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Flowmon 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

Flowmon
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
43rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Network Detection and Response (NDR) (14th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Flowmon is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.4%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Pifu Lin - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
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

"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."
"The artificial intelligence and automatic detection system in Flowmon Solution are perfect for every, type of customer, such as government and commerce."
"The solution is stable."
"Flowmon is more easy to understand and helps find network issues more quickly."
"Flowmon is more easy to understand and helps find network issues more quickly."
"I believe the ease of setup and use, including everything, from the initial installation to the discovery of devices is the most valuable."
"Technical support is very helpful with our upgrades."
"The most important feature is reporting. The reports that are generated are useful and they save a lot of time with respect to monitoring."
"It's easy to understand, even if you are not too technical."
"SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks."
"Monitoring capabilities are at a high level and it is easy to see utilization, access ports, and CPU memory in real time or through a lens for long-term visualization."
"Reporting tools are a great feature along with the ability to create customized reports for you"
"The most valuable feature is the vital states of the devices as it provides overall CPU and device health information."
 

Cons

"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."
"I do not know the detailed pricing."
"If there was better visualization in Flowmon Solution it would be good."
"The licensing price could be better."
"The solution could improve in many areas, such as the marketing and description of the products, providing areas of improvement, cloud capabilities, and being able to be more streamlined with the current integration points with other applications."
"The price could be better."
"SolarWinds needs to be improved such that it is on par with the leading products in the market."
"Scalability is a bit tricky because it requires more gateways in order to get the performance you may need. It also requires a lot of licensing."
"SolarWinds NPM offers limited customization options. Users and developers may find restrictions in modifying or customizing the dashboard and adjusting monitoring features such as polling intervals or SLAs for different nodes."
"The reporting module that got integrated into the system itself, used to be a standalone solution and I preferred that."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"Real-time analytics is the major weakness of the SolarWinds NPM platform today. They've done a fantastic job enabling the collection of data. Users are now demanding the ability to generate their own graphs, views, and so on; all of this must be done by an admin today."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price of the solution could be better."
"I’d suggest that people be aware that licensing has tiers."
"The licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes."
"It is expensive."
"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
"The solution can become very expensive and commercially not viable in countries, such as India."
"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."
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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
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
5%
Educational Organization
25%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 Flowmon vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.