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

SolarWinds NPM pros and cons

Vendor: SolarWinds

4.1 out of 5

159 reviews
92% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

SolarWinds NPM offers flexibility with customization for diverse businesses. Its ease of setup includes efficient reporting and alerting features supported by 24/7 technical assistance. While praised for performance monitoring, areas like license management, real-time analytics, and database performance need improvement. Scalability requires additional gateways and licenses for optimal performance, and slow technical support can be frustrating during critical issues, limiting its effectiveness for some users.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

SolarWinds NPM is praised for its high level of flexibility in monitoring, reporting, and alerting capabilities, making it adaptable to various organizational needs.

The ease of setup, installation, and initial device discovery in SolarWinds NPM is highly valued, with users reporting trouble-free and swift deployments.

SolarWinds NPM provides comprehensive real-time and historical data monitoring, giving users a corporate-wide vision and helping in proactive network management.

Technical support for SolarWinds NPM is lauded for its responsiveness and effectiveness in resolving issues, benefiting user experiences significantly.

SolarWinds NPM offers robust network and server monitoring capabilities, leveraging features like NetPath for valuable insights into network performance issues.

CONS

Real-time analytics is a major weakness, requiring data graph generation by an admin.

Integration with more tools and services, including cloud and SDN technologies, is needed.

Technical support and documentation improvements are necessary due to delays and complexity.

SolarWinds NPM's scalability requires additional modules and gateways, which can be costly.

Better license management, especially for offline usage and expired licenses, is needed.

SolarWinds NPM Pros review quotes

reviewer2079555

Network Architect at a logistics company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Jul 2, 2024

The alerting system in SolarWinds NPM aids in proactive network management.

Read full review

Enterprise Operations Manager at University of Alabama at Birmingham

Aug 19, 2020

The product covers our needs for the basic care and feeding of servers, whether they are physical or virtual.

Read full review

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Adfontessoftware

Feb 18, 2020

A product that is well-tested and trusted in demanding situations.

Read full review

Free Report: SolarWinds NPM Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about SolarWinds NPM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: July 2025.

865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Engineer, Infrastructure Applications at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 1, 2017

The SolarWinds NPM framework, upon which most of their flagship products are built, empowers a wide variety of admins and users to quickly find value in their installed products.

Read full review

Network Systems Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Apr 24, 2017

With just three modules, I can monitor server performance (whether it’s a VM, in the cloud, or an on-premises server.

Read full review

CP

IT Infrastructure Analyst at Textron Systems Corporation

Jun 24, 2022

The stability is fantastic.

Read full review

Lead Network Engineer/Business Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jun 8, 2017

I love the GUI. Almost everything is accessible through the web interface. It is very user-friendly. It is easy to drag and drop resources wherever you want them.

Read full review

AN

Senior Network Engineer at Element Critical

Jun 15, 2020

The solution is extremely stable. We haven't had any issues in that regard. We haven't had issues with bugs, glitches, or crashes.

Read full review

reviewer1271415

Senior Technical Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Jul 5, 2022

There are a lot of options for customization of the dashboard, alerts, and reports.

Read full review

Systems Engineer at Verizon

May 9, 2017

From web interfaces to custom monitors and alarms, this product has a high level of flexibility that can be molded to suit your business needs, regardless of the size of your organization.

Read full review

Show 10 more reviews (out of 91)

SolarWinds NPM Cons review quotes

reviewer2079555

Network Architect at a logistics company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Jul 2, 2024

The market is changing, and people are expecting automation. I think that's a disadvantage.

Read full review

Enterprise Operations Manager at University of Alabama at Birmingham

Aug 19, 2020

Technical support and releases are not particularly reliable.

Read full review

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Adfontessoftware

Feb 18, 2020

The only thing that can be improved is to continually add to the existing capabilities of the product.

Read full review

Free Report: SolarWinds NPM Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about SolarWinds NPM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: July 2025.

865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Engineer, Infrastructure Applications at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 1, 2017

Real-time analytics is the major weakness of the SolarWinds NPM platform today. They've done a fantastic job enabling the collection of data. Users are now demanding the ability to generate their own graphs, views, and so on; all of this must be done by an admin today.

Read full review

Network Systems Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Apr 24, 2017

If they’re going for a “cover everything” approach, then they need to do so and enable a bit more of the "cover everything approach" within every one of the tools.

Read full review

CP

IT Infrastructure Analyst at Textron Systems Corporation

Jun 24, 2022

There should be a little bit more integration in some of the other tooling and utilizing the APIs of devices or tools could be a little bit better.

Read full review

Lead Network Engineer/Business Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jun 8, 2017

The reporting is good, but I want it to be a little easier when creating custom reports. The reports are all on the website now, but it takes some know how to get some to display the way you would like.

Read full review

AN

Senior Network Engineer at Element Critical

Jun 15, 2020

In terms of scalability, there is room for improvement. When you start monitoring, if you have so many interfaces and you're trying to monitor them at a faster interval, or a shorter interval, you get to a point where you need to request another node.

Read full review

reviewer1271415

Senior Technical Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Jul 5, 2022

If they could combine everything into one product, that would be very helpful.

Read full review

Systems Engineer at Verizon

May 9, 2017

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.

Read full review

Show 10 more reviews (out of 92)

Product Categories

Product Categories

Network Monitoring Software

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Cloud Monitoring Software

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Zabbix vs SolarWinds NPM

Datadog vs SolarWinds NPM

New Relic vs SolarWinds NPM

PRTG Network Monitor vs SolarWinds NPM

Cisco DNA Center vs SolarWinds NPM

ThousandEyes vs SolarWinds NPM

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs SolarWinds NPM

Nagios XI vs SolarWinds NPM

SCOM vs SolarWinds NPM

Splunk Observability Cloud vs SolarWinds NPM

Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs SolarWinds NPM

Checkmk vs SolarWinds NPM

ServiceNow IT Operations Management vs SolarWinds NPM

LibreNMS vs SolarWinds NPM

LogicMonitor vs SolarWinds NPM

See all alternatives

Product Categories

Product Categories

Network Monitoring Software

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Cloud Monitoring Software

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Zabbix vs SolarWinds NPM

Datadog vs SolarWinds NPM

New Relic vs SolarWinds NPM

PRTG Network Monitor vs SolarWinds NPM

Cisco DNA Center vs SolarWinds NPM

ThousandEyes vs SolarWinds NPM

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs SolarWinds NPM

Nagios XI vs SolarWinds NPM

SCOM vs SolarWinds NPM

Splunk Observability Cloud vs SolarWinds NPM

Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs SolarWinds NPM

Checkmk vs SolarWinds NPM

ServiceNow IT Operations Management vs SolarWinds NPM

LibreNMS vs SolarWinds NPM

LogicMonitor vs SolarWinds NPM

See all alternatives

Related questions

70

PRTG vs. SolarWinds: Which is a better Network Monitoring Tool?

58

Which is the best network monitoring tool: Zabbix or Solarwinds? Pros and Cons?

5

Can SolarWinds NPM be used by network solution providers? What needs to be taken into consideration?

188

What Is The Biggest Difference Between NETSCOUT and SolarWinds?

20

What SolarWinds NPM alternatives do you recommend?

12

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor compared to alternative solutions

36

Is Zabbix or SolarWinds NPM better for infrastructure monitoring?

101

How does Solarwinds NPM compare with Dynatrace?

40

What is the main difference between SolarWinds NPM and Riverbed NetIM?

76

When evaluating Network Performance Monitoring, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?