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FortiMonitor 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

FortiMonitor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
18th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
22nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
IT Alerting and Incident Management (13th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (8th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of FortiMonitor is 0.7%, up from 0.7% 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%
FortiMonitor0.7%
Other95.6%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2677554 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer III at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Managing diverse networks with detailed alerts enhances device oversight
FortiManager is very helpful in managing our networks. We use it to manage 20 farms and various networks with hundreds of devices. The version we are using provides more detail than the older dashboard. We appreciate the alerting capabilities, which are integrated with SolarWinds to notify our team via SMS.
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

"FortiMonitor is really easy to use for monitoring the logs on FortiGate...It is a stable product."
"The most valuable feature of FortiMonitor is the overall ability to monitor the health of the environment."
"FortiMonitor has a very intuitive dashboard, which makes it particularly helpful for analyzing traffic, alerts, and other information."
"The tool continuously improves, adapting to support new vendors and technologies. Importantly, it automates the process, triggering alerts when devices require attention, and eliminating the need for manual intervention."
"It provides the best firewall features."
"FortiMonitor is 100% stable."
"FortiMonitor has a very intuitive dashboard, which makes it particularly helpful for analyzing traffic, alerts, and other information."
"With FortiMonitor, you can get all the logs of the traffic information of the destination or the source."
"Provides a good level of tools and covers essential components."
"In my experience with SolarWinds NPM Quality of Experience dashboard, it fulfilled all of our requirements."
"It is really very flexible, a flexible solution."
"SolarWinds makes it easy for us to monitor our environment."
"The most valuable feature is the way it monitors the environment, and how user-friendly the console is for the end-user. The interface is also very easy and it captures all the information very well."
"SolarWinds is a great solution, and I think that for anybody looking for a nice infrastructure monitoring tool, this solution will do the job."
"The initial setup is easy."
"It improved the way our organization functions by being a consolidated product which I was able to do a lot of the initial data entry and organization with."
 

Cons

"FortiMonitor needs to improve its alert system."
"The tool's price in Vietnam is high, making it an area of concern where improvements can be made."
"There are no AI features in FortiMonitor, which might be an area for enhancement."
"FortiMonitor could improve by having compatibility with other operating systems, such as Linux."
"Sometimes, we get corruption when upgrading from firmware to the new generation, causing a lot of issues."
"Additionally, there are no AI features in FortiMonitor, which might be an area for enhancement."
"The solution's initial setup process is time-consuming."
"We use FortiToken, and it's a pain to use because you have to send things through your phone and then confirm by email."
"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."
"The response time of the support team needs to improve"
"The SolarWinds notification and alerting configuration could be simplified as it would be easier to find if it was within the NPM web application instead of in a separate client application."
"The user should be able to customize the dashboard to their own requirements."
"It is difficult for stakeholders to translate technical requirements, which results in difficulties selecting a platform or implementing a solution."
"SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features."
"The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market."
"SolarWinds NPM needs to increase its elements. One polling engine can only support 10,000 elements then it becomes slow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"FortiMonitor's price is very high."
"We have a large customer base for Fortinet, and the additional buying power got us really great discounts."
"The tool's pricing model in Vietnam is a bit high. I rate the product price as an eight out of ten."
"The price of FortiMonitor is approximately $200 annually for 225 users. The price is competitive."
"There are additional costs needed for certain functionality, such as scalability."
"Compared to other solutions, FortiMonitor is a very expensive solution."
"On a scale from one to ten, I rate the pricing a nine since it is a good solution that is available at a cheap price."
"In terms of licensing, while it may not be the most expensive option on the market, it's relatively cost-effective. You can obtain licenses at a lower cost, with the calculation being straightforward. For example, if you onboard around 5,000 devices, you'll need approximately 5,000 licenses, as each device typically counts as one 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."
"The licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes."
"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
"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."
"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"We have a multi-year license for the use of this solution. There are additional costs for recourses in the environment."
"The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
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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
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
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
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have a clear bias because I work for Panopta. We aren't a fit for everyone, but I can confirm that Panopta is a lot less work to stand up and maintain. It's also a lot easier to use and onboard n...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiMonitor?
FortiMonitor does save time but not significantly on costs, as there are still expenses related to procurement, installation, and licensing.
What needs improvement with FortiMonitor?
There are areas for improvement that FortiManager is addressing. We have not yet upgraded to the latest software versions, being a full revision behind, but we plan to update soon since the current...
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

Panopta
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SONY, GoDaddy, HCL, ING, ARMOR, billboard
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about FortiMonitor vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.