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Icinga vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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

Icinga
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
26th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
30th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
24th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (14th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Icinga is 1.5%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
Icinga1.5%
Other94.9%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Harrison Bulley - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Net Consulting
A stable, scalable and cost-effective solution that helps with inbuilt scripts for easy modification
I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built.
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

"This solution has a self-healing handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted."
"An affordable solution for small organizations to do basic network monitoring."
"There's a module called Icinga Director, which helps us configure the product using an intuitive interface through clicks instead of creating a text configuration. It's very helpful for us."
"The ability to customize scripts and build your own queries to request information from the infrastructure elements you want to monitor. This level of personalization and customization is highly appreciated."
"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."
"Icinga does the job and is fairly stable."
"The apply rules feature saves a lot of time."
"I like the ability to amend and adjust things really easily, which is useful in a case where you could make it auto-discover and then set a template to say all of these applications or servers under this template have an automatic threshold set that you’d set up manually."
"The benefit of this solution is the reporting. We're able to report on and see our network in a graphical form. We are able to detect when a device is added to a network."
"Utilize this product to its full potential, NOC will find it very useful and easy to manage."
"The product is lightweight in terms of memory use, requiring only 10 megabytes or less."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds NPM is the performance monitoring to see the memory, and CPU utilization."
"There are a lot of options for customization of the dashboard, alerts, and reports."
"The ability to customize the views and dashboards is nice. SolarWinds also allows us to access the data via the API. That's probably the feature I liked the most."
"We found that it was easy to operate, and it was simple if anyone has entry-level working experience or even if someone is not experienced."
"With just three modules, I can monitor server performance (whether it’s a VM, in the cloud, or an on-premises server."
 

Cons

"It needs Trap SNMP. I saw the documentation for Zabbix, that it has its own built-in product which handles SNMP traps, and there's nothing similar in Icinga or Nagios. I think this feature is most important for me."
"At this time, the layout of the website is a bit difficult. It should be more user-friendly for changing the background and logos."
"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."
"I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built."
"The installation and configuration are very complex."
"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."
"The solution lacks many features important to higher-level IT management and network support."
"The user interface should be improved."
"Overall speed of the software could be improved as it is incredibly slow at times."
"In terms of scalability, there is room for improvement. When you start monitoring, if you have so many interfaces and you're trying to monitor them at a faster interval, or a shorter interval, you get to a point where you need to request another node."
"The solution does not offer much customization so is somewhat inflexible."
"The reporting module that got integrated into the system itself, used to be a standalone solution and I preferred that."
"Resource utilization is heavy so you need to analyze the server before using it for multiple roles."
"The aesthetic widgets should be dynamic widgets, so the customization can be even more customizable."
"The only thing that can be improved is to continually add to the existing capabilities of the product."
"The constant flow of new features and re-designing of the product sometimes presents bugs that were not identified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"It's an open-source solution."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"The solution is free to use."
"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"The solution is cheap."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"It is not an expensive product."
"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"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."
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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
Educational Organization
16%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Icinga?
It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low. If you want to include this product in the services you offer to your customers, the return on i...
What needs improvement with Icinga?
There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved. For instance, multi-tenancy for monitoring the virtual infrastructur...
What is your primary use case for Icinga?
We use Icinga as a monitoring solution to monitor customers' infrastructures. We work as a managed service provider, so we offer monitoring and many other services to our customers. So we use it in...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.