able to collect that data. It's not perfect, but it's pretty thorough."

"The out of the box reports and workflows are pretty good and they meet our requirements well."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pros

"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."

"We use the solution as a central monitoring tool. We use it to monitor every transaction that has a relation to the organization’s infrastructure."

"The product integrates with Remedy."

"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."

"The graphical interfaces, GUI customizations, and alert configurations are impressive."

"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."

"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."

"Management Console - Managing service to each server enrolled in the Solarwinds is much easier. Using a web base console, you can control your service much convenient way. There is no need to login remotely. It save a lot of time and effort."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"There is no service mode setup in this monitoring tool if you want to snooze alerts for any specific amount of time, to account for any activity change or major incident."

"Would benefit with the addition of AI modules for proactive data insights."

"When I started using it, I tried adding one of the BroadWorks application servers into SevOne... it created thousands and thousands of objects from that one application server and we immediately ran out of license... It would help, when new objects are discovered, if there were a way to categorize those objects and to pick the part of the object you need..."

"NMS has several areas for improvement. It should be more user-friendly inside of NMS for some of the functionality in there. It's been getting better the last version or two, but the there have been bugs in there whenever I've gone to new versions."

"Telemetry is hot these days, and IBM can improve SevOne's support for telemetry correction. Reporting is another feature that could be better. It provides the bare minimum functionality, which is good enough for most engineers, but the management isn't advanced. The new portal provides a much lighter view and better visualization, but the management is not so good."

"In terms of having a complete view of our network performance, I would rate it a nine out of 10. The reason for not giving it a 10 is that there is no packet capture associated with SevOne, but we do have other tools in place to do that."

"SevOne could improve its flexibility because it isn't fully customizable and its out-of-the-box configuration doesn't cover all use cases."

"Software upgrades can be tricky is not easy."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) cons

"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."

"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."

"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."

"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."

"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve by having a cloud version. They have an observability platform but it still needs to be maintained by us."

"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."

"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."

"The product needs to reduce its price."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are cheaper solutions available."

"The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing."

"A blocking point is the high upfront cost because it is challenging to get it accepted and the purchase approved."

"Prices per license are not huge, but they exist."

"Although I don't have exact details in terms of cost, my experience has been that SevOne is willing to make a deal with the customer."

"Choose a SevOne partner who can provide SevOne as a service and can deliver professional services and maintenance."

"For the value that you get from SevOne, it's worth the price. There are a lot of cheaper alternatives on the market, and even free options. But they require more staff, more resources, and engineers with more advanced knowledge of monitoring. That's what makes SevOne worth the price."

"Have a bank of licenses, because it is about the number of objects (RAM, ports, CPU, etc.)."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pricing and cost advice

"I have always said SolarWinds is very “proud” of their products, meaning they are expensive. I cannot afford to purchase all the licenses I need for all the SolarWinds products."

"Nagios XI, WhatsUpGold, Uptime Software, PRTG, Manage Engine, and SpiceWorks are the other tools that have lower pricing and licensing costs. However, they can't compete with SolarWinds when it comes to the features and functionality that SolarWinds can provide."

"SAM is not per server so the pricing model can be deceiving. If you have an enterprise environment, you will quickly exceed your licensing quickly. You should know this before going in."

"Price can always be lower. It is neither on the expensive side nor on the cheap side. We have worked with them for a lot of years, so we get a discount due to the size of the installation."

"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."

"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."

"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."

"We are on an annual license to use the solution. The price of the solution is expensive. The price is based on a bunch of factors, such as the number of engines and elements."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

16%

Computer Software Company

14%

Legal Firm

Educational Organization

41%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SevOne Network Data Platform?

I like the tool’s scalability and real-time reports. Earlier, we struggled to give real-time reports to clients. I also like the tool’s deployment model where we can deploy it either on-premises or...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SevOne Network Data Platform?

The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SevOne Network Data Platform?

There is room for improvement in the integration with different vendors and the reporting capabilities. It would be beneficial to have out-of-the-box integration with third-party vendors and improv...

See all answers

What do you like most about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

The initial cost is quite high, but the renewal cost is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor at this time. I have not encountered any missing features or fu...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 10% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 9% of the time

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 9% of the time

Zabbix vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 9% of the time

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Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 18% of the time

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 18% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 12% of the time

Prometheus Group vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 8% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

April 2025

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) report

Download IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

March 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

SevOne

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

The IBM® SevOne Network Performance Management (IBM SevOne NPM) solution helps you spot, address, and prevent network performance issues early with machine learning-powered analytics from a single source. Boost network performance and improve your user application experience by proactively monitoring your multivendor end-to-end network across enterprise, communication, and managed service provider networks.

Transform raw network performance data into intelligent and actionable insights. The IBM SevOne NPM solution goes beyond detection, combining industry-leading expertise and advanced technology to help your IT team plan and optimize your network and act on what matters: improving network performance to provide an exceptional customer experience.

For further information, please visit www.ibm.com/cloud/sevo...

IBM

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers powerful application and server monitoring capabilities for IT pros, enabling them to diagnose and troubleshoot performance issues faster. Do not let slow applications and downtime impact your end-users and business services. Pinpoint the root cause of application issues across various layers of the IT stack. SolarWinds SAM is affordable and easy to deploy, use, and customize. You can automatically discover your system's environment and start monitoring in about an hour. No professional services or consultation needed.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

ATOS, Devereux, Spark New Zealand, Access4, Rogers Communication, Lumen (formerly known as CenturyLink)

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

April 2025

Free Report: IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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