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ControlUp 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
Organizations achieve efficiency and cost savings with ControlUp, automating tasks, preventing disasters, and optimizing virtual environments.
Sentiment score
6.8
SolarWinds NPM is praised for reducing costs, offering quick ROI, and enhancing network management with reliable alerts and reporting.
This is having a 24/7 junior admin who's really smart, always there, always doing work, but you have to consume his work.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Basically, what we were targeting is the response time of the virtual environment.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
The return on investment is significant as the solution effectively reduces costs while being worth its expense.
Network Administrator at PT Bni Life Insurance
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
9.0
ControlUp's responsive, knowledgeable support enhances customer experience, offering integration flexibility and premium benefits for larger organizations.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM's customer service is praised, but technical support varies, with some users noting slow responses and availability issues.
I was quite happy to work with ControlUp because the support is excellent.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
Basically, if I could take everything that you do, put it in a tool, and hand you that tool so you don't have to repeat your efforts, then you would be able to make good use of it.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
If there is no timely response, getting a resolution is more difficult.
Network Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Regarding technical support from SolarWinds, I find it excellent.
Assistant Manager at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
We had contact with SolarWinds regarding the implementation, and they were helpful.
Network Administrator at PT Bni Life Insurance
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
ControlUp's cloud scalability eases expansion, though pricing concerns arise, highlighting the importance of strategic adaptability and monitoring.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM efficiently scales in large environments, but may require extra polling engines and face complex licensing challenges.
It scales very well; you just have to tell it what you're doing and size it for what you're asking.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
SolarWinds NPM is scalable and effective in handling large network infrastructures.
Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.9
ControlUp is praised for its stability and effective monitoring, with most users finding it reliable and well-supported.
Sentiment score
7.5
SolarWinds NPM is praised for stability, with resource allocation and documentation adherence mitigating most upgrade-related issues.
For stability, I rate SolarWinds NPM as a ten, which is the best.
Assistant Manager at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
The NPM product is stable, particularly when used for simple network monitoring.
Network Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

ControlUp needs seamless integration, improved monitoring, GUI enhancements, and additional features for better automation and complete insights.
SolarWinds NPM requires enhancements in analytics, scalability, UI, security, integration, customization, monitoring, automation, stability, and cost-effectiveness.
There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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.
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features.
Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited
Customers have given feedback about the delayed response times from the technical team.
Network Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Setup Cost

ControlUp pricing involves annual agreements with varied costs; thorough evaluation of licensing options is essential for optimal use.
SolarWinds NPM offers a flexible licensing model with competitive pricing, though costs may rise for extensive setups.
It is expensive.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
Pricing-wise, SolarWinds NPM is more expensive than PRTG.
Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited
It is not too pricey and is adequate.
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The solution is considered expensive.
Network Administrator at PT Bni Life Insurance
 

Valuable Features

ControlUp offers efficient ROI, real-time insights, robust automation, and proactive management with AI-enhanced performance monitoring and comprehensive visibility.
SolarWinds NPM provides intuitive network monitoring with advanced customization, scalability, and proactive alerts, suiting diverse business needs.
Everything works exactly the way it's meant to, a dream come true for anyone who's administering systems because it gives you all the information that you want and all the actions you want to take, all in one place.
Senior Systems Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
There are a lot of counters and monitors you can implement that will help you detect problems before they happen.
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
The ability to customize the dashboard in SolarWinds NPM provides key benefits like saving time and money, and streamlining some processes.
Assistant Manager at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Whenever any node is down in our network, whether it is a server or any network device, we receive information through email that the device is down.
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It provides a detailed overview of the network, which is valuable.
Network Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
32nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (6th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (2nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 0.8%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.5%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.5%
ControlUp0.8%
Other95.7%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Jean-CharlesMoriaud - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Engineer Citrix at EDR Media LLC
Automation capabilities and proactive monitoring have improved infrastructure reliability and reduced troubleshooting time
ControlUp has a lot of automation in it. It detects problems and failures very well. It's not only monitoring, but it's also detecting, and it could even fix problems with a lot of automation that you can put in place to fix problems automatically before you even detect them. That's one of the strong points of ControlUp. All the automations, and there's a large customer-written automation. You can pick up those automations and use them on your environment, and it helps a lot. This is very good. It's not third-party, but it's external routines and automations that you can download from their website and implement on your side. That's one of the strong points of ControlUp. ControlUp, the way we implemented it, and the goal of ControlUp, is to be proactive instead of starting to work on a problem when it already happens. There are a lot of counters and monitors you can implement that will help you detect problems before they happen.
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.
report
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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
12%
Healthcare Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?
It is expensive. It is very expensive. I was working in a bank, and even in the bank, which was quite healthy, the ControlUp budget was something we had to defend very harshly.
What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?
I was taking care of a Citrix infrastructure, and as ControlUp is the best monitoring tool for those environments, I was also using ControlUp to monitor those environments.
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about ControlUp vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.