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SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs Zabbix comparison

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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

SolarWinds Network Device M...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
38th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zabbix
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (10th), Server Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (2nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 3.7%, down from 11.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zabbix3.7%
SolarWinds Network Device Monitor0.8%
Other95.5%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

SG
IT Infrastructure Senior Network Technician at Autoliv
Offers some features but needs better customization and analysis tools
There are solutions that can perform better, but due to pricing for our corporate implementation, we had to stay with this solution. It accomplishes the necessary tasks, but there is room for improvement. The features are not as customizable as we would prefer, but they are workable. If configured properly, you can perform a drill-down analysis. However, I have not used this feature much for our infrastructure on the network side.
PJ
Developer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Unified monitoring has reduced outages and enables proactive fixes with automated remediation
My favorite best feature is the ability to manage complex hybrid environments from a single dashboard. Zabbix natively supports monitoring everything from Linux servers and Windows servers to network devices and cloud infrastructure. The view I rely on the most on a day-to-day basis is a custom dashboard combining the problem widget and graph widget. The problem widget gives me an immediate filtered snapshot of the active alerts across all our servers. I pair that with the graph widget, which allows me to track performance metrics and compare values over time, such as monitoring storage and capacity trends on our Synology appliance. Having all of this in a single pane of glass saves me from constantly digging through logs. I also rely heavily on custom dashboards that combine the problem widget and the top host widget. The problem widget gives me an immediate filtered list of any active alerts across the entire environment. I pair that with the top host widget, which instantly shows me which servers are consuming the highest resources. Having all of these related metrics side-by-side in a single view allows me to spot the issue and identify the exact server causing it without having to dig through separate tools. Zabbix has built-in machine learning for continuous anomaly detection and proactive trend prediction. It establishes a baseline by analyzing historical data, allowing it to forecast impending issues, such as predicting exactly when a system will run out of resources before critical thresholds are breached. From a governance and security perspective, it delivers enterprise-grade security by supporting full data encryption and integration with external secret vaults to protect sensitive credentials. From a governance perspective, it features detailed configuration change tracking and role-based user permissions, which allows administrators to secure different teams or tenants within a single environment. Regarding accuracy, Zabbix's proactive alerts are highly accurate and trustworthy, provided they are fed enough historical data to establish a solid baseline. Regarding reliability and output, the prediction outputs are extremely reliable because Zabbix relies on transparent statistical mathematics, such as standard deviation and weighted moving averages, rather than a closed black box AI model. The straightforward statistical approach allows administrators to forecast value reliability and predict exactly how much time they have before a system reaches a critical problem threshold.

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 features of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor are the reports. We are configuring the reports, and the first reports are only about the devices. We are configuring the thresholds in order to monitor all the devices."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is it can alert you when a device is not working."
"The solution and its interface are elaborate and fully integrate all monitored items for easy analysis and troubleshooting."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is a straightforward product with valuable functionality."
"Overall, I rate SolarWinds Network Device Monitor ten out of ten."
"Overall, it is a good user experience and the dashboards are very usable."
"The solution is very user-friendly and very easy to use."
"This product proactively tells us about issues before the users notice."
"If you are a new user it is very simple, you do not need to be highly technical to use it."
"If you are serious about your infrastructure then you have to know what is going on, and with Zabbix we know when servers are using too much CPU, memory, disk IO, etc., and besides getting notified when something goes wrong, we are also now aware of how well our infrastructure scales, something that can save us money and frustrations."
"It is a great product; the SNMP protocol tracking feature is good, I really like how it tracks SNMP, and the alerts are also great."
"It's a very reliable platform and we've never had any issues regarding the scalability or the stability of Zabbix."
"The flexible licensing model is one of the solution's most valuable aspects, as it really allows for great flexibility for companies."
"We delivered a project for telemetry but not just for IT, monitoring different parameters for radio communication sites and collecting information about alarms and analog values, and we use this system in mission critical applications for radio communications, police, firemen's, health, etcetera."
"The flexibility of taking monitoring data from such a wide variety of platforms - beyond traditional IT - makes Zabbix a highly flexible solution."
"The best feature is that Zabbix can report everything, and everything in Zabbix is free."
 

Cons

"There is no mobile version of this product, and our team should be able to access it using a mobile device."
"The data is in the system but we are unable to pull it because reporting is not integrated and versatile."
"Integration with different tools, such as ServiceNow and Excel, can be improved."
"There are solutions that can perform better, but due to pricing for our corporate implementation, we had to stay with this solution."
"The initial setup is a bit complex. It's not for anyone who is a beginner to work in the products to do it."
"It would be beneficial if SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could provide a feature to monitor CRC errors specifically on individual interfaces rather than the entire device. This would help in detecting intermittent issues and packet drops on main links more accurately, especially when there are CRC errors. It's important for us to be aware of these issues to avoid any voice quality problems or interruptions on our MTS links."
"The security needs improvement, which is why we are moving away from Solar Winds. We have security concerns."
"The main disadvantage of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is the licensing cost, which is expensive."
"I wish it had more options for personalizing the product, such as being able to include your company's logo without editing text files."
"There are a lot of areas for improvement, specifically in the dashboards and reports functionalities."
"Performance is very important to our clients, and this solution doesn't perform very well."
"The server monitoring could be better."
"There are not too much documentation or manuals. We found the tutorials very easy to understand but do not go deep enough in the use of Zabbix. We need more manuals, proper use, documentation, etc."
"The event correlation could be better."
"My company wanted to do an exercise command to access IT from Cameroon. They wanted to access an FSS to a second host with second equipment that was on another coast but it is not possible on Zabbix to do it. They want to directly access from the front-end of Zabbix to access a prompt in Zabbix to an access terminal. In the front-end, there is no way to do that. That would be an important improvement."
"They need to improve the APM solution, the Application Management solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Well, we had a perpetual license and the renewal was $20 to $25,000."
"I rate the product's price as three to three and a half or on a scale of one to ten, where one means low price, and ten means high price."
"When compared with other solutions SolarWinds is more expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"The enterprise license is good for the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor. However, it is expensive, they should reduce their price."
"The price of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is good."
"Thankfully, it doesn't take a lot of manpower to install and deploy."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is not an expensive solution."
"Zabbix and Grafana are both open source products, we only needed to go to their website and download the application and we began to use them. The solutions are free."
"My manager is very happy because it doesn't cost anything."
"This solution is open-source and free to use."
"We’re using the free version, which covers all our current needs."
"Zabbix is free but if you use it in production then you have to pay for it."
"There is a license required for this solution and we pay annually for our license."
"The solution is free to use but they offer support as a paid service. If you can go read the manuals and do the fine-tuning based on your needs, you do not need to pay anything and you will have a full solution."
"It is free, which allows us to reduce costs."
report
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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
Outsourcing Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business56
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
I am not a positive person regarding SolarWinds Network Device Monitor.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
There are solutions that can perform better, but due to pricing for our corporate implementation, we had to stay with this solution. It accomplishes the necessary tasks, but there is room for impro...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Network Device Monitor?
I have experience regarding the AD part, but my focus for the last 15 years has been oriented to the network side. My experience with identity tools comes more from a network perspective. We used N...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?
I think Zabbix is economical, whereas SolarWinds is expensive. SolarWinds has a lot of secure features, but Zabbix is providing everything free of cost. Zabbix is economical, and you can install it...
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
I am using only Area Operations, but I don't prefer it. I installed Zabbix for the 3000 devices. Area Operations is not good.
What is your primary use case for Zabbix?
I am still working with VMware and Area Operations, but I installed Zabbix now. I think Zabbix is better than VMware Area Operations. It's really good. I'm working with both Zabbix and VMware now.
 

Also Known As

Network Device Monitor
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Air Rarotonga
1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs. Zabbix and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
916,197 professionals have used our research since 2012.