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PRTG Network Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor 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

PRTG Network Monitor
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (5th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Server Monitoring (11th), Active Directory Management (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Systems Management solutions, they serve different purposes. PRTG Network Monitor is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 4.2%, down 4.4% compared to last year.
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, on the other hand, focuses on Server Monitoring, holds 2.7% mindshare, down 3.2% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
PRTG Network Monitor4.2%
Zabbix11.7%
LibreNMS4.6%
Other79.5%
Network Monitoring Software
Server Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor2.7%
Zabbix25.9%
Checkmk10.5%
Other60.900000000000006%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Noman-Saleem - PeerSpot reviewer
Detects suden changes but significant pricing concerns affect the effectiveness of network traffic troubleshooting
We use PRTG Network Monitor for monitoring traffic on interfaces and the behavior of network traffic. If there are sudden changes in traffic or any configuration issues, we can sort them out using PRTG. It's very helpful for troubleshooting and monitoring traffic utilization on our interfaces…
VIVEK PATHAK - PeerSpot reviewer
Offering reasonably good dashboarding features but needs to improve the application performance monitoring
My company uses Riverbed for application performance monitoring. I was doing research so that I could understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provide APM capabilities similar to Riverbed, which allows our company to get a packet capture of an entire session, and on the basis of it, we look at the application performance monitoring part. With SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, my company does SNMP polling, so it can drag an entire session, but it focuses more on availability, CPU memory, and server connection status. In Riverbed, my company catches an entire system, so when we deal with two applications, we have end-to-end app visibility. All the application monitoring happens through Riverbed. Our company's main problem is that, as of now, we have two different products in our organization, and we don't want to continue with the multiple products currently. I wanted to understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor already have capabilities like Riverbed, and if they do, then I wanted to figure out why our company should not go with SolarWinds and why we are using products from multiple vendors. My company needs to continue with either Riverbed or SolarWinds. I wanted to see which products are good for the organization and how much I want to continue with Riverbed.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"PRTG is integrated on Windows."
"Technical support has been very helpful so far."
"It is a very stable solution. There are no bugs, glitches and we have not experienced any crashing."
"It is easy to use and intuitive, which is really important. It does what it says on the box by giving you a visual of the state of what is going on at any one time."
"It is able to satisfy all our requirements in terms of email notifications and specific errors on the devices."
"The sensors and probes are great, nice and lightweight, they don't take up too many resources on the system. We just deploy them out and they start reporting instantly."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is being able to see things graphically."
"The most valuable feature is the notifications. As long as you spend time and think about what and when you want to be notified, it's always accurate. It is always there. I find things out before my Internet provider."
"The initial setup was relatively easy, and we didn't have to install anything. All we had to do was put on the devices we wanted to monitor."
"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
"Manage Groups: The capability to group appropriate devices gives better visibility of sites, categories, or critical regions. The same can be used to represent a dashboard for higher management."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
"I am impressed with the tool's AppStack feature which mainly helps us in the identification process. This feature can give an overview of the fault and help us identify the issues for performance degradation. Instead of looking at multiple places, we can look at a single place to identify the issues."
 

Cons

"PRTG Network Monitor should provide syslog monitoring since it is not available at this time. There are very limited features as compared to other solutions."
"It would be nice if it gave us alerts via Gmail or SMS message."
"I would like a more straightforward ability to create dashboards and maps. The network maps should be a bit more flexibility in the GUI to do what we need to do."
"The automation should be improved."
"Users need to buy the more expensive licenses if they expect to be able to scale."
"It would be good if there were better graphical interfaces when you have it on multiple monitors... Because we have so many servers, things can get lost in the fog a little bit. Maybe having a better way of showing different geographies, Flash, etc., would help."
"PRTG Network Monitor could improve by having descriptions for the tab usages. The dashboards or interface could be easier to understand."
"PRTG Network Monitor needs to show bandwidth utilization in proper graphs. It isn't easy to learn."
"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."
"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."
"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."
"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."
"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."
"The technical support was better in previous years. With the launch of the premium support service, the normal support has declined."
"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licenses are very expensive, so I would like to see cheaper licensing."
"Pricing for PRTG Network Monitor is a nine out of ten. It meets my company's budget and monitoring requirements. My company is on a perpetual license."
"The price was pretty good, very competitive."
"PRTG Network Monitor is very expensive."
"One thing I like is that when you buy sensors, it's a perpetual license, so once you buy 2,000 sensors, you've got 2,000 sensors; it's not a recurring cost."
"The pricing is reasonable for the features provided."
"Sensors on free version can run out quick."
"The price is actually on the cheaper side. If you're going with the unlimited license code, it's very cheap compared to competitors unless you're going for something free, like Zabbix. But you get what you pay for, and it doesn't have the full suite of products or tools like SolarWinds or a ScienceLogic."
"When planning for the number of licenses to purchase, make sure you understand all of the elements within an application required to really understand performance well. In our case, we quickly came to the conclusion that an unlimited license for SAM was the way to go."
"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."
"Pricing is inexpensive, starting at 2440 euros. For that, you get the ability to monitor a couple of nodes and one year of maintenance and support."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"I would advise potential buyers to wait until the end of the quarter, end of year, or other time to place orders. There are actually great deals to be had at those times if your budget cycle can match up."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"The price is too high."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
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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
12%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business54
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise38
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...
What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?
The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?
The pricing is in the middle. It's not too high, nor too low, but it's reasonable.
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
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