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Mist AI and Cloud vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Mist AI and Cloud
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Wireless LAN (9th)
SolarWinds NPM
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (4th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Mist AI and Cloud and SolarWinds NPM aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Mist AI and Cloud is designed for Wireless LAN and holds a mindshare of 2.3%, down 3.4% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NPM, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 4.7% mindshare, down 5.9% since last year.
Wireless LAN
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

ALEXANDRE VIANNA - PeerSpot reviewer
Scalable and AI-driven automation helps in quick implementation
I have a global customer who wants to start the design phase in a big warehouse, but we do not have the equipment to do a site survey. I need support for the access point to implement in a freezer area. I do not have it. The customer tried to send one piece of equipment to Brazil. However, we had a problem because the customer needed to implement it in three months, and it took two months to send one equipment to Brazil.
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

"Mist AI and Cloud have definitely improved the functioning of our organization. The access to the Internet, including its speed and reliability, has significantly improved."
"Natural language patching is an important feature."
"I have a very good experience with the solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"AI is the most valuable feature."
"Mist AI and Cloud is the best solution I have seen in the industry, especially from the artificial intelligence perspective, as it helps businesses."
"The tool's best part is the GUI. It is user-friendly and fast due to AI features. The solution can help you fix things with AI, which is impressive."
"The cost is the most valuable aspect of this solution."
"Multi PSK (Pre-shared Key) is a very good feature in the solution...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the monitoring capabilities."
"The alerting and reporting capabilities of the tool are impressive"
"For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices."
"This has helped us to monitor the availability of our routers, switches, servers, and virtual environments."
"The product covers our needs for the basic care and feeding of servers, whether they are physical or virtual."
"It's easy to understand, even if you are not too technical."
"Their support team is efficient, and it is easy to set up."
 

Cons

"There are many aspects of AI, and how acquisitions are proceeding, particularly between Juniper and Aruba, remains unclear."
"There seems to be different versions of standards used in the wireless access points. In the future, it would be helpful if the solution could come up with some kind of universal standard for all devices and all access points."
"Sometimes it takes a lot of time for the access point to connect with the cloud."
"Mist AI and Cloud need to improve the configuration speed."
"The user experience should be improved. It's not user-friendly."
"The solution has various licensing policies. It will be easy to use if it is an open single license."
"If there's one thing I'd like to change, it's the pricing. They are quite expensive, but honestly, it's justified by the value they provide. However, for a simple Wi-Fi connectivity with basic security needs, there are alternatives in the market that offer comparable features at a more budget-friendly price."
"Mist AI and Cloud should be marketed more and focus on making partners in the industry."
"There should be a little bit more integration in some of the other tooling and utilizing the APIs of devices or tools could be a little bit better."
"The solution's network discovery and node addition processes need more work."
"The market is changing, and people are expecting automation. I think that's a disadvantage."
"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."
"Robustness of network element mapping tool could be better"
"The tool can only monitor up to 1000 instances in a single SolarWinds console. Customers may have over 1000 instances. Hence, it needs to support a minimum of 1500 instances. It should also improve support."
"The only real caveat that we have or that I have an issue with is when I go on vacation, it's a little hard for me to go and modify alerts so that I don't get alerted about things when I'm on vacation."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The custom licensing is a little bit expensive and I would rate it 7.5 out of 10."
"The price is not cheap, but it's a reliable solution and very easy for management."
"Mist AI and Cloud is expensive."
"The solution's price is too high for the end-users. My customers pay 1,000 USD towards the licensing cost of the solution every year."
"The annual cost is a significant issue for us, and it notably contributes to the overall price. We have a customer with nearly fifty-eight access points in a multifunctional building, and while the setup was relatively simple, the yearly licensing cost is substantial. For the specific features we utilize, the licensing amounts to about forty thousand euros annually. This is not a trivial expense and significantly impacts the overall cost, making it quite high."
"The price of this product is approximately the same as competing products in the market."
"The solution is expensive in Brazil."
"Depending on the features, I think it's quite reasonably priced, especially considering the facilities of the product."
"Licenses depend on the number of devices, but all license levels come with technical support."
"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."
"The pricing needs to be improved. It is too high. One full engine costs around $10 000, which is why we don't have high availability right now."
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."
"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
"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."
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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
Educational Organization
32%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Retailer
6%
Educational Organization
57%
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 Mist AI and Cloud?
AI-driven automation helps implement the solution quickly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Mist AI and Cloud?
The price is very high in Brazil because of the high tax. The solution is expensive in Brazil.
What needs improvement with Mist AI and Cloud?
There are many aspects of AI, and how acquisitions are proceeding, particularly between Juniper and Aruba, remains unclear. From a Juniper perspective, there is a need for further improvements in t...
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

Mist Access Points
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dartmouth, Hitachi, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Nebraska Furniture Mart, NTT, Okta
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Ruckus, Cisco and others in Wireless LAN. Updated: March 2025.
845,485 professionals have used our research since 2012.