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SolarWinds NPM vs ThousandEyes 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

SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th)
ThousandEyes
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
8th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.7%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThousandEyes is 3.7%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Satyavrat Nirala - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers user monitoring and Internet insights and include customer journeys
It’s evolving; I feel it needs more holistic integration. It needs more improvement. It’s very good, but the integration can be slightly complicated on different platforms. I used it for a healthcare organization, and the integration was slightly challenging. In future releases, I would like to explore AI capabilities. AI would be more valuable because it works across different cloud and server systems. It looks into issue detection and insight modeling, so that is something I feel will be very helpful in the near future. More AI because of compliance and other challenges, not because of the product challenge. It’s about regulations, and we have HIPAA laws in the US and many different kinds of laws. Because of that, these specific elements and certain units don’t allow the tooling system to be fully utilized. We also support a certain segment of healthcare, which is the army healthcare segment, which is more government-controlled. There are certain restrictions in moving into the cloud. That’s where I thought those elements might need some more improvement. Also, looking into how we’ll be able to use more data visualization. It has it, but it doesn’t give you everything. If you look into the elements of use and so many other elements are there, but the UI/UX also has to be improved a bit, I feel. From a developer’s standpoint, it’s very easy, but from a consultant’s standpoint, there can be more enhancement, like one-click view and one-click report generation. Those things should be more seamless.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Reporting tools are a great feature along with the ability to create customized reports for you"
"We have configured multiple alerts for our network devices, including routers and switches, so that we are notified if any interface goes down."
"The solution is extremely stable. We haven't had any issues in that regard. We haven't had issues with bugs, glitches, or crashes."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We deployed the solution from new and completed the upgrades."
"One of the best features is the reports feature."
"It is considerably cheaper compared to other tools."
"SolarWinds NPM is a scalable solution since it can handle a huge number of users."
"Their support team is efficient, and it is easy to set up."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the path analyzer, which identifies the node causing the errors."
"The solution's most valuable feature is network security."
"The most valuable features are integration and ease of use."
"The company provides excellent service."
"From our perspective, ThousandEyes stands out as an invaluable tool because of its deep and extensive capabilities."
"The most valuable features of ThousandEyes are the full monitoring capabilities and the ability to identify the exact location of problems in the path between the application and the end-user."
"One feature I liked is end-user monitoring."
"The authentication overall - including to the VPN and LAN - is excellent."
 

Cons

"SolarWinds could offer more support and insights for a broader range of devices. Currently, it focuses on routers, switches, and some load balancers. However, it lacks an out-of-the-box dashboard for monitoring firewalls and some other modern network security devices. We have to customize it a lot."
"SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features."
"They have had a rather large security breach in the past. It's cost some companies customers."
"Better offline license management. I’ve had to get in touch with customer support several times simply to remove an expired license from our NPM servers."
"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 would be the use of modular licenses, which are not practical for big clients."
"Having more technical and support resources available in Saudi Arabia would be helpful."
"The price of the solution can be improved."
"It's an expensive solution."
"The tool does not provide features for application-level monitoring."
"The solution's network and reporting could be improved."
"More detailed documentation explaining the metrics and the testing mechanisms would be helpful."
"It might be practical to extend monitoring capabilities to include network devices"
"We can show the traffic path in some cases, but it's almost impossible to do so in cloud networks like CDN, Akamai, or Microsoft."
"Presently, it lacks the ability to integrate with other Cisco products."
"I would like the product to offer more agility."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"It is not an expensive product."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
"We pay for SolarWinds NPM yearly. We buy it and then we renew it, but it's not subscription-based. I don't remember the value exactly, because it's my manager who manages pricing, but we pay $60,000 per year for all the solutions. Pricing will also depend on the number of devices. We have a lot of devices."
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."
"Price could be improved on"
"It is a quite expensive solution."
"The solution costs several thousand dollars per year."
"In our company, we incur a yearly expense in our company for the licensing part. I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten since it is expensive."
"The solution is cheap."
"The solution's pricing is cheap; I rate it a five out of ten."
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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
Educational Organization
58%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or requirements. Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better from a cloud monitoring or APM monitoring perspective. You can check...
What needs improvement with ThousandEyes?
When I first started using ThousandEyes, I found it challenging to extract useful information due to the numerous options available. I needed some training to effectively troubleshoot. More detaile...
 

Also Known As

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Wayfair, GitHub, Craigslist, Comcast, SurveyMonkey, Lyft, Box, HP, Zendesk, IO Data Centers, Good Technology, NNTCommunications, Proofpoint, Schneider, Crowdstrike, Avera, Pitney Bowes, InstartLogic, Shutterfly, Shutterstock, Condé Nast, Roche, Jive, Actelion, Brocade, Infor, Okta, JLL, DigitalOcean, Zuora, NetSuite, CloudFlare, One, DemonWare, Quantcast, Carbonite, CareerBuilder, Prosper, Oscar, Slack
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds NPM vs. ThousandEyes and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
839,255 professionals have used our research since 2012.