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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
15th
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

"I love the GUI. Almost everything is accessible through the web interface. It is very user-friendly. It is easy to drag and drop resources wherever you want them."
"We don't have any issues with the stability of SolarWinds NPM."
"The most valuable feature is the vital states of the devices as it provides overall CPU and device health information."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"SolarWinds has greatly helped us, especially in tracing when the SoundCloud Software goes down without any apparent reason."
"Monitoring capabilities are at a high level and it is easy to see utilization, access ports, and CPU memory in real time or through a lens for long-term visualization."
"The ability to customize the views and dashboards is nice. SolarWinds also allows us to access the data via the API. That's probably the feature I liked the most."
"It did a good job of the collection and then an investigation of the net flow of information for understanding the applications that were being used at certain locations."
"One feature I liked is end-user monitoring."
"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."
"The solution's initial setup process was straightforward...In terms of ROI, the solution is worth the money."
"ThousandEyes gives companies better visibility."
"It's fairly easy to set up."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution was the ability to see how the connection quality is between the sites and get an alert if it was turning bad."
"The company provides excellent service."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its scalability. It is a good tool for network admins."
 

Cons

"The integration with the APIs and the web servers deployed can definitely be improved."
"The solution's database performance could be improved."
"The product is scalable, but at a cost. Extra modules have to be purchased for each extra server. The initial set up isn't complex, but will require someone who is experienced with the network monitoring system"
"The reporting module that got integrated into the system itself, used to be a standalone solution and I preferred that."
"SolarWinds NPM offers limited customization options. Users and developers may find restrictions in modifying or customizing the dashboard and adjusting monitoring features such as polling intervals or SLAs for different nodes."
"SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features."
"The root cause analysis and installation faults are not clear."
"There isn't support available to us as they don't offer support in our country."
"Once I fully use the tool 100%, I'm sure I would have something to critique, however, for now, I'm happy with it."
"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."
"The tool does not provide features for application-level monitoring."
"It would be nice if the solution covered other areas like server monitoring."
"The guest portal is hard to use."
"There is room for improvement in terms of customization and user-friendliness."
"I would like the product to offer more agility."
"Presently, it lacks the ability to integrate with other Cisco products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a perpetual license for this solution, and my impression is that this solution is cheap."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"SolarWinds is expensive. That's why it's primarily banks using the solution. Small businesses can't afford it. Due to its pricing, most smaller enterprises like manufacturing companies are not interested. For example, we have a client who is also interested in traffic monitoring, but they are not purchasing SolarWinds because of the cost."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"It is expensive."
"I’d suggest that people be aware that licensing has tiers."
"The solution is cheap."
"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 costs several thousand dollars per year."
"It is a quite expensive solution."
"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
57%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

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.
842,690 professionals have used our research since 2012.