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GroundWork Monitor vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

GroundWork Monitor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
100th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
75th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
50th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
IT Operations Analytics (22nd)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
2nd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
6th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of GroundWork Monitor is 0.4%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.7%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.7%
GroundWork Monitor0.4%
Other95.9%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

it_user186582 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr PC/Client Server Analyst II at a individual & family service with 10,001+ employees
It's easy to setup and the plugins are easy to write. When we need to, the threshold is easy to change.
It's easy to setup and the plugins are easy to write. When we need to, the threshold is easy to change It would be nice to have a centralized client-settings management. At the moment, the client settings have to be changed individually. I've used it since 2011. The deployment of the new server…
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

"It's easy to setup and the plugins are easy to write."
"SolarWinds NPM is used to monitor network components and solutions, and we used it to monitor downtime and latency between applications as well as the latency between services."
"The nice thing about SolarWinds is that it's kind of all-in-one. I can manage the status of my networking devices, whether they are up or down, I can see how much traffic is going across an interface, and I can run a report that tells me exactly what that traffic is."
"It did a good job of the collection and then an investigation of the net flow of information for understanding the applications that were being used at certain locations."
"I love the GUI. Almost everything is accessible through the web interface. It is very user-friendly. It is easy to drag and drop resources wherever you want them."
"From the product side, it covers everything; it is perfect."
"It's the best platform for IT management."
"Being able to provide a history of interface behavior helps the organization in a multifaceted way."
"SolarWinds makes it easy for us to monitor our environment."
 

Cons

"Deploying an agent leaves much to be desired."
"The only real caveat that we have or that I have an issue with is when I go on vacation, it's a little hard for me to go and modify alerts so that I don't get alerted about things when I'm on vacation."
"The stability when multiple modules are added could be addressed. We have the need to restart the monitoring solution on a weekly basis as we've combined NPM with a variety of other SolarWinds utilities."
"There isn't a great deal of flexibility to create custom metrics that can be discovered easily or custom aggregation schemes."
"SolarWinds NPM can be very slow at times. The database optimization can be done to improve the product performance."
"There are some issues when trying to monitor multiple networks with the same IP ranges. The solution for this is to purchase additional modules."
"A need for improvement is in the technical support provided by SolarWinds."
"However, the sales team at SolarWinds is extremely aggressive and I would give it probably a 1/10."
"One of the problems that SolarWinds has is when the data becomes too big, it will start getting slower."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We pay a yearly licensing fee."
"We pay approximately $4,000 annually for SolarWinds NPM. There are no additional fees required other than the standard fees."
"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 can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"The licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"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."
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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
Construction Company
30%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

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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

GWOS
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Swiss Life, JBFCS, Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, SolarWinds, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: August 2026.
909,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.