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Network Instruments Observer vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Network Instruments Observer
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
104th
Average Rating
0.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Network Instruments Observer is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.7%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.7%
Network Instruments Observer0.3%
Other96.0%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer197955 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data.
Ring capture buffer. Complex filtering The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data. The Observer application is very complex to use and setup, this should be improved. Windows is unstable, a possible Linux version in future will fix this. 4 years The…
Vivek Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Central monitoring has improved outage alerts and now needs smarter detection and modern dashboards
Regarding the automated network topology and mapping feature in SolarWinds NPM, I am not satisfied with it. For static monitoring, it is acceptable. However, if it is possible, I would need a feature in SolarWinds in the future for some kind of malfunctioning detection, such as malware attacks or that type of environment. We did not have any facility to detect that in SolarWinds. I think it would be better to incorporate those types of features. Regarding customization options in SolarWinds, the ability to customize the dashboard has room for improvement. The dashboard is quite old, and we need some improvement in it. Nowadays, we have multiple tools with AI-based monitoring and web-based dashboards. SolarWinds also has a web-based dashboard, but I think there is scope for improvement in the UI. There may be other areas I would like to improve in SolarWinds NPM.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data."
"Quick to launch. No agents required. Many configuration options."
"SolarWinds is a great solution, and I think that for anybody looking for a nice infrastructure monitoring tool, this solution will do the job."
"This is a product that I recommend, although it requires technical skills in order to use it."
"Being able to easily, and quickly obtain disc space statistics from servers and determine how much was free or used on various volumes."
"Network performance is the main issue clients are facing. SolarWinds checks if a node is down, and we can set thresholds for performance metrics. For example, we set it up to get an alert automatically if a value is over 80 percent. It has a full dashboard that covers CP, hard disk, and node monitoring."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds NPM is the performance monitoring to see the memory, and CPU utilization."
"The ability to quickly identify downtime is the most valuable."
"As we look to add more servers to our virtual environment and to understand the impact, the solution allows us to dig into the historical charts related to capacity planning."
 

Cons

"Customer service was below average and the local value added reseller did not know the product very well."
"SolarWinds needs to be improved such that it is on par with the leading products in the market."
"We encountered an inability to display graphical views of some customized reports."
"There are still huge concerns about security."
"New, web-based interface lacks some features of traditional GUI."
"The solution could be enhanced. It currently lacks integration with SMS services which is something we need."
"The user should be able to customize the dashboard to their own requirements."
"New, web-based interface lacks some features of traditional GUI."
"The dashboards for this solution could be improved. We would like to divide the dashboards to give a clear view to our management team to show what we have and what deficiencies exist in our network."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"It is expensive."
"We pay approximately $4,000 annually for SolarWinds NPM. There are no additional fees required other than the standard fees."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"The solution can become very expensive and commercially not viable in countries, such as India."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"We pay approximately $700 per year for renewal of the license."
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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
No data available
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Brno University of Technology
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Datadog, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: October 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.