Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Google and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Cloud Monitoring Software category. Google is ranked #19 with an average rating of 10.0, while SolarWinds is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.3. Google holds a 1.0% mindshare in CMS, compared to SolarWinds’s 4.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Google Cloud's operations s...

Read 10 Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) reviews

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1,797 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SolarWinds NPM

Read 161 SolarWinds NPM reviews

28,370 Views
10,213 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Google Cloud's operations s...

SolarWinds NPM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

SolarWinds NPM and Google Cloud's operations suite are two competitive solutions in the network performance monitoring and cloud operations domains. Considering the features, SolarWinds might have the upper hand in on-premises network management with its extensive features, while Google Cloud tends to excel in cloud-native environments due to its scalable infrastructure monitoring.

Features: SolarWinds NPM stands out with customizable alerts, vendor integration, and modular pricing allowing users to purchase only necessary features. Its extensive on-premises solutions are favored for managing in-house infrastructure. Meanwhile, Google Cloud's operations suite provides seamless integration with Google services, effective cloud monitoring capabilities, and scalability that benefit cloud-native operations without hindrance.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds NPM struggles with network discovery, topology mapping, and managing alerts across diverse devices, highlighting the need for better automation and integration capabilities. Google Cloud's suite faces challenges with detailed request-level analytics, complex cost tracking, and a need for improved profiling capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds NPM is strong in hybrid environments and is appreciated for its on-premises management capabilities. It receives generally favorable customer service feedback, though with suggestions for better response times. Alternatively, Google Cloud's operations suite offers smooth deployment in public cloud landscapes and good integration with cloud services. Its technical support is praised, yet sometimes noted for slow responsiveness in non-critical situations.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds NPM's pricing can be high, especially for additional modules, but its ROI is seen positively due to its comprehensive features and effective infrastructure insights. Google Cloud's operations suite offers a flexible, usage-based pricing model that is cost-effective for cloud operations, though it has faced issues with unexpected billing. SolarWinds remains strong in providing immediate infrastructure insights, while Google Cloud offers managed services at lower costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs. SolarWinds NPM Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs. SolarWinds NPM

September 2026

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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

Google Cloud's operations s...

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

19th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (32nd), Log Management (24th)

SolarWinds NPM

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

9th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

161

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) is 1.0%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.6%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM	4.6%
Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver)	1.0%
Other	94.4%

Cloud Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Anand_Patel

Senior Technical Architect at T-Systems International GmbH

Offers reliable Ops Agent and logging transport feature with easy third-party integrations

As part of our company, we implemented several changes in our log analytics pattern, including the storage and procurement process. Earlier, before implementing the solution, our company was able to procure only one year of data, but later, we came to the three-year mark. Around 15-20% reduction has been witnessed in the total analytic consumption of our company. The aforementioned result was possible because the solution allowed the creation of a dashboard where factors like storage costs, proportion of logs, and logs presence in a storage bucket or Big Query can all be checked. Earlier all logs were stored in a raw storage, but currently our company is able to move logs in table bucket that contributes towards cost savings. It has default integration for all gcp services. recently managed Prometheus support gives more flexibility to organizations to remain connected with their current Prometheus setup. We leveraged integrated FinOps Hub for recommendations for our workloads and server configurations, helpd us lot in order to get maximum TCO.

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

"It's easy to use."

"We find the solution to be stable."

"The most valuable feature is the multi-cloud integration, where there is support for both GCP and AWS."

"I would tell potential users that the current version is much nicer than the previous one."

"Google's technical support is very good."

"I like the monitoring feature."

"The solution has improved our organization by reducing latency and also monitoring the costs of GCP usage by using the logging and monitoring features."

"Google Stackdriver is all about activity."

More Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) pros

"Solarwind NPM gives you a quick overview of the OT environment, which greatly improves response times on down equipment."

"I found a lot of valuable features in SolarWinds NPM, such as the customized application monitoring that allows you to customize any monitoring and script customization, and you also have the option to deploy and upgrade SolarWinds NPM online, which is very useful for my organization."

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds NPM is the performance monitoring to see the memory, and CPU utilization."

"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."

"ROI on this has been fantastic."

"I can do everything remotely, including running PowerShell scripts or performing standard updates."

"We use NPM to monitor our enterprise for up/down status on network devices."

"SolarWinds dashboard is very fast. Also, their interface is very good, it looks very user-friendly. The product allows me to see a summary of the network being monitored at a glance."

More SolarWinds NPM pros

Cons

"This solution could be improved if it offered the ability to analyze charts, such as a solution like Kibana."

"Lacking sufficient operations documentation."

"Google Stackdriver is a stable product, but there is some lagging we cannot stop."

"Operations documentation could be a bit better. It took us some time to get up and running with it."

"If I want to track any round-trip or breakdowns of my response times, I'm not able to get it. My request goes through various levels of the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and comes back to my client machine. Suppose that my request has taken 10 seconds overall, so if I want to break it down, to see where the delay is happening within my architecture, I am not able to find that out using Stackdriver."

"If I want to track any round-trip or breakdowns of my response times, I'm not able to get it."

"It is difficult to estimate in advance how much something is going to cost."

"The logging functionality could be better."

More Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) cons

"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 response time of the support team needs to improve"

"There isn't a great deal of flexibility to create custom metrics that can be discovered easily or custom aggregation schemes."

"GUI needs improvement with a more graphical dashboard."

"Consolidation of platforms would provide a smoother experience."

"It would be beneficial if NPM offered support for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), as currently, it does not support this and we are migrating our services there."

"It is not that stable. As a Windows software, I have seen issues with SolarWinds, and sometimes the performance is slow."

"The only other issue I have is that sometimes when upgrading, it becomes complicated to manage the upgrade."

More SolarWinds NPM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a basic standard license without any additional costs."

"The cost of using Stackdriver depends on usage."

"The cost could be lower."

"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."

"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."

"Quite highly priced"

"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."

"It is too expensive."

"The NPM component of the system costs approximately $1,000 USD per year."

"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."

More SolarWinds NPM pricing and cost advice

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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

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Construction Company

11%

Outsourcing Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	9

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	60
Midsize Enterprise	33
Large Enterprise	87

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Stackdriver?

As Ops Suite, is a google product which effectively comes at zero setup cost, in order to manage your on-premises logs on onsite, it involves negligible cost for using ops agent and it also include...

See all answers

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

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Amazon CloudWatch vs Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver)

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Splunk Enterprise Security vs Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver)

Compared 3% of the time

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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

ManageEngine OpManager vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

NETSCOUT Network & Application Observability vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 2% of the time

More SolarWinds NPM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

October 2026

Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) report

Download Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds NPM

October 2026

Download SolarWinds NPM product report

Also Known As

Google Stackdriver, Stackdriver, Stackdriver Monitoring, Stackdriver Logging, Google Cloud Monitoring

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer

Overview

Google Cloud's operations suite is a comprehensive toolset offering multi-cloud support, insights into performance, uptime, health, and scalable logging for seamless cloud operations.

This suite by Google Cloud provides robust features for organizations managing workloads on GCP and AWS. It offers real-time logging and monitoring, aiding in efficient troubleshooting and performance analysis. With automatic monitoring, statistical insights for Kubernetes and VPNs, and the ability to manage logs, it helps in optimizing technology changes and supports risk management. Despite needs for better APM, cost clarity, migration tools, and enhanced documentation, companies benefit from its capabilities in tracking errors and analyzing metrics in execution environments.

What are the key features of Google Cloud's operations suite?

Multi-cloud Integration: Seamless support for GCP and AWS environments.
Performance Visibility: Insights into system health and uptime.
Scalable Logging: Efficient log management and export capabilities.
User-friendly Interface: Intuitive interaction for easy monitoring configuration.

What benefits and ROI can be expected from Google Cloud's operations suite?

Enhanced Monitoring: Real-time updates facilitate swift response to performance issues.
Efficient Troubleshooting: Detailed log analysis helps resolve code issues quickly.
Performance Analysis: Dashboards support engineering load testing and SLA monitoring.

Industries utilizing Google Cloud's operations suite find it invaluable for optimizing cloud operations, especially in sectors involving extensive database requests and workload execution. Java and Python teams leverage its logging and alert capabilities for improved error tracking and metrics analysis, crucial for maintaining high-performance standards in tech-driven environments.

Google

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

Uber, Batterii, Q42, Dovetail Games

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs. SolarWinds NPM

September 2026

Free Report: Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs. SolarWinds NPM

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