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Flowmon vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

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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

Flowmon
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Network Detection and Response (NDR) (15th)
SolarWinds NPM
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (2nd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Flowmon and SolarWinds NPM aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Flowmon is designed for Network Detection and Response (NDR) and holds a mindshare of 2.1%, up 1.9% compared to last year.
SolarWinds NPM, on the other hand, focuses on Network Monitoring Software, holds 3.6% mindshare, down 4.4% since last year.
Network Detection and Response (NDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Flowmon2.1%
Darktrace13.3%
Vectra AI9.4%
Other75.2%
Network Detection and Response (NDR)
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
Zabbix3.6%
PRTG Network Monitor2.5%
Other90.3%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Pifu Lin - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer at DYNASAFE TECHNOLOGIES PTE. LTD.
Quick identification of network issues enhances performance monitoring
We will try to Proof of Concept (POC) to a client in Taiwan. We just use the features for the Network Performance Monitor (NPM) Flowmon is more easy to understand and helps find network issues more quickly. We need this solution to monitor the network performance. We started using it three…
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

"The solution is stable."
"Flowmon is more easy to understand and helps find network issues more quickly."
"The artificial intelligence and automatic detection system in Flowmon Solution are perfect for every, type of customer, such as government and commerce."
"It is an open platform, so in terms of integration, we are quite happy. We can integrate it with other SNMP solutions. We can also integrate it with security solutions, such as a SIEM solution."
"If people or users are complaining that the network is slow, Flowmon can easily detect the cause of the network problem."
"The solution is both stable and scalable and we are happy with the product."
"In my experience with SolarWinds NPM Quality of Experience dashboard, it fulfilled all of our requirements."
"We have completely eliminated any blind spots in the operation of our core networks, applications, and platforms."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The most valuable features are language support and technical support."
"The most important feature is reporting. The reports that are generated are useful and they save a lot of time with respect to monitoring."
"If you are almost in the dark, SolarWinds can give you a quick view of what you have and you can start basic monitoring."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the alerts."
"Over the last couple of years, they have introduced features like NetPath and PerfStack, which are very helpful for any of the admins to troubleshoot issues and know precisely what is going on in nodes."
 

Cons

"I do not know the detailed pricing."
"If there was better visualization in Flowmon Solution it would be good."
"The price of the license could be lower."
"It would be helpful to have more details about the monitoring of the infrastructure. It should have support for SNMP. This is something that is currently not there in the product."
"The solution is expensive and may not be very affordable for startups or smaller companies."
"We have not had a lot of opportunities to use technical support. When we did I was not particularly impressed with their response time or expertise."
"The user should be able to customize the dashboard to their own requirements."
"The cost for monitoring interfaces is ridiculous."
"I faced a problem with GRE over IPSec tunnel traffic, it was not showing Netflow enabled traffic and without IPSec tunnel traffic Netflow was working fine."
"There isn't a great deal of flexibility to create custom metrics that can be discovered easily or custom aggregation schemes."
"The solution does not offer much customization so is somewhat inflexible."
"Map section and Bandwidth."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution could be better."
"It works with a permanent license, and then you can pay for the support. For the gold support, you need to pay yearly."
"The licensing fee accrues only once, but that of support is annual."
"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."
"Though I don't remember the price for SolarWinds NPM, its price is somewhat okay when you compare it with other tools in the market. The price isn't too high and isn't too low, so it's okay."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
"Price could be improved on"
"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"Quite highly priced"
"We pay approximately $700 per year for renewal of the license."
"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."
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
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Flowmon Anomaly Detection System?
I don't understand the price. I am in deployment, so I do not know the detailed pricing.
What is your primary use case for Flowmon Anomaly Detection System?
We will try to Proof of Concept (POC) to a client in Taiwan. We just use the features for the Network Performance Monitor (NPM).
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

Flowmon Anomaly Detection System
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SEGA
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Darktrace, TrendAI, Vectra AI and others in Network Detection and Response (NDR). Updated: September 2026.
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