Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

SolarWinds NPM vs Versa Director 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

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 (8th)
Versa Director
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
48th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 3.4%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Versa Director is 0.4%, up from 0.3% 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%
Versa Director0.4%
Other96.2%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
PriyankDubey - PeerSpot reviewer
Product manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
User-friendly and simpler than its competitors
Versa Director's best feature is the ease of configuration and customer and vendor management. Its UI is also excellent compared to Fortinet and Cisco Versa Director's on-prem SD-WAN hardware and SSL VPN software are not integrated, so you have to buy a separate subscription for the SSL VPN. In…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We found that it was easy to operate, and it was simple if anyone has entry-level working experience or even if someone is not experienced."
"For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices."
"The solution is easy to install and it takes a couple of hours."
"I believe the ease of setup and use, including everything, from the initial installation to the discovery of devices is the most valuable."
"The most valuable features are language support and technical support."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds NPM is the performance monitoring to see the memory, and CPU utilization."
"One of the best features is the reports feature."
"What I've found most valuable about the solution is that it's scalable."
"Versa Director is the fastest engineering tool and is ideal for use without product management."
"Versa Director's best feature is the ease of configuration and customer and vendor management."
"The most valuable functionality is some of the policy pieces that are quite useful."
"The most valuable feature of Versa Director is analytics."
 

Cons

"If they did some type of synthetic monitoring, it would have been better."
"We'd like to see a bit more automation in the future."
"SolarWinds NPM should be more flexible to accommodate specific customer requirements quickly."
"It would be good to have high security."
"The solution is not always good with new features, so it's take a long time."
"There needs to be more integration of widgets, especially for reporting purposes."
"One of the challenges with SolarWinds is that in order to pull the data, we have to have a lot of false positives."
"The price could be better."
"What needs improvement in Versa Director is maturity because, from an operating point of view, it's not mature enough. You'll still need to do a lot of research on Versa Director, so if it could mature faster, that would be very good."
"It requires some simplification."
"Versa Director's deployment process is not the best."
"Versa could be more AI-oriented."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's expensive and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing."
"Some solutions are open source and free."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
"It was inexpensive when we installed it and gradually became more expensive, but it was a very inexpensive product at first."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"It is too expensive."
"The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
"We have a multi-year license for the use of this solution. There are additional costs for recourses in the environment."
"Having to buy separate licenses for the on-prem SD-WAN hardware and SSL VPN software makes Versa Director very costly compared to other solutions like Fortinet and Cisco."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
881,082 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
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Versa Director?
Versa Director is the fastest engineering tool and is ideal for use without product management.
What is your primary use case for Versa Director?
We use the solution to monitor customer networks.
 

Also Known As

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
Versa Networks Director
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds NPM vs. Versa Director and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.