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ClearSight Analyzer 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

ClearSight Analyzer
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
91st
Average Rating
10.0
Number of Reviews
2
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
160
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of ClearSight Analyzer is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.7%, 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 NPM3.7%
ClearSight Analyzer0.4%
Other95.9%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

DT
Senior Network Engineer at Montgomery College
Shows question being asked, breaks it down and it'll just show you who's not answering
I wouldn't want the interface to go towards the web because they did have a version that was inside of the TruView product. It was more web-based and, to me, the web-based applications lose the robustness of the intimacy of a true character interface. I liked that they were on that path and I hope that they stay on that path because it just looks like it's a better product. I would like to see a multi-user version where you can have a launch platform and, potentially, instead of buying six licenses you buy 12 seats or something like that. From a centralized platform, you could have multiple users using that particular product in a series of different ways. That's what I'd like to see, rather than having everybody running a standalone one on their own workstation.
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

"What ClearSight will do is it actually maps out the conversation for you."
"This is the best protocol analyzer I've used and I've used some from WildPackets and quite a few other places."
"SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface and the ease of deployment."
"I like the tracking feature to track devices and see where they are connected, which is very practical."
"The other valuable system is the DSS (decision support system). If there's a fault in the network, SolarWinds is basically capable of rectifying and resolving that problem on its own without any intervention from an IP assistant or administrator."
"The simplicity of this product is a valuable feature; everything you need is easily accessible and the maintenance is low."
"The benefit of this solution is the reporting. We're able to report on and see our network in a graphical form. We are able to detect when a device is added to a network."
"SolarWinds is reasonably priced."
"We had some interfaces where the SFP Ports were having some problems after a while. We found which of the SFP Ports was having the error and changed it, so the bandwidth become okay."
 

Cons

"I was upset when they sold the product to NETSCOUT."
"I would like to see a multi-user version where you can have a launch platform and, potentially, instead of buying six licenses you buy 12 seats or something like that."
"Going through the wizard to create these new pollers is quite cumbersome if you don't understand what you're doing."
"Stability is an issue. We have installed SolarWinds (Server 2016) on a dedicated physical server and as a virtual machine in a brand new Hyper-V environment with brand new servers."
"With regards to suggested areas of improvement for the product, I would like to see the price come down, and in addition I think the network element mapping tool is not as robust as it should be."
"I would like to see some enhancement on the reporting side, such as making it a little bit easier to create reports or having a larger assortment of canned reports."
"A feature I would ask for is for them to have this solution available for Linux systems instead of Windows."
"Another feature I would ask for is for them to have this solution available for Linux systems instead of Windows."
"Dependencies: Created dependencies are not visible for management/editing by default until some tweaking is done. It would be better if this is enabled by default."
"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

"It was pretty modest because you could get it in different ways. I think the six licenses, at that time, were about $1,000 each. But then again, I work for a school and educators tend to get discounts on things. So maybe it cost us about five or six hundred a copy."
"The licensing model is such that you can purchase only what you need; and then grow into the next level by paying only the difference in price and the associated maintenance costs."
"It is too expensive."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"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 solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"The solution can become very expensive and commercially not viable in countries, such as India."
"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's expensive and there are costs in addition to the standard 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
Construction Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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

Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.