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SolarWinds NPM vs Zabbix vs Zenoss Cloud 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.7%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 13.0%, up from 11.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zenoss Cloud is 0.4%, down from 0.4% 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.
ASM Naushad Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes
We have not yet purchased the commercial version so have a lack of technical ability. We do not yet fully know the key points or key features of the solution. We just use what we use along with WhatsUp Gold. Based on our use only, stability is rated a seven out of ten.
ClaudiaChen - PeerSpot reviewer
Generates close to real-time alerts so users can resolve issues, but needs more integration and public cloud monitoring features
As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices."
"Being able to easily, and quickly obtain disc space statistics from servers and determine how much was free or used on various volumes."
"SolarWinds has greatly helped us, especially in tracing when the SoundCloud Software goes down without any apparent reason."
"The ability to quickly identify downtime is the most valuable."
"What I've found most valuable about the solution is that it's scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface and the ease of deployment."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Our customers also like that they don't have to use multiple modules. Micro Focus and major vendors typically require you to buy several modules and plugins. Our customers do not like that. We offer them a single product for all their monitoring needs."
"It has good graphs of what is going on within the operating system.​"
"The flexible licensing model is one of the solution's most valuable aspects. It really allows for great flexibility for companies."
"The initial setup was very quick. The first time it was long because I didn't know it yet. I was only using Windows. The first time was very difficult because of the operating system."
"The best feature is that Zabbix can report everything, and everything in Zabbix is free."
"The most valuable feature is network traffic monitoring."
"Simple network monitoring that is easy to install and manage."
"Like other common Linux distributions, some of the most valuable features of this solution are the ease of use and deployment. It's simple and has a lot of packages and a lot of software."
"Its Docker Container concept is mind blowing. It is the first monitoring tool which comes with Docker features."
"The product offers good documentation that helps with initial training."
"It's easy to use."
"The custom built integration is one of the most valuable features because you can see all the especially critical items."
"The most valuable feature is the flexible discovery mechanism."
"They have also accommodated many state-of-the-art technologies like Docker and ZooKeeper."
"What I like most about Zenoss Service Dynamics is that it monitors the devices and gives close to real-time alerts. For example, in case the device is not available, Zenoss Service Dynamics generates an alert so my team can resolve the issue."
 

Cons

"There needs to be more integration of widgets, especially for reporting purposes."
"SolarWinds NPM could improve by adding the deepest inspection, performance networking, and IP address discovery."
"The improvement would be that SolarWinds NPM thoroughly checks its patches before releasing them to the market. Better testing, alpha testing, and then releasing it to the market."
"There isn't support available to us as they don't offer support in our country."
"The root cause analysis and installation faults are not clear."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"This solution would benefit from expanding on the capabilities within the API."
"We'd like to see a bit more automation in the future."
"Zabbix is not easy to configure, and upgrading is also an issue."
"When using this solution in enterprise monitoring, you are able to see that there are some issues with equipment that could be causing a problem. Sometimes you want to make a root command that you do not want to be executed automatically. What we have tried to do is open an SSH session directly from the solution's interface but it is not possible."
"It would be helpful if they translated the documentation to Cyrillic languages."
"There are some features of Zabbix that are not good for reporting. The DX Spectrum solution has better reporting."
"I would like to remotely connect to the computer, and Zabbix doesn't have this capability."
"Correlation of events would be a wonderful addition."
"It should be easy to modify the front end."
"I would like for this solution to be more cloud-friendly."
"There is room for improvement with the administrative part. They introduced Control Center to manage things in Zenoss 5. The services that Zenoss provides remained the same, but the administrative part, since they introduced Docker, etc., has become a little complex"
"There was a problem with Zenoss and storage monitoring."
"It would be ideal if the product offered sound alerts."
"The AI aspect needs to improve."
"Now it is stable, but they should design threshold parameters in percentage instead of raw values."
"As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor."
"The inclusion of a feature to show a graphical view of the network would be a helpful improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"The pricing needs to be improved. It is too high. One full engine costs around $10 000, which is why we don't have high availability right now."
"Price could be improved on"
"The solution can become very expensive and commercially not viable in countries, such as India."
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"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."
"The cost is based on the number of nodes, so it is expensive when you have a lot of them."
"We are using the free, open-source version."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"It’s free of cost."
"Its licensing is fair. It seems to be much cheaper than others."
"This solution is completely open-source, so it is quite affordable."
"This solution is open-source and free to use."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"It is worth every cent to pay or even study to do your own installation."
"There are additional costs you'll have to pay apart from the license fee for Zenoss Service Dynamics. I can't remember exactly how much my company is paying because I don't handle the finance part, but the cost is paid annually. On a scale of one to five, with one being the cheapest and five being the most expensive, I'm rating the solution three out of five."
"It is very cost-effective compared to the tools I worked with in the past. The company is gaining a lot with respect to the cost factor. It provides agentless monitoring and in a very cheap way."
"It depends on the customer, what he wants."
"The pricing depends on the environment, the number of services, and the size of the data center. It can go from $100,000 to a million dollars."
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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
56%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Educational Organization
34%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
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 ar...
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 scalabil...
What do you like most about Zabbix?
The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
For me, Zabbix is very straightforward. I cannot think of any improvements needed. It's a very mature product. The on...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
In my experience, I worked with many monitoring software, but the one that gave me the most functionalities of a larg...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
No data available
Cloud Monitoring, Zenoss Service Dynamics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
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
2degrees, Rackspace, State of North Dakota, El Paso Independent School District, NWN Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: March 2025.
848,989 professionals have used our research since 2012.