SolarWinds NPM Reviews

We use it for network monitoring, internet monitoring purpose and server monitoring purposes.

It allows me to see a summary of the network being monitored at a glance.

SolarWinds dashboard is very fast. Also, their interface is very good, it looks very user-friendly.

The time monitoring could be improved from every five seconds to every second. If they can move to an every-second basis, then it will improve the monitoring analysis.

I would also like to see the security system updated to prevent virus attacks.

I have been using SolarWinds NPM for around 10 to 12 years.

We have found it is definitely stable.

This product is scalable by purchasing extra modules for more servers.

They're one of the most responsive companies when it comes to support.

Positive

The initial setup wasn't complex, but not as easy as some systems either. It requires someone with experience with the network monitoring system. 

It was implemented in-house.

The charge is currently made per module for the product, and there is no option to buy it as a full system bundle which makes it costly. Also, charges are made annually, it's not a perpetual purchase.

It would not be affordable for SME level organizations.

The other solutions I evaluated were:

• PTRG
• Cisco
• WhatsUp Gold.

I would rate this product at 7.5 out of 10.

We use SolarWinds as a monitoring platform.

It monitors all of our network gears for up-down status, for the most part. We can also see utilization being high at a given location.

The alerting has been the biggest aspect we appreciate. In regards to utilization, it can be proactive in regards to addressing situations before some cases arise before the users even see them.

The initial setup is simple.

It integrates really well with the Cisco platform. We are a Cisco shop. I don't know how well it's going to integrate with us moving to Aruba or going with other vendor hardware, how well it's going to integrate, I guess we'll find out.

It is scalable.

Technical support is helpful.

The stability is good. 

The only real caveat that we have or that I have an issue with is when I go on vacation, it's a little hard for me to go and modify alerts so that I don't get alerted about things when I'm on vacation. There's not a way to turn me off from alerts easily.

There really hasn't been anything that we've needed that it hasn't been able to provide. 

I've used the solution for at least 17 years. 

The solution is stable. there are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

We've got about nine different Sys admins that use it on a day-to-day basis, at different locations, to check on different things.

Contact support was great. They're very knowledgeable. They knew what we needed, once we explained our problem. In some cases, they helped us figure out a different solution than what we were looking at. They knew the product pretty well for everybody that we've dealt with.

Positive

We didn't use a different solution. That's what was here when I started 17 years ago and that's what we've stayed with.

The setup was pretty straightforward. We just went through a complete redeployment part of upgrading to the latest and greatest as we upgraded servers and databases and the whole nine yards. We just simply did a fresh install. It was pretty easy.

It probably took us about a couple of days. We had to go back in and once we re-added the location, we had to go back and tweak what we wanted to monitor, and that kind of stuff. We didn't simply just do a migration. It was a little bit of doing the network re-discovery and then going in and tweaking the individual locations. 

The one thing we did migrate over was the alerts. We didn't have to recreate alerts from scratch, however, it took us a while. We've got 400-plus devices that we monitor. It took a little while to get all of the devices back in the way they originally were.

We did everything in-house. We did not use consultants or integrators. 

I don't know anything about pricing. It's not an aspect I deal with.

We deal directly with Solarwinds. 

We have been keeping the solution updated. 

I would recommend the solution. A lot of our colleagues use it and we like the way it works. I'd rate it ten out of ten. 

I'd advise potential new users to give it a good rundown and see if it really fits what they need. Don't just try it with one or two things. Do the 30-day evaluation. I have folks that have used it and try to find some way to break it really. Load it up the way that you want to run it and actually take time to dig down into it. So far, there hasn't been anything that it hasn't been able to do for us. However, it's designed for that Cisco environment and that's what we've always been. I can't really talk about it outside of the box.

We are using SolarWinds NPM to monitor our network. For example, we monitor Cisco Meraki for WAN, and other Cisco routers, and for LAN we monitor Cisco switches and firewalls.

There are a lot of valuable features with SolarWinds NPM. We can receive a lot of detailed data from the monitoring that can use useful for investigations, especially when you are troubleshooting. It is very helpful. Overall it was a very good experience.

SolarWinds NPM could improve the graphics of the interface and more customized reporting.

I have been using SolarWinds NPM for approximately one year.

SolarWinds NPM is stable. We haven't faced any major outages.

The scalability of SolarWinds NPM is good, and it is simple. We have approximately 5,000 nodes.

The support we have received from SolarWinds NPM has been very good. Initially, there were some issues with the solution but the support help us figure it out.

I rate the support of SolarWinds NPM a four out of five.

The knowledge base of the support could improve. However, every organization has its own use cases. Sometimes it's not a common use case and the support has not seen the particular problem. We might have something unique, which other clients never faced.

We have used Centreon previously. We have evaluated it for some time. It was very easy to use but the requirements we had, were not fulfilled. We have engaged with some Centreon providers, and the support was not great. We bought a license for one year for Centreon, and the support from France was not great. That's why we decided that we cannot go with it for a longer time and on a larger scale. Additionally, we have used Alaloop for quite some time, and it was good.

We switched to SolarWinds NPM mainly because we were expanding, and in Alaloop we were mainly using it for WAN only, not for the LAN. Additionally, Alaloop was much more expensive compared to SolarWinds NPM.

The initial setup of SolarWinds NPM was not straightforward. We had some difficulty configuring some of the new features for the devices properly. However, this was because we were new to the solution. We had the documentation which was helpful.

The full implementation took approximately one month.

I rate the initial setup of SolarWinds NPM a three out of five.

We used third-party support for the implementation. The solution requires maintenance but we have not had any issues.

SolarWinds NPM has different pricing models available. The cost of the solution is less than some competitors.

I would recommend SolarWinds NPM to others but it depends on how complex the network they have is and how large it is. Based on that information, you need to make a decision if the solution is the best fit. If their infrastructure is quite large, the good thing is they can expand it, even for the server infrastructure, not only for network infrastructure. 

I would recommend the solution for a larger organization.

I rate SolarWinds NPM an eight out of ten.

SolarWinds NPM is used to monitor our devices' to see uptime, availability, and performance.

SolarWinds NPM has helped our organization by proactively indicating if we are low on resources for a particular server.

The most valuable feature of SolarWinds NPM is the performance monitoring to see the memory, and CPU utilization.

SolarWinds NPM can be very slow at times. The database optimization can be done to improve the product performance.

I have been using SolarWinds NPM for approximately 10 years.

SolarWinds NPM is very unstable. We often have website loading issues. We have to call support, and they fix it. Then a month later, we're going to have the same problem.

SolarWinds NPM can be used at multiple locations, and increase the capacity as needed with additional licensing. It's very scalable. 

We have three people using this solution. It's used globally at all our sites and we plan to increase our usage in the future.

SolarWinds NPM technical support is very responsive. They're available by phone, which is a plus.

I did not use a solution previously.

SolarWinds NPM's initial setup was straightforward. It took about a year to complete the full process of the implementation. The strategy we used was we worked on the setup of vCore and Microsoft Azure, and then for each of our sites, we did afterward.

We did the deployment in-house.

I have not seen a substantial return on investment with SolarWinds NPM.

We pay approximately $4,000 annually for SolarWinds NPM. There are no additional fees required other than the standard fees.

I rate the price of SolarWinds NPM a three out of five.

I have evaluated other solutions, such as PRTG Network Monitor and WhatsUp Gold. We choose SolarWinds NPM because it had better licensing and architectural options.

My advice to others is to follow the best practices.

I rate SolarWinds NPM a seven out of ten.

The solution has good support they're constantly improving it.

We are a mining company, and we use this solution to monitor our system operations. We monitor the truck service, and we have the network devices installed onto the equipment.

Their support team is efficient, and it is easy to set up.

The root cause analysis and installation faults are not clear.

I have been using this solution for two years.

It is stable.

Their support is good.

It was easy to set up. It took less than a month.

I would recommend this solution. I would rate it an eight out of 10.

The most valuable feature is the way it monitors the environment, and how user-friendly the console is for the end-user. The interface is also very easy and it captures all the information very well.

This product could improve by adding cloud monitoring. I want SolarWinds NPM to do much more integration, and have more involvement in cloud monitoring, like AWS or Google, or Azure. I feel like it requires lots of improvement for cloud monitoring in NPM.

I've been working with this product for almost ten years.

The support could be improved. Within the last two, three years, I would say the support has declined. It has degraded, but not that bad. We are still getting solutions, but sometimes, calls stay on hold. When we try to call the support team, it continues to ring on their side. About half of the time it gets connected very quickly, but the other half takes some time to connect. Sometimes I wait more than 10 minutes. It's not totally bad, as we are still getting support. Nowadays, we prefer to send emails to them, so whenever they have someone available, they can revert back to us and we can schedule a call with them.

The pricing is reasonable. In the last year we tried to look for different applications and those other applications are even more expensive. 

If someone wants to install this application, they need to be very specific what environment they want to monitor, whether they want to monitor in a hybrid environment or just cloud, or just on prem, because the setup is going to be quite different in all aspects. When it comes to installation, someone has to have a better understanding of what they're actually going to monitor, how many nodes they are going to monitor, how many network device they are going to monitor, etc. With respect to that, the licensing changes.

I would rate SolarWinds NPM an eight out of ten.

SolarWinds NPM is generally used for network monitoring for all of the switches, networking equipment, as well as physical and virtual servers in the environment.

We use the top 10 dashboards on a frequent basis, as well as the ability to put systems in maintenance mode when we need to perform patching or other maintenance.

Being able to easily, and quickly obtain disk space statistics from servers and volumes.

The interface can be a bit cumbersome at times. There is a steep learning curve if you wanted to get into it in any depth. 

I would say that both the installation and use of it can be complicated initially. It isn't for someone who doesn't have a lot of expertise or knowledge.  It does have a significant learning curve.

After the initial installation, the configuration is where more knowledge is required.

The reporting could be improved. 

I would like to see some enhancement on the reporting side, such as making it easier to create reports or have a larger assortment of canned reports.

I have been working with SolarWinds NPM for eight years. Most recently version 2020.

SolarWinds NPM seems to be stable.

In our environment, scalability wasn't really a factor. The environment we had, and the method we used for the initial install were sufficient.

In our organization, we had about 20 users consistingn of IT server and network engineers as well as business analysts.

This is a tool that we utilize on a regular basis.

Although technical support is adequate, it could be better, but that appears to be the situation in the majority of businesses nowadays.

I would rate them seven out of ten.

The initial setup was somewhere in middle.

This solution is maintained, deployed, and updated by a team of six people, and it is also automated for operating system upgrades. We have one or two server admins that are responsible for actual application upgrades.

I would recommend having a review with a SolarWinds tech first to make sure you understand the system requirements. It would be helpful to work with them also in regards to unique configurations. 

I would rate SolarWinds NPM an eight out of ten.

If a customer is looking for a monitoring box solution, a medium-scale customer, and he's looking for something that can manage servers, routers, storage, applications, basic monitoring for applications, to cover everything, then SolarWinds is the right choice. However, he has to be a mid-tier customer. He cannot be an enterprise customer. If they are an enterprise customer, then SolarWinds is not the right choice as it will start to slow down.

It's a very good tool and a very stable tool. 

For a medium-sized customer, it has everything that you're looking for.

It has all kinds of functionality that any network team or monitoring team is looking for. It's easy to integrate with any other tool, as it has an open database. It's easy to implement and has a very nice user experience.

One of the problems that SolarWinds has is when the data becomes too big, it will start getting slower. 

It's not at all for enterprise customers. I don't recommend enterprises to go for SolarWinds. They should go for a bigger tool.

They have had a rather large security breach in the past. It's cost some companies customers. 

I've been dealing with the solution for ten years as a partner at least. It's been a long time. I've used it for about a decade at this point in that capacity. I've been dealing with SolarWinds for almost more than 17 or 18 years, personally.

The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

We have three to four customers on the solution.

It's best for a mid-tier company, and not a large enterprise. 

Technical support is okay.

The only problem that they have is that last year they had a security hack issue. That is something that was a big problem SolarWinds in the market, as everybody is scared to use SolarWinds. They still have managed customers. Still, I have to say, there are very few customers that they don't have SolarWinds.

Whenever I go for meetings for security or monitoring or anything, I find some engineers still using SolarWinds. They may not be using it a lot, however, they are still using it for more than monitoring. Still, people did lose customers over it. 

The initial setup is very easy and quite straightforward. It's not overly difficult or complex. 

The implementation is fast and doesn't take more than a month or a month and a half. 

We only need one consultant to handle implementation. 

We are able to handle the setup for our clients. 

The licensing process is pretty simple. it's not too complex. 

We've done a couple of implementations at this point. We're actually a partner. 

For a mid-tier customer, I would rate the solution at about an eight.

I'd recommend the solution t a mid-tier customer. I wouldn't if the company was quite sizable.