No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 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

IBM SevOne Network Performa...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
17th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (37th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (43rd), Log Management (40th), Cloud Monitoring Software (29th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (17th), Active Directory Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is 2.5%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 3.0%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor3.0%
IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)2.5%
Other94.5%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Grzegorz Nowak - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Wingu
Improves infrastructure planning by helping us analyze network traffic
We use SevOne to collect and report on network flows SevOne improves infrastructure planning by helping us analyze network traffic. We can look at bandwidth for specific endpoints on the customer's network and analyze traffic to identify issues. For example, maybe some connectors are unavailable.…
NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Specialist at ServiceIO
Monitoring over a thousand systems has improved decision making and operational visibility
From an advantage perspective, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is comparatively cheaper from a commercial point of view. It is easy to install and configure, very user-friendly, and quick to get up and running, allowing you to see the early value adds in your organization. It is compatible with most technologies for monitoring with very few chances of incompatibility. Configuration also allows us to monitor all the technical parameters we are looking for, making it a very good experience for us. The alerting feature in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is a main advantage, as it alerts based on threshold breaches and can raise tickets to the ticketing system, send SMS, and email notifications, allowing engineers to work on those tickets to resolve issues and avoid further impact. The visibility into server health is a beneficial feature that I am utilizing. We widely use various application performance metrics in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor such as database monitoring and server monitoring, which are quite good enough for any monitoring solution. We utilize the customizable dashboards in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Customer Service: Excellent, customer service is 10/10."
"SevOne's ability to report metrics on specific objects very quickly, whether it is a week, a month, or a year's worth of data points, has improved by leveraging short-term vs. long-term memory to provide necessary statistics so we can alleviate network impacts quickly."
"But it is a good tool that works nicely; so far, we don't regret it."
"I don't think the product cost compares to the savings we get by detecting a problem and resolving a problem faster."
"Data Insight reporting tool is the most valuable feature. They came up with it a couple of years ago. The most pleasing factor is the dark theme. You don't have a white background. It has templates that you can create for all kinds of reports that you can hit on the fly. It's much better printing of the reports. If you want to send PDFs to people, the reports are actually decent. Whereas for years, the old architecture of the PDFs was rubbish and even our customers said, "We have to manipulate your PDFs because they all have bad margin breaks. SevOne fixed that a couple of years ago with the new Data Insight. It's fantastic."
"SevOne is the one tool which provides multiple features, and the servers or databases have different plugins that can be used to monitor various components of the network and applications."
"The reporting capabilities provided important metrics and data that helped in the oversight of our system, network, and overall IT infrastructure, both in terms of applications and hardware."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is the scale-up and scale-down. The scale-up is an operation where the CPU boosts-up and then the memory will boost-up. That works awesomely."
"The recommendations are a life saver."
"It is simple to implement and can provide fairly decent Windows-based monitoring, beyond simple SNMP. It is great for monitoring newbies and smaller shops."
"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."
"The initial setup was relatively easy, and we didn't have to install anything. All we had to do was put on the devices we wanted to monitor."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"From a customers point of view, they get a good return on investment because they are not paying a lot of money when you compare to what they used to pay for IBM and other large vendors."
"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."
"SolarWinds SAM is very stable, and we are using it with hundreds or thousands of customers and there are no stability issues."
 

Cons

"Licensing costs can add up quickly, so know what you need to monitor and what you don’t."
"High-frequency polling is data-intensive because you're pulling more. If SevOne could figure out a way to manage the impact of high-frequency polling on the system, that would be very popular."
"I would like to see live maps as an added feature. Also, build modules on AI and EML to provide better data insights that would proactively tell us what we should be looking after."
"Customer service is very bad. The support is a kind of blog where you leave your question or problem, then they try to resolve it as soon as possible."
"If you want one tool for everything this should not be considered."
"I think that the upgrade process could be improved, which can be painful at times."
"The GUI: both the dashboard/user view and the admin tool."
"Their virtualization solution is not compatible with our Kubernetes environment, which is one of the reasons we are ending our relationship with them."
"I had some stability issues. I lost my environment, but with the help of SolarWinds support, I was able to get back to a stable platform."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"The templates could use improvement. Currently, they are quite complex."
"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."
"In terms of the dashboards on offer, they should work to improve them. The types of dashboards that you get in terms of the graphs on offer aren't ideal right now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing has not evolved with the market, which is one of the reasons we are moving to a new product."
"The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing."
"A blocking point is the high upfront cost because it is challenging to get it accepted and the purchase approved."
"Have a bank of licenses, because it is about the number of objects (RAM, ports, CPU, etc.)."
"Although I don't have exact details in terms of cost, my experience has been that SevOne is willing to make a deal with the customer."
"It is inexpensive compared to other monitoring tools."
"The pricing has been fair."
"There are cheaper solutions available."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"I would advise potential buyers to wait until the end of the quarter, end of year, or other time to place orders. There are actually great deals to be had at those times if your budget cycle can match up."
"The product is expensive."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"The licenses start from USD 3000.00 and go up to USD 20,000.00 for the year. It's a perpetual license. Nothing is free in SolarWinds, anything that you need is an additional cost."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"The price is too high."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Server Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise45
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with SevOne Network Data Platform?
There is room for improvement in the integration with different vendors and the reporting capabilities. It would be beneficial to have out-of-the-box integration with third-party vendors and improv...
What is your primary use case for SevOne Network Data Platform?
The primary use case of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) ( /products/ibm-sevone-network-performance-management-npm-reviews ) is network monitoring. It helps to maintain the infrastru...
What advice do you have for others considering SevOne Network Data Platform?
To compete with custom-built tools, IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) should accommodate the desired features and be timely in the delivery of feature updates. I would rate the overal...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
There is definitely room for improvement besides simplifying its setup. As a non-technical person, I believe the dashboards could be improved. Everything we use appears on video walls, and we need ...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
I am doing research as we currently have both solutions, and I am looking to see if we need both or can manage with one. Currently, the outcome indicates that we need both. The focus point is diffe...
 

Also Known As

SevOne
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ATOS, Devereux, Spark New Zealand, Access4, Rogers Communication, Lumen (formerly known as CenturyLink)
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.