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IBM Tivoli NetCool vs SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager comparison

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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

IBM Tivoli NetCool
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (14th)
SolarWinds Network Configur...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (14th), Network Automation (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Tivoli NetCool is designed for Network Management Applications and holds a mindshare of 3.9%, up 2.3% compared to last year.
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager, on the other hand, focuses on Configuration Management, holds 3.2% mindshare, up 1.5% since last year.
Network Management Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Tivoli NetCool3.9%
Cisco DNA Center7.2%
DX Spectrum5.5%
Other83.4%
Network Management Applications
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager3.2%
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform10.6%
HashiCorp Terraform7.6%
Other78.6%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Petar Ganev - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Monitoring Engineer at Commerzbank
Reliable for enterprise monitoring but no longer actively developed
There are problems with the latest security requirements because many things have changed in recent years, and now the security audits are very strict. And we need to switch to something else. We need to patch it constantly. Moreover, it is a very old tool and a little bit difficult to support. Otherwise, they work okay.
reviewer1327239 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Automated configuration management has improved monitoring, backups, and policy control
I do not think there is anything I would like to improve at this point in time because SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager compares almost perfectly to what it is supposed to do. I think it is one of the best products in its category. Regarding the automation capabilities of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager, I think that is an area they will need to explore in making it more autonomous. Discovery happens through IP address scanning, but building out automation is something they need to focus on. I absolutely believe in providing automation for SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. It is essential to address how to deploy, discover, and remediate wherever possible. I think that is something they should already be looking at because AAFS is currently something everybody is focused on, and storage also needs to consider it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is a complete package; it has various useful elements including inventory management and incident management packaged inside it, and anything is possible with Tivoli since it is quite a robust system that offers a lot of useful integration capabilities."
"NetCool has a huge database that can collect and process about one million alarms a day."
"It improves customer satisfaction, deploy-ability, adaptability, flexibility, scalability, and reduces cost of operation."
"Anything is possible with Tivoli. It's quite a robust system."
"The tool is much easier to manage than running scripts and figuring out how many endpoints have been exceeded."
"Full featured - event/fault management, performance management, topology map, discovery, RCA, event enrichment, Proviso will chart data from almost any source with a variety of aggregation options."
"The tool had many built-in automation capabilities."
"Support is one of the best aspects of this solution. NetCool is a good product that has good flexibility. There are a lot of documents available online which is one of the best features of IBM Tivoli Suite. Whenever an issue happens, rather than going to technical support, if you find the exact issue in Google, you can get tech notes for that particular issue."
"NCM has provided for the following benefits - Mainly to to with audit readiness on 3 fronts - regular configuration backups, configuration hardening and Vulnerability management."
"This solution has helped our organization by allowing us to store all the device configurations for the various network devices in NCM and making it easy for us to retrieve and look them over."
"Configuration pushing, upgrade capabilities, job backup, configuration backup, and real-time configuration change monitoring are highly beneficial features of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager."
"SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager improves the mean time to repair significantly, bringing measurable benefits to customers."
"Compared to other vendors, like NetBrain, managing the solution is easy. They made it very user-friendly."
"SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager can be used for backing up network device configuration, which helps you be more secure because when you have a system failure, you can get the information back."
"It is a stable solution."
"What's nice with NCM is you can set up policies that you can then check against the configs to ensure that your device configs adhere to a baseline or standard that you've set in place."
 

Cons

"UI is outdated, very old legacy."
"The solution is not user-friendly."
"I think the UI should be updated and made more presentable and eye-catching. Compared to NCE in Huawei, NSN in Nokia, the UiPath and Ubiquiti, it feels very old legacy."
"IBM's technical support takes a long time to do root cause analysis, and we have to go through several levels of help before getting a solution."
"Tivoli NetCool is based on a Linux platform, it would be beneficial if they moved it to Windows because not everyone is acquainted with Linux."
"This is another one of those suites glued together from a myriad of acquisitions and it shows once you get under the hood."
"The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster."
"The solution does not have any AI capabilities."
"The Network Configuration Manager needs to improve the access control list compliance."
"Releasing a product compatible with operating systems other than Windows would be advantageous."
"Improvements are needed in the automatic network mapping function."
"I would like to see more integration tools. Something like dialysis, for example."
"I will email them and I won't see the response for another two or three hours. I have to give them a call and it's a pain, it's a nightmare."
"When it comes to the way of managing the network devices, SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager should provide the simplest way that devices can relate to the server. For example, when we want to get the devices on board, we go by SSH to make the SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager create the connectivity with the device. After that, we pull the configuration. It would be helpful if they could combine both so that everything will be done in one step."
"The interface of solar winds could be improved."
"I'd like to see additional features like support for devices that don't use CLI for configuration backups, expanded inventory support for other vendors beyond Cisco, and compatibility with newer SD WAN devices. These enhancements would further improve the product's versatility and utility for users. we hope for future enhancements, especially in supporting security devices that lack CLI backup options."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the product is too expensive."
"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."
"It costs around 100k for every ten servers, which is lower than similar products from other vendors."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Pricing is reasonable and competitive."
"The pricing is good."
"You have a base license for 50 devices, and then you can add more licenses as you go."
"There is a license for the use of this solution and it is priced well, there is a lot of value for the money."
"We have to pay additionally for its support and maintenance."
"With a minimal bundle, we pay about $3000 a year in licensing costs. If you have multiple devices in your network, you must buy the bundle, which is 100% identical for your infrastructure. If you have 15 devices, you need 15 licenses, for example. That's one bundle. You don't pay for anything over and above that."
"There is a license needed to use SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager."
"Additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee are inevitable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all kind of software in monitoring from infra to end to end, it depends on the funct...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager?
On pricing, I would rate SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager as one of the best in its segment among leading products and competitors. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is positioned as...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager?
I do not think there is anything I would like to improve at this point in time because SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager compares almost perfectly to what it is supposed to do. I think it is...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager?
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is used for managing a large number of IPs, distributing them within my enterprise, and addressing issues related to them. People typically manage this thro...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli NetCool
SolarWinds NCM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)
United Lincolnshire Hospitals, Air Rarotonga, NetSuite, Thai AirAsia, REA Group, 335th Signal Command, Agilisys, Marine Expeditionary Force
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, Skyline Communications and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.