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AppNeta by Broadcom vs SolarWinds NPM 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

AppNeta by Broadcom
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
68th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
43rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (16th), DX NetOps (3rd)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of AppNeta by Broadcom is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
AppNeta by Broadcom0.7%
Other95.7%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Cliff Chapman - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at Linkstatus Ltd
Excellent support, easy configuration, and a reliable tool to know what the problem is and where the problem is
They should try and make diagnostics run a bit quicker. When the problem occurs on a network, AppNeta runs automatic diagnostics on the end-to-end path. The path it was testing only to the destination, it now runs the same test to all of the devices and all the intermediate devices. Depending on the number of intermediate devices, it can take several minutes to run. If we're trying to find or diagnose a problem that only lasts two or three minutes, it may be that the diagnostics is still running by the time the problem is cleared. The only thing, which I have also mentioned to AppNeta in the past, is that there should be much faster and much more lightweight diagnostics, which can be completed within 30 seconds or one minute, rather than in 5 to 10 minutes. Currently, when we have short-duration problems, we use a different tool, but we only use that different tool for short-duration problems. With AppNeta, as long as the problem exists for more than a few minutes, such as within 10 to 15 minutes, we can normally tell where the problem is. However, most of the problems that we deal with are intermittent. They're very rarely a permanent condition that needs to be addressed. That makes it more difficult to troubleshoot. We would look to see at least two or three events and hope they show the same results to raise our confidence that we've actually found the problem, rather than just a problem.
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

"A lot of times one of the AppNeta transactions showed that there is an issue, whereas everything seemed to be working properly. Once we dug into it, we realized that it really was highlighting a problem that otherwise we would not have seen."
"This solution helps prove that, if we move to cloud, we'll still be as effective as we are on-premises."
"From a technical perspective, PathView provides an effective, reliable indicator of network availability across our widely distributed physical locations."
"The product helps us understand networks and user experience. It helps us to understand the issues."
"Since we implemented it, we've seen multiple performance improvements, which in turn results in increases in revenue and efficiency."
"End-to-End video testing - we would deploy m22s into a client’s network where we plan to deploy a high end video endpoint, allowing us to ensure that the client's network is capable of handling the planned video traffic over 24 hours or 7 days so that we can see the effect of any other traffic on the network, such as nightly backups."
"Delivery and experience are valuable. The usage in terms of the traffic application captures and other similar things is also valuable."
"With one of our federal customers, we deployed these throughout their network and found multiple cases of misconfigured routers and NICs, which allowed the customer to move to a VOIP solution."
"Graphs and easy correlation in SolarWinds are light-years ahead of what we were doing previously."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the monitoring capabilities."
"Our search finally ended at this Orion’s NPM tool which has great scalability and reliability."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The monitoring system of Orion is powerful and has become a positive feature in the company."
"The interface is user-friendly, making it easy to use."
"Can easily be interconnected with other management systems."
 

Cons

"The initial setup is complex."
"The VMware version doesn’t support video, so we have to ship hardware to remote locations."
"AppNeta by Broadcom needs to add more features to its dashboards. It also needs to work on providing out-of-the-box reports."
"Fully monitoring asymmetrical links is more costly and complex than symmetrical ones."
"They should try and make diagnostics run a bit quicker. When the problem occurs on a network, AppNeta runs automatic diagnostics on the end-to-end path. The path it was testing only to the destination, it now runs the same test to all of the devices and all the intermediate devices. Depending on the number of intermediate devices, it can take several minutes to run. If we're trying to find or diagnose a problem that only lasts two or three minutes, it may be that the diagnostics is still running by the time the problem is cleared. The only thing, which I have also mentioned to AppNeta in the past, is that there should be much faster and much more lightweight diagnostics, which can be completed within 30 seconds or one minute, rather than in 5 to 10 minutes."
"It needs more improvements in monitoring of video streaming performance as well as more layers of breakdown in the front end performance."
"Cloud monitoring could be better. That's one of the biggest pain points for me. I have shared this feedback with them multiple times, but they're limited to some extent. That's one area where I've seen a problem."
"Because of the nature of how AppNeta works in terms of using bursts to depict how a network path performs, it is hard to correlate 24 hour performance 100% accurately."
"It is difficult for stakeholders to translate technical requirements, which results in difficulties selecting a platform or implementing a solution."
"If they’re going for a “cover everything” approach, then they need to do so and enable a bit more of the "cover everything approach" within every one of the tools."
"Technical support and releases are not particularly reliable."
"It would be nice if SolarWinds added some technical protocols like Modbus. The market needs a simple solution for monitoring a technical device."
"SolarWinds NPM could improve by adding the deepest inspection, performance networking, and IP address discovery."
"It would be good to have high security."
"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 (which have no connection to the public internet)."
"The root cause analysis and installation faults are not clear."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We typically don't get involved in the commercial side, but the list price is probably something like $3,000 for a small probe. However, that gives all of the features that the probe can do, whether or not you use them. In the old days, up until two or three years ago, each of the separate features was a separately licensable module so that you could add things that you wanted, and you didn't have to add things that you didn't want. They've changed all that now, and everything the probe can do is a part of the base license."
"It's worth the money."
"AppNeta by Broadcom is not expensive."
"Broadcom software is always a little expensive because they provide quality."
"I find the solution's price to be fairly good."
"The small probe is probably around $3,000 and the very large probe that they make for massive data centers might be $50,000 or $60,000. It's a subscription model, so the payment is per year."
"I inherited this from a different version, and I haven't yet gone through a renewal because we had purchased three years upfront. So, to me, that still remains to be seen. Once it comes up for renewal, we'll see what happens. Especially because now it is Broadcom, it is going to change anyway."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"We have a perpetual license for this solution, and my impression is that this solution is cheap."
"The NPM component of the system costs approximately $1,000 USD per year."
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"When I compare the cost of CA Spectrum to that of SolarWinds NPM, the cost of CA Spectrum is way too high, and the cost of SolarWinds NPM is pretty low."
"You have to license it per year, for the support. You don't really need to have support once you've already set it up. Once you install SolarWinds, you can skip on the licensing. It will still work."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."
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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
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Insurance Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
 

Questions from the Community

What open source tool can one use to measure bandwidth from one's upstream service provider?
One I am looking closely at is AppNeta. They have an appliance that can digest the flow and do a better job than Netflow. The other one we are using is ExtraHop. This has both a Datacenter Hig...
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

Ebay, Citrix, National Instruments, Marriott, AT&T, Bon-Ton, McDonald's, Netflix, PayPal, Uber, QAD
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about AppNeta by Broadcom vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.