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NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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

NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
62nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.3
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE0.5%
Other95.9%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ian Munoz - PeerSpot reviewer
Ingeniero en Telecomunicaciones at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has improved traffic visibility and simplified dashboard use, but could benefit from better integration with other tools
NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE works very well in our case. We have not experienced any troubles with traffic analysis SolarWinds has a dashboard that is older and not as user-friendly. NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE has an easier dashboard to manipulate compared to SolarWinds. NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is not…
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

"I like the single pane of glass view. I like being able to go to one place instead of having to hunt around for everything."
"The solution's technical support team consists of good engineers and technicians."
"NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE has an easier dashboard to manipulate compared to SolarWinds."
"The most valuable features of this solution are monitoring and maintaining traffic queuing, as well as seeing who is using the bandwidth."
"I like the single pane of glass view because it presents everything in one window, obviously. You can see it all. With a quick glance, you get a pretty good snapshot of what's going on in a particular situation."
"nGenius provides us with increased visibility during IT deployments."
"We have seen a measurable decrease in mean time to know and mean time to repair, and because the tool allows us to get to things a lot quicker and see things a lot quicker, we have actually reduced those times and it has definitely helped with our network uptime, with an improvement in uptime of at least 50 percent."
"SolarWinds NPM has helped our organization by providing a proactive approach to understanding the current trends in the environment, utilization of the resources, and providing inventory reports of the environment."
"This solution provides one standardized platform for network device monitoring."
"I believe the ease of setup and use, including everything, from the initial installation to the discovery of devices is the most valuable."
"SolarWinds NPM is useful for any company that has business-critical applications running over a network and they want to monitor the network behavior."
"The solution is user-friendly and has many options for customized monitoring that other tools don't have."
"SolarWinds is a great product that can do a lot."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We deployed the solution from new and completed the upgrades."
"We were able to unify our entire company under one monitoring solution that works for everybody, saving a ton of time and significantly speeding up problem-resolution time."
 

Cons

"NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is not integrated with SolarWinds. They work in different ways."
"Before an attack starts, seeing the traffic behavior and activities would be great. The tool should also share alerts since it is an area where the product has certain shortcomings."
"In terms of additional features, I would like to see better event notification. Right now, we put in an email address to receive an alert and it receives every event and every alert that comes out. We need something a little more granular."
"They require a lot of manual effort as traffic flows, networks, and formal times change."
"Usability is the area with the biggest room for improvement. We've found that with NETSCOUT, while it's a fantastic product, the usability is a major factor because there are just way too many clicks. It's obvious, from our experience, that the people who are developing the product aren't using it."
"The only other issue I have is that sometimes when upgrading, it becomes complicated to manage the upgrade."
"Real-time analytics is the major weakness of the SolarWinds NPM platform today. They've done a fantastic job enabling the collection of data. Users are now demanding the ability to generate their own graphs, views, and so on; all of this must be done by an admin today."
"If we go for the NT license, then we have to purchase the NPM, Network Performance Monitor; that is a dependency."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"They need to work on their automation and automatically discover devices. They are not very good at automatically discovering devices."
"Technical support can be slow to respond."
"The reporting is good, but I want it to be a little easier when creating custom reports. The reports are all on the website now, but it takes some know how to get some to display the way you would like."
"Being able to detect devices that are trying to connect wirelessly would make using this solution much easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's price is okay. On a scale of one to ten, I rate it as a five, where one means it is not expensive, and ten means it is the most expensive."
"We have a perpetual license for this solution, and my impression is that this solution is cheap."
"We pay approximately $700 per year for renewal of the license."
"It is expensive."
"We have a multi-year license for the use of this solution. There are additional costs for recourses in the environment."
"The cost is based on the number of nodes, so it is expensive when you have a lot of them."
"The pricing needs to be improved. It is too high. One full engine costs around $10 000, which is why we don't have high availability right now."
"The licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes."
"SolarWinds NPM has different pricing models available. The cost of the solution is less than some competitors."
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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
Government
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE?
NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE is not integrated with SolarWinds. They work in different ways.
What advice do you have for others considering NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE?
On a scale of 1-10, I would rate NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE a 7.5 out of 10.
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...
 

Also Known As

nGeniusPULSE
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banco Votorantim
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.