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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
34th
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 (11th), Server Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 3.7%, down from 10.1% 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

"In terms of general network monitoring features, I find SolarWinds Network Device Monitor very flexible and comfortable to use. The software itself is extremely useful when it comes to monitoring how our data moves between different networks and environments."
"We are doing more with SolarWinds Network Device Monitor than we were doing in the past with WhatsApp Gold; when we moved to SolarWinds Network Device Monitor, the whole observability part started to grow."
"I like the mapping that you could do and the dashboards were very pretty."
"Link monitoring is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"Overall, I rate SolarWinds Network Device Monitor ten out of ten."
"There are vital features of auto-plugin core ports"
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is it can alert you when a device is not working."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is it shows you the utilization of devices to allow you to take proactive action before something goes down or reaches the saturation point. You can take proactive action to fix the problem before it occurs."
"The features I found most valuable are the user interface and a wide range of network devices that are easy to configure."
"Before we didn't really have a centrally managed monitoring solution, so adding this product has been a blessing as we are able to actively monitor and react accordingly."
"The most valuable function for me is the auto-discovery of interfaces in devices. When you integrate devices into the tool, it automatically finds the interfaces, which is very helpful for my job. Integration and configuration run smoothly in my experience with Juniper and Aruba devices."
"Overall, I think that Zabbix is an awesome tool and I would use it again, rather than another one."
"Zabbix is a cost-effective solution. We're a small organization with a few dozen devices to monitor, and it was available for free. We can see what we need. We haven't done an in-depth analysis on it, but we're currently okay with the product."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is the fact that it is enterprise-level, scalable, and free."
"It has good graphs of what is going on within the operating system.​"
"The most valuable feature is the protocol to manage anything."
 

Cons

"SolarWinds pricing is on the higher side, and in India, every customer is cautious about commercial aspects."
"There is no mobile version of this product, and our team should be able to access it using a mobile device."
"SolarWinds Network Device Monitor could improve by being more user-friendly. The network has so many features which make it difficult to find how to configure how to use it. It is not simple to customize."
"Technical support needs to respond to its customers faster. We are not 100% satisfied with the level of support we get."
"The way they are presenting the map of our devices needs to be improved."
"The solution should have AI-powered issue-resolving capabilities"
"In terms of price, it could be less expensive."
"The security needs improvement, which is why we are moving away from Solar Winds. We have security concerns."
"Implementation is always tailored to the customer and the kind of information we need from the client to carry it out can make them very uncomfortable. Sometimes the clients are not ready to share it."
"The graphical user interface could be customized a little bit more, and also the dashboard could be more friendly."
"Zabbix isn't a great tool for cloud-specific monitoring - its connection to public clouds needs to be improved. Other areas for improvement would be the lack of dashboards and integrations."
"Documentation terminology could be improved."
"I would like to see a more flexible mobile client, and better HA out of the box."
"There's a small module of APM, however, it is not an enhanced version. People usually ask for a full-fledged APM solution."
"Its UI should be improved. They did some improvements in version 5, but it could benefit from some more work. Its integrations should also be improved. They've been active for one year, and they seem to have noticed that. It has new integrations, but it could benefit from more integrations. As far as I know, there is no model to push statistics, metrics, or events towards Zabbix. This type of API isn't yet there, whereas some other tools provide an API for this."
"Implementing Zabbix is difficult. I've deployed many solutions over the years, and Zabbix is the hardest to implement. You have to do some development to get it to work with IBM, Micro Focus, or HP products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I find the cost of SolarWinds Network Device Monitor reasonable for our company. Though, I'm not aware of the exact licensing cost."
"Thankfully, it doesn't take a lot of manpower to install and deploy."
"Well, we had a perpetual license and the renewal was $20 to $25,000."
"The price of the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is good."
"The enterprise license is good for the SolarWinds Network Device Monitor. However, it is expensive, they should reduce their price."
"When compared with other solutions SolarWinds is more expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"It is reasonable."
"The tool's licensing is good."
"It is freeware. We still use the free version of Zabbix."
"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."
"We’re using the free version, which covers all our current needs."
"It is a true open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"Its licensing is fair. It seems to be much cheaper than others."
"We pay the subscription for support by year."
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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
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
12%
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 Business57
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?
The initial configuration has a steep learning curve because Zabbix is so flexible and customizable. Setting up the right templates, pre-shows, and scripts requires a lot of deep Linux and system k...
What is your primary use case for Zabbix?
On a day-to-day basis, I use Zabbix to monitor our entire infrastructure stack, including our Linux servers, Active Directory, domain controller, and Synology NAS storage array. A specific problem ...
 

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: November 2026.
921,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.