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DX Performance Management 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

DX Performance Management
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
43rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure Capacity Planning (1st), DX NetOps (2nd)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of DX Performance Management is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
DX Performance Management0.6%
Other95.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1810893 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Operations Specialist at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Flexibility and detailed performance stats enable effective network monitoring
Spectrum is very good at monitoring all network faults and configurations. It enables me to take action based on network issues. The Performance Management provides detailed network performance stats, including CPU, memory, and interface bandwidth. Additionally, Spectrum is flexible and allows me to organize and treat devices uniquely without impacting other devices.
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

"It is very easy to add devices; just be aware that it requires SNMP to be enabled."
"It has improved efficiency because now there is the one-stop shop where you can view all your data, instead of needing to click around in four different tools."
"Technical support is very responsive and knowledgeable."
"The network teams have transitioned to becoming proactive in responding to network performance issues, rather than being just reactive to outages."
"The most valuable of CA Performance Management is consolidated network infrastructure monitoring and reporting."
"When we deployed it, right out of the box we were able to stand up Performance Management within two weeks, in our production environment, with full discovery and relevant information, actual information, that we could use in our command center, our 24/7 operations center."
"The out-of-the-box dashboards are valuable, in terms of being able to visualize performance data in ways that we haven't in the past."
"The integration with NetFlow, the NFA solution, so that we can have our flow forensics paired with the SNMP polling performance metrics on the same page."
"Being able to easily, and quickly obtain disc space statistics from servers and determine how much was free or used on various volumes."
"The set up was very easy. We didn't have any problems with the setup. The deployment took less than an hour."
"At the moment, our main tool is SolarWinds NPM, and we keep using it, especially for monitoring cloud devices."
"With SolarWinds, everything just works."
"Outages have reduced by probably around 90% because we're able to take and proactively add space to a disk or add processors to a server before users know there's a problem."
"As far as assisting in being proactive in our network, it's been a great help in helping us maintain a healthy environment and being proactive and making sure things are up to date and upgraded."
"SolarWinds Orion NPM tracks bottlenecks in your network infrastructure and lets you troubleshoot them before a disaster happens."
"Our ability to locate the source of a network issue has dramatically reduced our mean-time-to-resolve."
 

Cons

"CA PM Business Hours Filtering: I understand that all monitoring systems have defects. The Business Hours Filtering does not always function properly. Sometimes, when applying business hours to CA PM reports that are 30 or more days in duration, the report generation times out and does not display results. We have other CA PM reports that, when we apply Business Hours Filtering, the report results displayed are the same as without the filter. We are not sure if this is a defect in CA PM or if it is a result of our complex configuration (folder structure) and application of business hours."
"There are some areas in the technology right now, like with VMs, where we are lacking with our abilities to get inside the VM to monitor traffic within the machine."
"The database should have higher availability in case of an incident."
"One of the greatest challenges we have encountered are the polling cycles."
"This may be available by now but for server space, when it comes to the disk file system, I'd like to see that graphically represented, or the trend, rather than what I'm seeing now."
"We experience disconnections between the solutions own components."
"I would like to have more tasks, graphs, and possibilities for linking to the graphs and reports added to the solution."
"​Global synchronization errors. Sometimes it just doesn't finish in time due to the load."
"The interface can be a bit cumbersome at times."
"SolarWinds NPM could improve the graphics of the interface and more customized reporting."
"We had scalability issues. We have several additional servers, too, so upgrading is kind of a pain, but that's with all the other modules, too."
"The initial setup of SolarWinds NPM is complex, and I find it challenging."
"SolarWinds NPM is very unstable. We often have website loading issues."
"The solution is considered expensive."
"The user should be able to customize the dashboard to their own requirements."
"The admin web site could be a lot faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is based on the number of network devices."
"We purchase a license to use the solution every three years and we have multiple contracts. They have been increasing the price annually. We have a baseline for three years and then we need to pay the difference from the baseline, and we are in the process of negotiating a new price for all the licenses we need. The price overall is affordable."
"We were looking at other vendors in the marketplace for NetFlow, and CA just beat everybody else in price, cost, and the size to implement. ​"
"They should provide more scalable licensing for the product."
"Do your homework and know how many devices you will be managing out of the gate. Be sure to project what your growth will be each year."
"I like the licensing model because it's device-based."
"Licenses depend on the number of devices, but all license levels come with technical support."
"I believe the original setup cost was around $3500 with an annual cost of around $1200-$1500 to renew the support license. This would bring the average day-to-day cost of around $5-$6 over three years."
"The pricing is in the middle. It's not particularly cost-effective, but it's not overly expensive either."
"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."
"We have a multi-year license for the use of this solution. There are additional costs for recourses in the environment."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."
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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
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise86
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with DX Performance Management?
Spectrum's topology view sometimes does not rebuild automatically when a device is shut down and reconnected. It requires manual discovery and rebuilding of the topology, which I hope can be improved.
What is your primary use case for DX Performance Management?
I have used Spectrum for monitoring all network faults, configurations, and troubleshooting network issues. It provides network performance stats, such as CPU, memory, and interface bandwidth detai...
What advice do you have for others considering DX Performance Management?
I would recommend this solution based on its functionality, flexibility, customizability, and ease of use. Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. I am just a customer and not a par...
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 Performance Management
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Jack Henry & Assoc, Target, CenturyLink, Bell Canada, BrightHouse Networks, Telus, Unisys, Verizon, Southern California Edison, GEICO, Fidelity Investments, Wells Fargo, American Family Insurance Group, Deutsche Telekom AG 
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Performance Management vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.