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Meraki Dashboard vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Meraki Dashboard
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
157
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Meraki Dashboard is 1.7%, down from 2.1% 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

Pete Grimshaw - PeerSpot reviewer
It's intuitive and allows you to manage your devices from a single pane of glass
We're refreshing our networks and looking at the new Meraki MX250 firewall, one of the higher-end security devices. We're happy with what the devices can do, but they lack a few features found on older firewalls or competing products. For instance, you should be able to see if something has been blocked by a firewall rule by looking at a live log of traffic moving through the device. It helps you troubleshoot issues and understand if your rules are working. You need to ensure the firewall is blocking the right things. That's unavailable in the Meraki Dashboard. You have to send the logs to a log server. We use SolarWinds locally, but it's not natively built into Meraki. We're also using Cisco ISA and another tool called Smoothwall.
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

"The most valuable feature is the single pane of glass that gives you multisite visibility."
"The most valuable feature is ease of use."
"Meraki Dashboard centralizes control of all our equipment into one cloud-based console, so we can manage it from anywhere. We can resolve problems remotely outside of business hours because it is on the cloud. You can use the dashboard to change security settings or configure routers and switches."
"An excellent dashboard that is currently unique in covering both SD-WAN and SD-LAN with built-in security."
"The ease-of-use and the analytics are really effective tools."
"It's a simple, functional solution."
"The dashboard itself is very simplified and easy to navigate."
"It is a reliable product. It provides a lot of information that is easy to read."
"The people in technical support are very good."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the alerts."
"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 most valuable feature is the way it monitors the environment, and how user-friendly the console is for the end-user. The interface is also very easy and it captures all the information very well."
"SolarWinds NPM is a scalable solution since it can handle a huge number of users."
"We can proactively fix historical issues, so we won't face those problems in future."
"It did a good job of the collection and then an investigation of the net flow of information for understanding the applications that were being used at certain locations."
"The alerting and usage tracking notifications on disk space capacity, network and processor utilization."
 

Cons

"Meraki Dashboard could improve integration with non-Cisco platforms."
"Meraki lacks their own software for connecting to the VPN which creates some issues."
"What we would like from the IT perspective is a lot more granular control, more visibility into the packets, into the routing, and things of that nature."
"One area that could use improvement in the Meraki Dashboard is user-friendliness when navigating to port configurations."
"Some features could be added."
"It's a very complex system. Customers have told me that sometimes there are lots of advanced features that are available and that you can change in the dashboard, but sometimes it's very hard to know what they are."
"I would like to see an alert event feature to monitor what users are downloading and how to block some applications."
"The pricing for this solution needs to be improved."
"The dashboards for this solution could be improved. We would like to divide the dashboards to give a clear view to our management team to show what we have and what deficiencies exist in our network."
"It would be nice if SolarWinds added some technical protocols like Modbus. The market needs a simple solution for monitoring a technical device."
"The aesthetic widgets should be dynamic widgets, so the customization can be even more customizable."
"This solution would benefit from expanding on the capabilities within the API."
"There isn't support available to us as they don't offer support in our country."
"We'd like to see a bit more automation in the future."
"Currently lacks integration with SMS services."
"In terms of scalability, there is room for improvement. When you start monitoring, if you have so many interfaces and you're trying to monitor them at a faster interval, or a shorter interval, you get to a point where you need to request another node."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Meraki Dashboard's pricing is reasonable. It is sold yearly, typically for one, three, or five years. I rate its pricing a five out of ten."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Meraki Dashboard is a utility and portal that's part of the Meraki solution."
"The solution is currently the most expensive on the market."
"Typically, the license model is for one, three, and five years. They can just be a bit more flexible around it and look into providing an option for 24 months."
"The pricing of the tool is relatively high compared to other solutions. It comes with a premium that exceeds that of its competitors by approximately 25 percent."
"The price of Meraki Dashboard is not expensive because knowing that it is a cloud-based solution has its benefits."
"It is said to be expensive."
"The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
"We pay approximately $700 per year for renewal of the license."
"I believe the original setup cost was around $3500 with an annual cost of around $1200-$1500 to renew the support license. This would bring the average day-to-day cost of around $5-$6 over three years."
"Price could be improved on"
"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"We pay approximately $4,000 annually for SolarWinds NPM. There are no additional fees required other than the standard fees."
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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
24%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
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 Meraki Dashboard?
We greatly utilize the network because we can plug it into the DNS, VPN, or equipment. It's very good. Meraki Dashboard enhances wireless network management. We appreciate its flexibility, as it al...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki Dashboard?
Meraki Dashboard's pricing is reasonable. It is sold yearly, typically for one, three, or five years. I rate its pricing a five out of ten.
What needs improvement with Meraki Dashboard?
They could improve the product by providing enhanced utilization reports and more detailed independent access reports.
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

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

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Coop eG, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Priefert Manufacturing, Century Care Management, Clifton College, Zürs Ski Resort, Capital FM Arena, MAXI Autohöfe
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Meraki Dashboard vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
825,609 professionals have used our research since 2012.