Fortra's Intermapper vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

Fortra and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Fortra is ranked #80, while SolarWinds is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5. Fortra holds a 0.5% mindshare in NMS, compared to SolarWinds’s 3.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Fortra users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Fortra's Intermapper

Read 4 Fortra's Intermapper reviews

1,573 Views
1,510 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SolarWinds NPM

Read 160 SolarWinds NPM reviews

18,343 Views
14,124 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Fortra's Intermapper

SolarWinds NPM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

SolarWinds NPM and Fortra's Intermapper are competing in the network monitoring solutions category. While SolarWinds NPM stands out for its reporting capabilities and integration ease, Fortra's Intermapper is preferred for its reliability and robust features.

Features: SolarWinds NPM is notable for network performance monitoring, alerting systems, and rich visualization. Fortra's Intermapper emphasizes flexibility and low resource usage, with a real-time network map for issue identification.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds NPM could benefit from reduced setup costs and improved resource efficiency. Enhancements in real-time issue visualization and simplified user interfaces may also add value. Fortra's Intermapper could enhance data aggregation capabilities and provide more comprehensive reporting. Improving the ease of deeper data analysis and expanding integration capabilities would also strengthen its offering.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds NPM provides a quick setup with a focus on user guidance and error handling. Their customer service is extensive, offering numerous informative resources. Fortra's Intermapper offers a straightforward installation with efficient system resource use, and their responsive customer support makes troubleshooting straightforward.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds NPM has a higher setup cost reflecting its wide features and support, yet it provides significant returns from detailed network insights. Fortra's Intermapper is a cost-effective option, ensuring a solid ROI with lower upfront costs and efficient network monitoring capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortra's Intermapper vs. SolarWinds NPM Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Fortra's Intermapper vs. SolarWinds NPM

April 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 893,311 peers since 2012

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

Fortra's Intermapper

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

80th

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SolarWinds NPM

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

160

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Fortra's Intermapper is 0.5%, up from 0.3% 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
Product	Mindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM	3.7%
Fortra's Intermapper	0.5%
Other	95.8%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Andrian Lubimov

SVP of Networking and Operations at Skywire Networks

It tremendously cuts down our troubleshooting timeframe, but needs advanced SLA monitoring and reporting

They can do a better job with SLA reporting. It does some basic reporting, but it really doesn't offer the ability to monitor devices by groups, customers, or carrier to give an overall health performance of specifically-defined environments. That's where HelpSystems Intermapper could have done a better job. I would love to see advanced SLA monitoring and reporting in this solution. They already have a lot of ingredients. They already have SNMP polling. It is really about what people are looking for from SLA monitoring, especially someone who looks at the network topology. You want to see your endpoints. You want to see half of your endpoints by simply analyzing ICMP or SNMP-based availability of your endpoints. Having an ability to define your group and how you bring devices into your group would be a huge benefit.

Read full review

Vivek Jaiswal

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Right now, it is really a combination of network topology, network monitoring, and network analyzing, so, in my opinion, it is awesome."

"The solution has a couple of features which are really interesting; it's not a fancy or expensive solution but we wanted to have a cost effective one and it's doing its job pretty well."

"The most valuable features are its: log history, real-time monitoring capabilities, accuracy - the number of false positives is very low, and the mapping features."

"Put Intermapper in as your base to start from, hands-down."

"What is really cool about HelpSystems InterMapper is that because of its SNMP base, you can integrate all different makes and models on the same map. You, of course, can have more than one map, but you have an option to have visibility into the entire network from one centralized system. You can monitor IPs, routers, radios, DC power plants, and UPS. You can do it all from one network management and monitoring solution. That's what really makes HelpSystems Intermapper great. Another great thing about HelpSystems InterMapper is that you can really bundle different probes under one device. You can have a bundled device. You can monitor the physical status of a host based on the IP availability. You can also monitor services and actually see if anything happens. You can quickly determine whether it is the application layer, host layer, or network layer. HelpSystems Intermapper gives such a unique representation of a network. Ever since we started using HelpSystems InterMapper, we don't have to document everything in a detailed format and store it somewhere. Right now, it is really a combination of network topology, network monitoring, and network analyzing. So, in my opinion, it is awesome. When you have your SNMP topology defined, you don't require a dedicated NMS engineer to manage your system, which is another great thing about HelpSystems InterMapper. I see how our operators get so excited by having the ability to map a device or interface and connect interfaces together. HelpSystems InterMapper is also very operator friendly; not just user friendly, but also operator friendly. This is a unique feature, and it works really great."

"It's all today portal-based which is a good feature for us."

"It's a nice graphical interface, a nice map, that relates Layer 1 to Layer 3, virtually instantly, to the Helpdesk support staff. It provides a default place to get critical information so we can deploy our staff."

"The graphical alerting with the ability to obtain a quick overview of a monitored device is my favorite feature."

"Solarwinds network performance monitor is a strong product that combines management (SNMP), monitoring (SYSLOG) and configuration of routers and switches."

"The ease of deployment is great."

"Technical support has always been great."

"Overall, SolarWinds is a very good product."

"Their support team is efficient, and it is easy to set up."

"This solution provides one standardized platform for network device monitoring."

"The most important feature is reporting. The reports that are generated are useful and they save a lot of time with respect to monitoring."

"We are now able to respond to problems before the customer is even aware of them."

More SolarWinds NPM pros

Cons

"I'd love to see more of the network management side of it coming back into it."

"It's a smaller solution so tools are not as advanced as you would find in a larger solution"

"I have seen instances where Intermapper does not seem to recover from network changes."

"I'd love to see more of the network management side of it coming back into it. If we were able to run scripts to bounce ports on switches, that would be great. It's asking a lot, but it's actually very doable because I do it through scripting into other products. If we could incorporate that directly into Intermapper, that would be fantastic."

"It's a smaller solution so tools are not as advanced as you would find in a larger solution"

"They can do a better job with SLA reporting. It does some basic reporting, but it really doesn't offer the ability to monitor devices by groups, customers, or carrier to give an overall health performance of specifically-defined environments. That's where HelpSystems Intermapper could have done a better job. I would love to see advanced SLA monitoring and reporting in this solution. They already have a lot of ingredients. They already have SNMP polling. It is really about what people are looking for from SLA monitoring, especially someone who looks at the network topology. You want to see your endpoints. You want to see half of your endpoints by simply analyzing ICMP or SNMP-based availability of your endpoints. Having an ability to define your group and how you bring devices into your group would be a huge benefit."

"It would be nice if SolarWinds added some technical protocols like Modbus. The market needs a simple solution for monitoring a technical device."

"The only thing that can be improved is to continually add to the existing capabilities of the product."

"Consolidation of platforms would provide a smoother experience."

"However, the sales team at SolarWinds is extremely aggressive and I would give it probably a 1/10."

"Better offline license management. I’ve had to get in touch with customer support several times simply to remove an expired license from our NPM servers."

"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."

"One of the problems that SolarWinds has is when the data becomes too big, it will start getting slower."

"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."

More SolarWinds NPM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"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 price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."

"SolarWinds is expensive. That's why it's primarily banks using the solution. Small businesses can't afford it. Due to its pricing, most smaller enterprises like manufacturing companies are not interested. For example, we have a client who is also interested in traffic monitoring, but they are not purchasing SolarWinds because of the cost."

"The pricing is in the middle. It's not particularly cost-effective, but it's not overly expensive either."

"We have a multi-year license for the use of this solution. There are additional costs for recourses in the environment."

"We pay approximately $4,000 annually for SolarWinds NPM. There are no additional fees required other than the standard fees."

"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."

"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."

More SolarWinds NPM pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user174738

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

18%

Construction Company

11%

University

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	59
Midsize Enterprise	33
Large Enterprise	86

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

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...

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

From my point of view, SolarWind is the best tool.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

SolarWinds VoIP & Network Quality Manager vs Fortra's Intermapper

Compared 19% of the time

ConnectWise RMM vs Fortra's Intermapper

Compared 14% of the time

Nmap vs Fortra's Intermapper

Compared 11% of the time

Zabbix vs Fortra's Intermapper

Compared 8% of the time

Meraki Dashboard vs Fortra's Intermapper

Compared 4% of the time

More Fortra's Intermapper Competitors

ManageEngine OpManager vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 4% of the time

Nagios XI vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

DX Spectrum vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

Entuity vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 2% of the time

More SolarWinds NPM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Network Monitoring Software

April 2026

Download Fortra's Intermapper product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds NPM

April 2026

Download SolarWinds NPM product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Intermapper

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer

Overview

Fortra's Intermapper offers real-time network mapping and monitoring, ideal for IT teams seeking a reliable visualization and alerting tool to maintain uptime and connectivity.

Ideal for IT environments, Fortra's Intermapper provides dynamic and intuitive network mapping capabilities. Known for its ability to display an up-to-date graphical view of IT infrastructure, this solution enables proactive monitoring through instant alerts and performance insights. It helps IT teams swiftly address potential issues, ensuring consistent connectivity and performance.

What are the key features of Fortra's Intermapper?

Real-Time Network Mapping: Displays live network status for immediate infrastructure insight.
Customizable Alerts: Allows personalized notifications for targeted problem-solving.
Performance Monitoring: Tracks metrics to preemptively identify potential disruptions.
Cross-Platform Compatibility: Supports different operating systems for wider usability.
Historical Data Maintenance: Retains past network data for trend analysis and reporting.

Which benefits or ROI can users expect from Fortra's Intermapper?

Improved Network Visibility: Enhances understanding of network status and layout.
Faster Issue Resolution: Real-time alerts and monitoring minimize downtime.
Cost Efficiency: By reducing outages, operational costs decrease significantly.
Enhanced User Experience: Stable networks boost overall end-user satisfaction.

In industries such as healthcare, finance, and education, Fortra's Intermapper is a vital tool for maintaining high network performance and reliability. It plays a crucial role in environments where uptime is critical, ensuring that network issues are resolved swiftly to support essential operations.

Fortra

SolarWinds NPM is a network performance monitoring tool offering a user-friendly interface with customizable dashboards. It provides real-time tracking of device health, latency, and bandwidth utilization, supporting diverse integration and scalability needs.

SolarWinds NPM's robust features include real-time monitoring of network performance and efficient tracking of device health, latency, and bandwidth utilization. The tool is appreciated for its ease of deployment, scalability, and support for integration with other tools. Features like SNMP monitoring, NetPath, and comprehensive reporting enhance its diagnostic capabilities and network visibility. However, users identify areas for improvement such as real-time analytics, advanced customization options, and enhanced scalability for larger enterprises. Better customer support, improved integrations, and security measures are also desired.

What are the key features of SolarWinds NPM?

User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies navigation and operation.
Customizable Dashboards: Allows personalized data views.
Real-Time Monitoring: Provides instant updates on network performance.
Strong Alerting Capabilities: Offers immediate notifications for issues.
Scalability: Supports growth with ease.
Integration: Works smoothly with other tools for comprehensive monitoring.
SNMP Monitoring: Tracks device stats effectively.
NetPath: Helps visualize network paths and performance.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Improved Network Visibility: Enables proactive issue resolution.
Enhanced Diagnostics: Facilitates quicker troubleshooting.
Real-Time Performance Data: Supports informed decision-making.
Ease of Deployment: Reduces setup time and complexity.
Infrastructure Monitoring: Ensures network stability and reliability.
Custom Integration: Adapts to existing IT environments.

In enterprise environments, SolarWinds NPM is deployed to monitor network health and device status, sending alerts for any issues. It provides visibility into network performance, tracking bandwidth utilization and server metrics efficiently. Its applications span from monitoring routers, switches, and firewalls to supporting infrastructure monitoring across industries.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Greater Media Detroit, University of British Columbia, Don's Farm Supply

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard

Buyer's Guide

Fortra's Intermapper vs. SolarWinds NPM

April 2026

Free Report: Fortra's Intermapper vs. SolarWinds NPM

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortra's Intermapper vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Fortra's Intermapper vs. SolarWinds NPM report.

See our list of best Network Monitoring Software vendors.

We monitor all Network Monitoring Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.