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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
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (5th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Server Monitoring (9th), Active Directory Management (8th)
 

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 3.3%, down 4.0% compared to last year.
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, on the other hand, focuses on Server Monitoring, holds 3.1% mindshare, up 2.8% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
PRTG Network Monitor3.3%
Zabbix6.9%
SolarWinds NPM3.4%
Other86.4%
Network Monitoring Software
Server Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor3.1%
Zabbix18.1%
Checkmk8.1%
Other70.69999999999999%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

madhan kumar hs - PeerSpot reviewer
software engineer at Capgemini
Alerting precision has reduced incident response times and improved department-level network visibility
The auto-pause sensor during the maintenance window is good without any false alerts, and it prevents me from getting flooded with alerts during planned maintenance, helping department heads understand their own network usage better. It has reduced incident response time by giving clearer ownership of each alert, ensuring alerts go to the proper recipient. SNMP testers and auto-pause are among the best features of PRTG Network Monitor, which is particularly useful for different departments such as HR and finance, where alerts can be filtered accordingly. The alerting features and dashboard of PRTG Network Monitor are very helpful, especially in our industry. However, the dashboard can look cluttered on smaller screens, which is one negative aspect. PRTG Network Monitor has impacted us positively; we have stopped getting flooded with alerts during planned maintenance or unplanned outages. Compared to others, this gives specific alerts very quickly and helps department heads understand their own network usage better, thus reducing incident response time so that each alert has clear ownership.
NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Specialist at ServiceIO
Monitoring over a thousand systems has improved decision making and operational visibility
From an advantage perspective, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is comparatively cheaper from a commercial point of view. It is easy to install and configure, very user-friendly, and quick to get up and running, allowing you to see the early value adds in your organization. It is compatible with most technologies for monitoring with very few chances of incompatibility. Configuration also allows us to monitor all the technical parameters we are looking for, making it a very good experience for us. The alerting feature in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is a main advantage, as it alerts based on threshold breaches and can raise tickets to the ticketing system, send SMS, and email notifications, allowing engineers to work on those tickets to resolve issues and avoid further impact. The visibility into server health is a beneficial feature that I am utilizing. We widely use various application performance metrics in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor such as database monitoring and server monitoring, which are quite good enough for any monitoring solution. We utilize the customizable dashboards in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has made our infrastructure more reliable."
"PRTG Network Monitor helped prevent incidents by creating an alert to the DL when servers go down, notifying me before it became a bigger problem."
"The most valuable feature of PRTG Network Monitor is the dashboards. We can check to see the resources and the uptime."
"It is a user-friendly solution."
"It is a very stable solution. There are no bugs, glitches and we have not experienced any crashing."
"PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up."
"I found PRTG Network Monitor very useful for troubleshooting and monitoring the utilization of either the network or server."
"PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational."
"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements. The threshold gets configured automatically, so it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."
"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
 

Cons

"The product could be improved by being cross-platform friendly."
"I have an issue with DFS, distributed file services... there isn't one by default. Taking into account the difference between DFS and DFSR as well would be great."
"Improvements in data storage flexibility, such as allowing customers to specify data retention periods, would enhance PRTG."
"If PRTG could help me see the bandwidth for each host I have on my network, either for a wireless or a wired network, that would be very helpful."
"I would like to see Office 365 monitoring. Essentially, it doesn't do it. I assumed not at all, but apparently it does it slightly. However, due to issues with APIs, they currently don't provide full monitoring for O365."
"It would be nice if it gave us alerts via Gmail or SMS message."
"PRTG Network Monitor could improve by having a feature to allow uploading of preset standard network switch configurations and the ability to monitor the SLA configuration, such as uptime for the switches or internet connectivity. This would be very useful."
"The operations dashboard is only available in PRTG's enterprise version, but I wish it could be accessed in the standard licensing. It would also be nice if PRTG had templates for dashboard monitoring, software monitoring, etc. It can help me set up a dashboard because now we don't have a template from PRTG, so we need to create one from scratch."
"In terms of the dashboards on offer, they should work to improve them. The types of dashboards that you get in terms of the graphs on offer aren't ideal right now."
"They are complex to operate; users need to know what they want during setup."
"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licenses are very expensive, so I would like to see cheaper licensing."
"The pricing is not too bad. It's not massively expensive, and the ability to upscale or even downscale licenses every year is brilliant for us."
"We are satisfied with the price."
"We looked at PRTG and SolarWinds. From a cost side perspective, compared to PRTG, and from what you get back from it, PRTG was sort of a hands down the winner."
"We bought a license for 4000 sensors."
"It is about £4,500 for the first year, then about another 15 to 20 percent annually after that. So, we are looking at about £1000 running costs a year. When you think about how much an outage costs per minute, it's negligible."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"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."
"The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each."
"Understanding the counts of objects to monitor will determine the licensing need. In terms of pricing, it’s not cheap but it’s not expensive as larger vendors whose products don’t have all the features or integrations."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"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."
"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."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It is just the standard price, but it can vary depending on the current rate of the dollar."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
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
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise47
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

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 was higher at the beginning, but the recurring licensing cost is affordable and reasonable. Overall, the pricing, setup cost, and licensing is fair for our industry. They have quoted us...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
There is definitely room for improvement besides simplifying its setup. As a non-technical person, I believe the dashboards could be improved. Everything we use appears on video walls, and we need ...
 

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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