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NETSCOUT vSTREAM vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

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 vSTREAM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
86th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
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 (6th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of NETSCOUT vSTREAM is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.7%, 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 NPM3.7%
NETSCOUT vSTREAM0.5%
Other95.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

KL
Network Engineer at Inniti Network Solution
A user-friendly solution that is easy to install and improves visibility
I would like to see improvements made to the user guide. From my personal experience, it is helpful to see a list of steps describing what to do next in different situations. An example is what to do and what to back up in the case of certain types of failure. There are also cases where a customer can't understand specific features. Enhancements to the user guide would be helpful for this. More features for network fragmentation would be helpful.
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 generation of KPI-like information that feeds to the nGeniusONE (management) server is the most valuable feature."
"vSTREAM gives us better visibility and reporting about our network infrastructure, allowing for cost-optimization."
"One of the valuable features is the packet decoding."
"Sometimes it took a month to troubleshoot something that we can now do within days."
"It did a good job of the collection and then an investigation of the net flow of information for understanding the applications that were being used at certain locations."
"There are a lot of valuable features with SolarWinds NPM. We can receive a lot of detailed data from the monitoring that can use useful for investigations, especially when you are troubleshooting. It is very helpful. Overall it was a very good experience."
"The product covers our needs for the basic care and feeding of servers, whether they are physical or virtual."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to use a few custom properties to manage multiple nodes and alerts; thus, saving hardware resource usage."
"This solution offers a very good view of our network and allows us to effectively monitor performance."
"Technical support is very helpful with our upgrades."
"I believe the ease of setup and use, including everything, from the initial installation to the discovery of devices is the most valuable."
 

Cons

"The stability is okay, but sometimes we see that the memory on the server is not 100 percent correct and we need to stop and start the software to have it reallocated again."
"Room for improvement exists in filtering in the packet decode."
"I would say that this is not a scalable solution."
"I would like for it to have a smaller footprint of the virtual appliance and better performance."
"I would like to see improvements made to the user guide."
"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."
"The reporting module that got integrated into the system itself, used to be a standalone solution and I preferred that."
"SolarWinds should have integrations back into products like ExtraHop, VIAVI, Riverbed, and NETSCOUT."
"They could make the process of adding various devices easier and more intuitive."
"EOC has been a pain."
"Perhaps they could hire more tech support for this awesome product."
"The solution could be enhanced. It currently lacks integration with SMS services which is something we need."
"There are issues with newer features so it can take a long time to adjust. The solution is in bad shape because of software hacks."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing is quite expensive."
"We pay for SolarWinds NPM yearly. We buy it and then we renew it, but it's not subscription-based. I don't remember the value exactly, because it's my manager who manages pricing, but we pay $60,000 per year for all the solutions. Pricing will also depend on the number of devices. We have a lot of devices."
"SolarWinds is expensive. That's why it's primarily banks using the solution. Small businesses can't afford it. Due to its pricing, most smaller enterprises like manufacturing companies are not interested. For example, we have a client who is also interested in traffic monitoring, but they are not purchasing SolarWinds because of the cost."
"The cost is based on the number of nodes, so it is expensive when you have a lot of them."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee."
"Quite highly priced"
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."
"It is expensive."
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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
20%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise87
 

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...
 

Also Known As

vSTREAM
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Metropolitan Police Agency, Banpara, PropertyRoom.com
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about NETSCOUT vSTREAM vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.