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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
78th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
63rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (28th), Log Management (52nd)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 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 3.7%, 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 NPM3.7%
NetCrunch0.7%
Other95.6%
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

"The setup is very intuitive and quick - it all just took a few minutes we were done."
"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."
"Reporting on NetCrunch is pretty good. It's very similar to SolarWinds. It's just a different interface. The majority of everything there was beneficial."
"Solarwinds NPM was always the one that could check most of the monitoring requirements."
"We are frequently able to attend to issues before our user community and customers are aware that a problem exists."
"There are a lot of valuable features with SolarWinds NPM; we can receive a lot of detailed data from the monitoring that can be useful for investigations, especially when you are troubleshooting, and it is very helpful."
"As a large school district, I can tell you that NPM is very valuable to us."
"We had some interfaces where the SFP Ports were having some problems after a while; we found which of the SFP Ports was having the error and changed it, so the bandwidth became okay."
"SolarWinds is one of those tools that work across the spectrum with different products, such as Cisco HP, and it is very customizable."
"The "Performance Analyzer" feature is the solution's most valuable aspect; it's able to do the bounded graphs of all the interface stats, from errors to broadcasts and to current traffic, and with a click of a button you're able to, in one interface, look at historical data for those items."
"Whether you want basic enterprise network monitoring or a full suite of network diagnostic tools and monitors, I recommend Orion 9 for its full feature set and ease of use."
 

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."
"I didn't care for the role-based, permission-based options, which were not the best."
"We had scalability issues. We have several additional servers, too, so upgrading is kind of a pain, but that's with all the other modules, too."
"If we go for the NT license, then we have to purchase the NPM, Network Performance Monitor; that is a dependency."
"With regards to suggested areas of improvement for the product, I would like to see the price come down, and in addition I think the network element mapping tool is not as robust as it should be."
"Technical support and releases are not particularly reliable."
"It would be good to have high security."
"They don't have a local support team."
"The interface could be made more user-friendly."
"An area for improvement in SolarWinds NPM is the short retention period. Currently, it's just for seven days of data, which is very low, making it hard for my organization to keep that data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing is in the middle. It's not particularly cost-effective, but it's not overly expensive either."
"It is expensive."
"It is too expensive."
"I believe the original setup cost was around $3500 with an annual cost of around $1200-$1500 to renew the support license. This would bring the average day-to-day cost of around $5-$6 over three years."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"SolarWinds NPM has different pricing models available. The cost of the solution is less than some competitors."
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"It is not an expensive product."
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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
8%
Agriculture
7%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.