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NetCrunch 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

NetCrunch
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
77th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
61st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (27th), Log Management (52nd)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
2nd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of NetCrunch is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
NetCrunch0.7%
Other95.7%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

it_user1038504 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Administrator, Technical Lead at Connectivity Wireless
A network monitoring platform with a useful reporting feature, but permission-based options could be better
The initial setup is fairly easy. Most of it's wizard-based. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to set it up. But if you don't know certain things related to protocols and everything else, it might be difficult. If you know how SNMP works, it'll be fairly simple to set up.
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

"Reporting on NetCrunch is pretty good; it's very similar to SolarWinds, just with a different interface, and the majority of everything there was beneficial."
"The setup is very intuitive and quick - it all just took a few minutes we were done."
"The most valuable features of SolarWinds NPM are network performance monitoring and the overall benefit for servers."
"We are now able to respond to problems before the customer is even aware of them."
"The set up was very easy. We didn't have any problems with the setup. The deployment took less than an hour."
"I found a lot of valuable features in SolarWinds NPM, such as the customized application monitoring that allows you to customize any monitoring and script customization, and you also have the option to deploy and upgrade SolarWinds NPM online, which is very useful for my organization."
"So far, there hasn't been anything that it hasn't been able to do for us."
"SolarWinds NPM has helped our organization by proactively indicating if we are low on resources for a particular server."
"If you are looking for something which is very customizable for the customization of your network, then you should go with SolarWinds."
"For a medium-sized customer, it has everything that you're looking for."
 

Cons

"I didn't care for the role-based, permission-based options, which were not the best."
"Our network is made up of a lot of Cisco devices, and it needs improvements."
"Dependencies: Created dependencies are not visible for management/editing by default until some tweaking is done. It would be better if this is enabled by default."
"Overall speed of the software could be improved as it is incredibly slow at times."
"There are some issues when trying to monitor multiple networks with the same IP ranges. The solution for this is to purchase additional modules."
"This solution would benefit from expanding on the capabilities within the API."
"Resource utilization is heavy so you need to analyze the server before using it for multiple roles."
"You certainly can have stability issues."
"We previously used WhatsUpGold, which has a fraction of the features for a tenth of the price."
"The scalability can be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"I’d suggest that people be aware that licensing has tiers."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee."
"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"SolarWinds NPM has different pricing models available. The cost of the solution is less than some competitors."
"The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
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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
24%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Agriculture
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise86
 

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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

manufacturing, banking, utilities, energy, universities, healthcare institutions, school districts, military and police entities, non-profit organizations, 
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about NetCrunch vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.