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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
18th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (34th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (34th), Log Management (38th), Cloud Monitoring Software (27th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (19th), Active Directory Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is 2.5%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.9%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor2.9%
IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)2.5%
Other94.6%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1543041 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network monitoring engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Provides consistent infrastructure monitoring with excellent usability and support
The primary use case of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is network monitoring. It helps to maintain the infrastructure's availability and ensure that alerts are generated when needed The most valuable features of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) are its stability,…
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

"It's a great solution for highlighting and discovering useful information regarding our network's elements."
"It provides accurate data, which is critical, and I also like the very quick real-time reporting with one-minute polling, as I can pull up graphs and charts very quickly."
"SevOne provides us with continuous analytics of our network and that gives us an idea of the health of our network, where our weaknesses are, and what needs to be fixed."
"It's given us the ability to create various real-time network performance reports and distribute them to any colleague who can access these reports immediately."
"The automation feature is good because if your CMDB is OK and it is already in sync, then the automation part is good to go."
"One of the solution's biggest strengths is its capacity management performance, with out-of-the-box reports through NMS, as well as its ability to collect NetFlow-related data from devices. The collection of network performance and flow data is important because we have many critical business applications."
"The most valuable feature for us is its flexibility to handle different systems and different functions."
"Scalability. I have never had to worry about how to handle really big environments."
"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements, so the threshold gets configured automatically, and it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."
"The more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature."
"The solution can be deployed quickly."
"The OOTB (Out of the Box) implementation does have very good node specific pages and can provide a wealth of information."
"It is scalable."
"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."
"The solution is end-to-end from the network and the application to the processes. Everything about the enterprise infrastructure is being covered by the solution. It's easy to use and easy to navigate and one of the leaders among monitoring solutions."
"Once we got our IT inventory organized and aligned with the business, we were able to leverage our Orion Platform to provide more than just a reactive-based monitoring service to the business."
 

Cons

"I'm not really sure if this was the software's fault or a server issue, but a couple of years back the disks were failing on our SevOne physical server every month and the server would go down. The secondary server took over from the primary until the disk issue was resolved. That was annoying."
"This product needs a lot of handholding and close collaboration with network design resources, in terms of choosing the appliance and the number of licenses."
"Some similar solutions offer end-to-end visibility."
"The customizations are very hard. The person doing it has to be very good at analytics and has to be very good in all languages"
"The one area with room for improvement is probably administration. They added data insights to make a better user experience, but I'd like to see some improvements in the way the system is administered."
"SevOne could improve its flexibility because it isn't fully customizable and its out-of-the-box configuration doesn't cover all use cases."
"There is no service mode setup in this monitoring tool if you want to snooze alerts for any specific amount of time, to account for any activity change or major incident."
"From the operator’s point of view, it is quite painful to have to remember that every device costs us some cash if added to SevOne (CAPEX and, later, yearly OPEX)."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."
"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."
"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."
"The technical support is nothing special."
"From an integration point of view, if you want to have a manager of manager kind of layer, that is currently lacking in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor."
"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."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve the server monitoring and the web application monitoring features are not good. Microsoft SCOM has better server monitoring."
 

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."
"It is inexpensive compared to other monitoring tools."
"Choose a SevOne partner who can provide SevOne as a service and can deliver professional services and maintenance."
"There are different options available for licensing, with the per-device option being more expensive but more flexible."
"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."
"The pricing has been fair."
"Have a bank of licenses, because it is about the number of objects (RAM, ports, CPU, etc.)."
"The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing."
"The product is expensive."
"I have always said SolarWinds is very “proud” of their products, meaning they are expensive. I cannot afford to purchase all the licenses I need for all the SolarWinds products."
"We are on an annual license to use the solution. The price of the solution is expensive. The price is based on a bunch of factors, such as the number of engines and elements."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"SAM is not per server so the pricing model can be deceiving. If you have an enterprise environment, you will quickly exceed your licensing quickly. You should know this before going in."
"Pricing is inexpensive, starting at 2440 euros. For that, you get the ability to monitor a couple of nodes and one year of maintenance and support."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
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: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.