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Nmap vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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

Nmap
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
22
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
158
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Nmap is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.7%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

AntoSebastin - PeerSpot reviewer
Scans the network and identifies vulnerabilities on each machine
Nmap is mostly helpful during compliance checks. We run the scanner to see how many devices are on our network and find vulnerabilities in those that aren't compliant. We also use it monthly to scan our network and identify devices that aren't connected properly. This helps us detect any issues related to the operating systems of these devices. The tool's most valuable feature is its vulnerability scanning. It allows us to scan a specific range of IP addresses and discover devices within that range. This makes it easy to identify devices and view their details. Port scanning is crucial for network management tasks. It helps us identify vulnerabilities by finding open ports that may be unused or misconfigured. This tool makes it easy to detect such issues. The OS detection feature is great. Unlike other tools, Nmap provides accurate information about asset vulnerabilities, helping us easily detect and address them. Using Nmap provides value to the company, especially during compliance audits. It helps generate reports on assets, updates on workstations, and insights into network activities and potential attacks. Additionally, Nmap detects vulnerabilities and provides port details, allowing us to close unused ports on the client machines.
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

"Nmap is mostly helpful during compliance checks. We run the scanner to see how many devices are on our network and find vulnerabilities in those that aren't compliant. We also use it monthly to scan our network and identify devices that aren't connected properly. This helps us detect any issues related to the operating systems of these devices."
"The most valuable feature of the solution for security audits stems from the fact that it serves as a powerful tool with the ability to scan a large number of ports."
"From a functionality standpoint, it's robust and straightforward to comprehend."
"The real-time reporting feature of Nmap is particularly valuable. It generates detailed reports on the source and destination IP addresses, the protocols used, and the types of traffic."
"It enables us to delve deeper and identify the services and open ports on the system and visualize this information on a dashboard automatically."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its scripts. These scripts prove beneficial when security features may obscure or block connections. Nmap helps identify vulnerabilities across different systems, including web servers and various server types."
"The scanning procedure includes UDP ports which sets it apart from competitors."
"Nmap's performance is great, and I've never noticed any issues in this respect. It really doesn't put a heavy load on the machine when using it."
"The most valuable features in SolarWinds NPM are the network search and diagnostic tools."
"The stability is fantastic."
"SolarWinds is user-friendly with a manageable console."
"We don't have any issues with the stability of SolarWinds NPM."
"SolarWinds is reasonably priced."
"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."
"SolarWinds is user-friendly with a manageable console."
"The alerting and reporting capabilities of the tool are impressive"
 

Cons

"One of the drawbacks of the standard Nmap utility is that it does not come with a graphical user interface, unlike a number of other open-source alternatives such as Zenmap."
"They should deliver Playtech's username and password."
"The solution's initial setup could be better."
"The solution is not that easy for a beginner to learn."
"Since I started using Nmap, it has been completely based on the command prompt and I think it would help other users if they implemented a decent GUI as well."
"The solution should increase the number of features under a free license."
"The price is high and could be cheaper."
"Nmap needs to improve its scanning speed."
"It is difficult for stakeholders to translate technical requirements, which results in difficulties selecting a platform or implementing a solution."
"Scalability is a bit tricky because it requires more gateways in order to get the performance you may need. It also requires a lot of licensing."
"SolarWinds NPM needs to increase its elements. One polling engine can only support 10,000 elements then it becomes slow. There are limitations even if you have the full SLX version license."
"This product could improve by adding cloud monitoring. I want SolarWinds NPM to do much more integration, and have more involvement in cloud monitoring, like AWS or Google, or Azure. I feel like it requires lots of improvement for cloud monitoring in NPM."
"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."
"I would like to see some enhancement on the reporting side, such as making it a little bit easier to create reports or having a larger assortment of canned reports."
"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."
"One of the challenges with SolarWinds is that in order to pull the data, we have to have a lot of false positives."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am using the free version of Nmap."
"Nmap is an open-source and free product."
"The solution is free of cost."
"It's an open-source product, and I haven't seen any premiums. Options are available for those who purchase, but for my use case, everything I need is available in the community and forums."
"Nmap is an open-source product. You don't need a license to install it."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"The solution is free of cost, but there are specific services that we have to buy."
"The product's pricing is fine. The licensing options for Nmap include perpetual licenses and volume-based licenses. For perpetual licenses, once you purchase it, there's no need to invest in renewals. And for volume-based licenses, enterprise companies can use it multiple times based on the number of users or devices they need to scan. It's a pay-as-you-go model, similar to how you pay for what you use."
"SolarWinds NPM has different pricing models available. The cost of the solution is less than some competitors."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
"Quite highly priced"
"There can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"It is not an expensive product."
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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
13%
Retailer
12%
University
9%
Educational Organization
9%
Educational Organization
58%
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 Nmap?
Nmap is mostly helpful during compliance checks. We run the scanner to see how many devices are on our network and find vulnerabilities in those that aren't compliant. We also use it monthly to sca...
What is your primary use case for Nmap?
Nmap is used for network scanning to map the network, identify devices, and assess their status. It helps determine open ports and services running on a particular endpoint or server within an ente...
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

Lockheed Martin, Eastern Bank Boston, Perspecta, Harris Corporation, Discovery Communication
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Nmap vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.