Riverbed NPM+ vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

Riverbed and Splunk are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Riverbed is ranked #39 with an average rating of 9.0, while Splunk is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.4. Riverbed holds a 0.5% mindshare in NMS, compared to Splunk’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Riverbed users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

Riverbed NPM+

Read 2 Riverbed NPM+ reviews

735 Views
625 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Splunk Observability Cloud

Read 75 Splunk Observability Cloud reviews

7,605 Views
2,358 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Riverbed NPM+

Splunk Observability Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Splunk Observability Cloud and Riverbed NPM+ are competing products in the network performance monitoring and management space. Splunk Observability Cloud seems to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive monitoring capabilities and seamless integration with multiple data sources, while Riverbed NPM+ provides more detailed network insights.

Features: Splunk Observability Cloud offers real-time data analytics, centralized monitoring across multiple environments, and seamless integration with various data sources. Riverbed NPM+ offers deep network analysis, detailed traffic insights, and specific diagnostic capabilities which cater to environments needing precise network control.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Splunk Observability Cloud deployment is streamlined with end-to-end support, facilitating quicker setup and ongoing assistance. Riverbed NPM+ provides a range of deployment options with more demanding initial setup due to its detailed configuration capabilities. Splunk is often easier to deploy while Riverbed's models require more configuration but offer extensive network management.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk Observability Cloud generally has a moderate setup cost with advanced analytics providing a good return on investment for multifaceted monitoring needs. Riverbed NPM+ can have higher initial costs but its extensive diagnostic features can justify the price for networks needing detailed analysis. Pricing favors Splunk for budget-conscious buyers, while Riverbed may yield greater ROI in environments requiring detailed diagnostic capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Riverbed NPM+ vs. Splunk Observability Cloud Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Riverbed NPM+ vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

January 2026

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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

39th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

27th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Splunk Observability Cloud

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

6th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (8th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Container Management (6th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 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 Splunk Observability Cloud is 1.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud	1.3%
Riverbed NPM+	0.5%
Other	98.2%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Satyam Kumar

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.

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Dhananjay Dileep

Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

Unified monitoring has improved end-to-end visibility and reduced detection time across apps

When we have too many detectors in place for one particular app, such as when I have created 50+ detectors through my account, the entire page becomes a bit loaded when creating the 51st detector, feeling heavy and taking time to load. Additionally, it throws random errors; for example, when we try to save one detector, it might throw some random error which is not even related, with something else being wrong, not that particular error, but the underlying root cause might be different. Sometimes the error is just "some problem occurred," and we are not able to point out what the real cause is. This mainly happens when we have too many detectors or too many alerts in place rather than a standard number. One more thing is in the alert rules; if we have a main general alert, and instead of creating a new detector, we are adding a new rule under one detector, when the number of rules also increases, such as when we have 10 or 15 rules under one generic detector, that again creates the same kind of problem, taking some time to save that particular newly added rule, and it might not save at times, just keeps on spinning. Those are the two drawbacks which I spotted recently; other than that, everything looks perfect.

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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."

"Customer service and technical support respond very quickly."

"Splunk APM provides a holistic view of the application. Unlike other APMs, Splunk's service map is quite effective."

"The features are pretty much ready out of the box."

"The maintenance of Splunk Observability Cloud is very easy; it's manageable."

"The most valuable feature is dashboard creation."

"Splunk Observability Cloud has helped improve my operational performance; previously, we used Elastic for similar purposes, and this has allowed us much more visibility into what we're working on with usable dashboards and metrics, which has been awesome."

"The features are pretty much ready out of the box."

"After moving to Splunk Observability Cloud, it is almost zero downtime."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"Splunk would be better if some tools were integrated to be able to take action on security or network concerns."

"The security could be better."

"There is not a lot of support for the tool's on-premises version, especially since everything is on the cloud."

"The dashboards are used mainly to visualize information about the infrastructure, but it isn't easy to construct or use the dashboards. While we tried to resolve the issue by calling support, it would be easier if they had an AI co-pilot to identify the problem and help you solve it."

"There are always areas for potential improvement to enhance its functionality and user experience."

"We have both on-prem and cloud, and the challenge is getting all our log data aggregated or streams aggregated so that it is real-time. We do a pretty good job of that, but our organization is not using it as a security platform when it can do a great job of that."

"The price has room for improvement."

"Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved by having more integration with Splunk Cloud because at the moment they're two separate products. They're making great moves on what they call unified access; tighter integration is always a good thing."

More Splunk Observability Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is high and I would rate it one out of ten."

"Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring is an expensive solution."

"Splunk's infrastructure monitoring costs can be high because our billing is based on data volume measured in terabytes, rather than the number of devices being monitored."

"The pricing is based on several factors, including the scale of deployment."

"The price of Splunk APM is less than some of its competitors."

"Splunk offers a 14-day free trial and after that, we have to pay but the cost is reasonable."

"Splunk APM is expensive."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"It is expensive."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Healthcare Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	47

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....

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What needs improvement with Alluvio Network Performance Management?

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What do you like most about SignalFx?

The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SignalFx?

Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and pr...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SignalFx?

The solution involves observability in general, such as Application Performance Monitoring, and generally addresses digital applications, web applications, sites, and mobile applications. I worked ...

See all answers

Comparisons

NETSCOUT InfiniStreamNG vs Riverbed NPM+

Compared 17% of the time

Datadog vs Riverbed NPM+

Compared 15% of the time

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs Riverbed NPM+

Compared 10% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Riverbed NPM+

Compared 9% of the time

More Riverbed NPM+ Competitors

Avantra vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

Sentry vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

Observe vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Cribl vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Honeycomb Enterprise vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

More Splunk Observability Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Network Monitoring Software

January 2026

Download Riverbed NPM+ product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Observability Cloud

January 2026

Download Splunk Observability Cloud product report

Also Known As

Alluvio Network Performance Management

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring

Overview

Riverbed NPM+ is a SaaS-delivered service that uses Riverbed Unified Agent to collect decrypted packet data at every user and server endpoint. It fills visibility gaps caused by encrypted tunnels in Zero Trust, remote work, and cloud-native environments. Taking an agent-based deployment approach ensures flexibility, simplicity, and scalability. With this AI-driven Network Observability, Riverbed takes a revolutionary step towards faster issue detection and higher service availability.

Riverbed

Splunk Observability Cloud offers sophisticated log searching, data integration, and customizable dashboards. With rapid deployment and ease of use, this cloud service enhances monitoring capabilities across IT infrastructures for comprehensive end-to-end visibility.

Focused on enhancing performance management and security, Splunk Observability Cloud supports environments through its data visualization and analysis tools. Users appreciate its robust application performance monitoring and troubleshooting insights. However, improvements in integrations, interface customization, scalability, and automation are needed. Users find value in its capabilities for infrastructure and network monitoring, as well as log analytics, albeit cost considerations and better documentation are desired. Enhancements in real-time monitoring and network protection are also noted as areas for development.

What are the key features?

Log Searching: Efficiently search and analyze logs from various sources.
Data Integration: Seamlessly integrate with multiple environments.
Dashboard Customization: Tailor dashboards to specific monitoring needs.
Monitoring Capabilities: Provides comprehensive insights into application performance.
Security Features: Analyze and address security threats across systems.
Visualization Tools: Enhance data analysis and system performance optimization.

Why consider this for ROI?

Comprehensive Visibility: Gain complete insights into IT infrastructure.
Performance Optimization: Improve overall system performance and efficiency.
Rapid Deployment: Quick setup to meet organization demands swiftly.
Enhanced Security: Strengthen security measures through detailed analytics.

In industries, Splunk Observability Cloud is implemented for security management by analyzing logs from detection systems, offering real-time alerts and troubleshooting for cloud-native applications. It is leveraged for machine data analysis, improving infrastructure visibility and supporting network and application performance management efforts.

Splunk

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara

Buyer's Guide

Riverbed NPM+ vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

January 2026

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