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Pulseway 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

Pulseway
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
54th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (17th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (13th)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Pulseway is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.4%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.4%
Pulseway0.5%
Other96.1%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2132892 - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at Hogan's Systems Consulting, LLC
Great notifications, a wide variety of features, and excellent monitoring capabilities
It would be nice if it also had a desktop application, similar to the phone app, which would allow me to monitor and control computers from my desktop. It's nice to be able to do things remotely using my phone; however, in many cases, it would be very helpful to be able to do things from a desktop or laptop computer. This would be especially useful for things like remote access to computers. It's too hard to do much on a Windows computer using a tiny phone screen. Being able to do things from a desktop or laptop computer would be much more productive.
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

"We like the patching of the window updates in the client's systems. You can automatically do updates with a single click."
"The setup is simple."
"The solution has great workflow and server modules."
"It has been very helpful to get notifications about various issues with my servers and network to help me take action to resolve problems before they become major issues."
"It gives you remote control and has a mobile app."
"The most important feature is reporting. The reports that are generated are useful and they save a lot of time with respect to monitoring."
"It is considerably cheaper compared to other tools."
"I like SolarWinds support because it's 24/7. You describe your issues, your situation and maybe two or three hours later you can discuss a solution with a technical engineer."
"Being able to easily, and quickly obtain disc space statistics from servers and determine how much was free or used on various volumes."
"The interface is user-friendly, making it easy to use."
"SolarWinds NPM provides an overview of network monitoring, extending its capabilities to cover other aspects, such as virtual machines and servers. The platform has features like NetPath, which is particularly beneficial for end-users, offering insights into issues like latency, packet loss, and connectivity problems with routers, switches, or servers."
"Reporting tools are a great feature along with the ability to create customized reports for you"
"The most valuable features are language support and technical support."
 

Cons

"There are some bugs or glitches."
"GUI needs to be improved and the solution lacks a process for monitoring VOIP calls."
"They have good technical support but it's not excellent."
"The solution does not allow you to make a script for just one customer."
"It would be nice if it also had a desktop application, similar to the phone app, which would allow me to monitor and control computers from my desktop."
"SolarWinds NPM can be very slow at times. The database optimization can be done to improve the product performance."
"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. SolarWinds recommended a seven-day retention period, but my organization needs a fourteen-day data retention period. Hence, I'd like an increase in the retention period or the database limit in SolarWinds NPM because you can't go back to the data for any investigation if seven days have passed. Another area for improvement in SolarWinds NPM is the database, which needs to be a bit more mature. I want a modified database in the next release of SolarWinds NPM. I'd also like more options added to groups because, currently, it's very limited."
"The dashboard of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"If they did some type of synthetic monitoring, it would have been better."
"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."
"SolarWinds NPM could improve by adding the deepest inspection, performance networking, and IP address discovery."
"The solution is not always good with new features, so it's take a long time."
"We decided that we were no longer going to trust that their products have not been capitalized."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We have a multi-year license for the use of this solution. There are additional costs for recourses in the environment."
"The solution can become very expensive and commercially not viable in countries, such as India."
"I’d suggest that people be aware that licensing has tiers."
"We pay approximately $700 per year for renewal of the license."
"Though I don't remember the price for SolarWinds NPM, its price is somewhat okay when you compare it with other tools in the market. The price isn't too high and isn't too low, so it's okay."
"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."
"The licensing model is such that you can purchase only what you need; and then grow into the next level by paying only the difference in price and the associated maintenance costs."
"You have to license it per year, for the support. You don't really need to have support once you've already set it up. Once you install SolarWinds, you can skip on the licensing. It will still work."
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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
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
 

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

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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

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dell, Canon, Siemens, Harvard University, Northwestern University
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Pulseway vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.