Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

CA Unified Communications Monitor vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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

CA Unified Communications M...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
101st
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
68th
Average Rating
6.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Unified Communications Monitoring (5th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of CA Unified Communications Monitor is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.4%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

itarchit489981 - PeerSpot reviewer
Good end-to-end voice quality monitoring and offers valuable features
The solution should have automatic baseline detection. On the per hour, per base, per week. That's usually the best. And on a per individual CI level. I know that they're working on it and when that's available then we will definitely implement it because it will reduce the effort we need to maintain all the products. Right now we have to set thresholds for every location, and it needs to be actually dynamic so if we have better thresholding, we'll have faster alarms across all our locations. We won't have to expend effort on it by resetting or checking them on a regular basis.
Masud Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers alerting service to trigger alerts and easy to manage
For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices and device/interface monitoring. We have also used NCM (Network Configuration Manager) for our network. We use the alerting service to trigger alerts based on specific thresholds, like CPU or memory utilization exceeding a certain percentage. There are AI network initiatives in SolarWinds NPM for some lengthy issues. For example, it shows availability reports. But for bandwidth monitoring, it's not very clear how much bandwidth is being consumed. SolarWinds provide real-time bandwidth monitoring. It is not difficult to manage the network with SolarWinds. We have one customer with a satellite location. If we have a large network with, let's say, 43,000 elements, and our current SolarWinds license supports only 30,000, we would need to create another polling engine to accommodate the additional 13,000 elements. It's limited to the polling engine, so we can only support 30,000 elements per engine. So it's only for 30,000, but we have at least 40,000 elements in our network.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the solution to meet the needs of the customer."
"Good end-to-end monitoring"
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the monitoring capabilities."
"I would rate the overall solution nine out of ten due to its capabilities, however, its complexity is a major drawback."
"It combines and presents information from many different sources, giving a corporate-wide vision on a single pane of glass."
"The most valuable feature is the graphical user interface."
"One of the best features is the reports feature."
"All the features are very good. The monitoring of the equipment, the configuration manager, and the IP address monitoring are great."
"From web interfaces to custom monitors and alarms, this product has a high level of flexibility that can be molded to suit your business needs, regardless of the size of your organization."
"It gives us a map of the network setup and one console to see the entire network."
 

Cons

"All the features and functions of the solution can be improved."
"The solution should have automatic baseline detection."
"SolarWinds could offer more support and insights for a broader range of devices. Currently, it focuses on routers, switches, and some load balancers. However, it lacks an out-of-the-box dashboard for monitoring firewalls and some other modern network security devices. We have to customize it a lot."
"Being able to detect devices that are trying to connect wirelessly would make using this solution much easier."
"We also had to be attentive to vulnerabilities, because SolarWinds NPM have some issues in that area. We had to work with our security team, so that they could help us check and backup the data, and check what they needed to secure."
"A need for improvement is in the technical support provided by SolarWinds. Customers have given feedback about the delayed response times from the technical team, especially during application-level issues."
"The integration with the APIs and the web servers deployed can definitely be improved."
"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."
"I think Solar Winds NPM needs to create a profile with documentation responsibility."
"A need for improvement is in the technical support provided by SolarWinds."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We pay approximately $4,000 annually for SolarWinds NPM. There are no additional fees required other than the standard fees."
"It is expensive."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"The NPM component of the system costs approximately $1,000 USD per year."
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"It is too expensive."
"We pay approximately $700 per year for renewal of the license."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
No data available
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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

CA UC Monitor
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BBVA Compass
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about CA Unified Communications Monitor vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.