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Riverbed NPM+ vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Riverbed NPM+
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
40th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
30th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Riverbed NPM+ is 0.5%, 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%
Riverbed NPM+0.5%
Other95.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

SK
Senior Technical Engineer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Provides deep packet visibility for tracing failed transactions and helps improve enterprise-level monitoring
Many improvements are needed for Riverbed NPM+, particularly in NetIM, which does not perform as well as SolarWinds' single module NPM solution. Additionally, within Riverbed Portal, there is an Application Map module that could be improved. It can show the application's architecture and connectivity to the network. The applications map feature needs enhancements for better customization since currently, it is quite limited. The enhancements I recommend are not for the entire Riverbed product suite, but specifically for the application map feature within the Portal of Riverbed NPM+. This Portal is one of the dashboard modules and while there is potential for improvement, it must be enhanced significantly to provide better functionality. Currently, you cannot trace by transaction number alone; knowing the source and destination IP is necessary. For instance, if I transfer money and a transaction fails, tracing that transaction ID is not captured in AppResponse. I have raised this concern, and if this feature is implemented, it would greatly benefit banking customers, especially because it is not available with their competitors either.
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

"Riverbed NPM+ provides a holistic view of the network and deeper insights into traffic and packet analysis."
"Alluvio Network Performance Management is good for troubleshooting."
"Riverbed NPM+ provides a holistic view of the network and deeper insights into traffic and packet analysis."
"Riverbed NPM+ provides a holistic view of the network and deeper insights into traffic and packet analysis."
"Riverbed NPM+ provides a holistic view of the network and deeper insights into traffic and packet analysis."
"This product is of good caliber and we get better results by using it on our network."
"What I've found most valuable about the solution is that it's scalable."
"The ability to customize the views and dashboards is nice. SolarWinds also allows us to access the data via the API. That's probably the feature I liked the most."
"SolarWinds is user-friendly with a manageable console."
"Technical support has always been great."
"The product is scalable."
"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 most valuable feature is the way it monitors the environment, and how user-friendly the console is for the end-user."
 

Cons

"Alluvio Network Performance Management is good for troubleshooting."
"Many improvements are needed for Riverbed NPM+, particularly in NetIM, which does not perform as well as SolarWinds' single module NPM solution."
"Many improvements are needed for Riverbed NPM+, particularly in NetIM, which does not perform as well as SolarWinds' single module NPM solution."
"Many improvements are needed for Riverbed NPM+, particularly in NetIM, which does not perform as well as SolarWinds' single module NPM solution."
"Currently, you cannot trace by transaction number alone; knowing the source and destination IP is necessary."
"It is difficult for stakeholders to translate technical requirements, which results in difficulties selecting a platform or implementing a solution."
"The integration with the APIs and the web servers deployed can definitely be improved."
"Technical Support has plenty of room for improvement, knowledge of their product was not very strong."
"One of the challenges with SolarWinds is that in order to pull the data, we have to have a lot of false positives."
"It would be nice to have a test to check if you can access a particular device via API without installing it and waiting for a poll cycle. You should have the capacity to initiate a test to see if it was reachable and get the results almost immediately."
"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."
"I have not had a good experience with technical support because most of the time when I contact them, they first want to know whether you have a license."
"It would be nice if SolarWinds added some technical protocols like Modbus. The market needs a simple solution for monitoring a technical device."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is high and I would rate it one out of ten."
"There can be fees in addition to the licensing fees if you add on."
"It is too expensive."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
"We have a perpetual license for this solution, and my impression is that this solution is cheap."
"The cost is based on the number of nodes, so it is expensive when you have a lot of them."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
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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
Healthcare Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
9%
Retailer
8%
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

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alluvio Network Performance Management?
The pricing of Riverbed NPM+ is indeed high, particularly as I work with enterprises in the banking sector primarily in India and the Middle East, and I have also interacted with clients in Europe....
What needs improvement with Alluvio Network Performance Management?
Many improvements are needed for Riverbed NPM+, particularly in NetIM, which does not perform as well as SolarWinds' single module NPM solution. Additionally, within Riverbed Portal, there is an Ap...
What is your primary use case for Alluvio Network Performance Management?
Riverbed NPM+ has many primary use cases, making this NPM solution totally different from other tools like SolarWinds. They have a solution called AppResponse, which is not an agent-based solution ...
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

Alluvio Network Performance Management
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 Riverbed NPM+ vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.