No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

PRTG Enterprise Monitor 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

PRTG Enterprise Monitor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
32nd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of PRTG Enterprise Monitor is 0.5%, up from 0.5% 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%
PRTG Enterprise Monitor0.5%
Other95.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Emmanuel Appiah Boateng - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and Security Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Proactive monitoring has reduced network downtime and enables rapid incident response
The main benefits PRTG Enterprise Monitor provides for us include helping us respond quickly to network problems. For our virtualization switches, we normally use a different vendor, but I am not in charge of that particular system. I have not really used the pre-configured sensors feature in PRTG. A different team handles reporting. For now, nothing really comes to mind regarding additional functions for PRTG. I think it is good for what we use it for. I cannot really say much about technical support because I have never had a situation where I have to reach out. I would give PRTG Enterprise Monitor a final rating of eight. I would definitely recommend PRTG Enterprise Monitor to other users. I am an end user of the product. I am quite satisfied with the alerting part of PRTG, as it is quite good.
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 would recommend PRTG Enterprise Monitor to others as it works well with Android devices, and you can try the free version before purchasing."
"What I really appreciate about PRTG Enterprise Monitor is that it is very easy to set up, especially the configuration, which is not complicated, and it is very straightforward to go in and change things."
"The product is easy to use and you don't need to have any training. You can use it even if you don't have an IT background."
"From a technical perspective, the product's most valuable feature is SNMP, an open standard monitoring protocol that works across various network devices and operating systems, including UNIX and Windows."
"The product is easy to understand."
"The solution offers perfect real-time bandwidth monitoring and SNMP functionality."
"If an event is detected, such as a resource running low on storage or RAM, the product will notify you via email. Upon receiving the notification, action must be taken to address and resolve the issue. The feature I find most effective is its comprehensive nature. It's like having a permanent eye monitoring the network and all its nodes. Instead of manual monitoring, it detects anomalies automatically and alerts us accordingly."
"It provides a vast array of options for dashboard creation and monitoring of the activities within the environment."
"With reporting, we are able to spool ISP WAN links availability for the month and make necessary deductions based on the service level agreement we signed with the service providers."
"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 become okay."
"The abnormal traffic notifications are good. Most of them are remote, and it is very good for notifications and monitoring for the traffic."
"We are now able to respond to problems before the customer is even aware of them."
"The most common feedback I receive as a consultant is how the product ultimately finds issues and bottlenecks in the enterprise that the engineers were previously unaware existed."
"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."
"SolarWinds makes a great product and their support is second to none!"
"Implementing this product has given us detailed visibility and understanding of our network, and small teams are able to manage large enterprises with this tool."
 

Cons

"The licensing policy needs to change. The current model requires customers to purchase a minimum of two thousand licenses, which is not flexible for all customers."
"The solution could be improved by including a processing monitor, possibly with a language interface like Lua, allowing for writing custom sensors and processing outcomes of inputs."
"The support must be improved."
"There could be more security features included in PRTG Enterprise Monitor."
"The solution could be improved by introducing security features similar to those available in Teams, as the current version only monitors devices and does not integrate IoT or OT devices."
"The licensing policy needs to change."
"They should work on minimizing false positives by sending alerts promptly and confirming errors with minimal troubleshooting requirements."
"There is no unified monitoring in PRTG. It needs a lot of improvement in terms of integration."
"Technical Support has plenty of room for improvement, knowledge of their product was not very strong."
"We are looking to change away from this solution because of the documentation and the solution doesn't have enough integration in our country. The documentation is too weak."
"The reporting module that got integrated into the system itself, used to be a standalone solution and I preferred that."
"The price could be better."
"Better offline license management. I’ve had to get in touch with customer support several times simply to remove an expired license from our NPM servers."
"My team has had a lot of issues with support."
"The only real caveat that we have or that I have an issue with is when I go on vacation, it's a little hard for me to go and modify alerts so that I don't get alerted about things when I'm on vacation."
"SolarWinds offers some options for scalability, but there is a bottleneck on some features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"PRTG Enterprise Monitor's pricing is reasonable."
"PRTG Enterprise Monitor is an expensive product."
"The pricing is $2,149 for software without maintenance, and licenses are sold in the minimum bundle of 500 interfaces."
"The solution is affordable."
"I rate the product's pricing an eight to seven out of ten."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"It's expensive and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"The solution can become very expensive and commercially not viable in countries, such as India."
"When I compare the cost of CA Spectrum to that of SolarWinds NPM, the cost of CA Spectrum is way too high, and the cost of SolarWinds NPM is pretty low."
"It is too expensive."
"The pricing is in the middle. It's not particularly cost-effective, but it's not overly expensive either."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
894,830 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
Healthcare Company
12%
Educational Organization
9%
University
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise86
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Enterprise Monitor?
I would rate the pricing of PRTG Enterprise Monitor maybe a six. I think a six is fine, as it is reasonable and not expensive.
What needs improvement with PRTG Enterprise Monitor?
When it comes to dashboard customization in PRTG Enterprise Monitor, there are not too many options, and I think that would not be a strong point for PRTG, but for our use cases, we do not really n...
What is your primary use case for PRTG Enterprise Monitor?
I mainly use PRTG Enterprise Monitor for network infrastructure monitoring. I am currently working as a Network and Security Engineer.
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

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about PRTG Enterprise Monitor vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,830 professionals have used our research since 2012.