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Dynatrace Logo
45,838 views|27,551 comparisons
95% willing to recommend
SolarWinds Logo
15,197 views|8,289 comparisons
92% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dynatrace and SolarWinds NPM based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability.
To learn more, read our detailed Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Report (Updated: May 2024).
771,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Q&A Highlights
Question: How does Solarwinds NPM compare with Dynatrace?
Answer: Dynatrace is the leader in the APM market with reason, it is well worth giving it a decent evaluation for full end-to-end monitoring of infrastructure and code.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Dynatrace alerts are based off of deviations from baseline metrics, which it is constantly collecting.""The real user experience monitoring is very helpful. We can see what real users are seeing, what JavaScript errors, what pages are very slow for them. As well, it helps to correlate the front-end users to the back-end application components, and the corresponding Method which is failing, as well. We are able to go to the correct spot and fix the issue.""It gives complete stats of the user and what they are doing.""UEM (User Experience Management) is an optional feature that we acquired and use a lot. It provides indicators from the customer's browser, reflecting more precisely on what our internal users are experiencing.""Agentless Transaction Analysis allows my team to granularly decompose complex operations and flows for business applications.""In terms of AI, I love the base-lining Dynatrace provides us. It baselines the application over a seven-day period; we have it at the default of seven days. The artificial intelligence is so amazing because it can automatically track each transaction and their response times: how much CPU they use, how much memory, resources that they use. If there’s any deviation from that Dynatrace will tell me like right away. If there’s a deployment and the deployment has increased response time or is taking up CPU or has caused a memory leak, I can say, “Hey guys, you need to look at this, it’s this function on this page in this microservice, in this docker container. You need to go here, you need to fix it, it’s not going live.” It has just increased our productivity off the charts.""Reduced incidents, as alert monitoring aids in quicker resolution of events.""The ability to really drill into performance issues and help our application teams understand what is causing the business's problems."

More Dynatrace Pros →

"Being able to easily, and quickly obtain disc space statistics from servers and determine how much was free or used on various volumes.""SolarWinds' network and server application monitoring features are strong.""SolarWinds dashboard is very fast. Also, their interface is very good, it looks very user-friendly. The product allows me to see a summary of the network being monitored at a glance.""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.""SolarWinds NPM is a scalable solution since it can handle a huge number of users.""It's easy to understand, even if you are not too technical.""The benefit of this solution is the reporting. We're able to report on and see our network in a graphical form. We are able to detect when a device is added to a network.""The biggest thing for me is that it provided enough information for me to monitor. It alerts and provides you with the information you need."

More SolarWinds NPM Pros →

Cons
"The problem evaluation feature is an awesome idea, but bit difficult to pick up initially.""It's not very scalable, we cannot add another server onto it.""The web version of the client interface needs more features that are in the Java-based thick client.""The installation process had quite a few moving parts, so it was a little tricky getting everything to work in first go.""What needs improvement in Dynatrace is its dashboard. Creating dashboards in Dynatrace is good, but compared to Grafana, which is integrated with Broadcom DX APM, the resulting dashboard in Dynatrace isn't as clear. The Dynatrace dashboard needs to be more graphic.""I do know that for the size of our organization, we're talking thousands of agents and hundreds of applications, it does get to the point where the servers themselves that house Dynatrace are at a point where, in some cases, they are just too big for one machine, since you have to have an entire application ecosystem all funnel into a single system.""Infrastructure monitoring could be improved.""​An additional feature that we could use is the rollover. If we could rollover to different datacenters, then it would satisfy our requirement. I.e., if one datacenter fails, then we could rollover to another datacenter.​"

More Dynatrace Cons →

"Each model has different features, so clients need to purchase a separate model for SQL monitoring, database monitoring, network traffic analyzer, HTTP traffic, etc. So each feature they need is in a different model, but customers would prefer an all-in-one solution.""SolarWinds NPM needs to increase its elements. One polling engine can only support 10,000 elements then it becomes slow. There are limitations even if you have the full SLX version license.""The evaluation time for the product is too short especially for large corporations.""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.""SolarWinds NPM could improve the graphics of the interface and more customized reporting.""We'd like to see a bit more automation in the future.""The aesthetic widgets should be dynamic widgets, so the customization can be even more customizable.""I would like to see some enhancement on the reporting side, such as making it a little bit easier to create reports or having a larger assortment of canned reports."

More SolarWinds NPM Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Pricing is based on the number of servers monitored, so for big applications, it is a bit expensive."
  • "Licensing is a bit complicated for Dynatrace, and pricing is dependent on how much your organization invests."
  • "We found an issue within the first week of ownership that has been costing us more than the entire license cost."
  • "Product pricing can seem a little over complex, however this is minor and does not detract from the benefits of the solution."
  • "Getting the first agents installed, getting information, and coverage in a initial set of systems can be done in hours and with a low cost entry point."
  • "Price (of the product) is a major concern for all the clients I work with."
  • "The licensing model is confusing in solutioning clients for the number of hosts needed to deploy."
  • "The product is superior to others, but it comes with a price tag that is often difficult to position back to clients."
  • More Dynatrace Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I’d suggest that people be aware that licensing has tiers."
  • "Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
  • "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."
  • "The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
  • "I believe the original setup cost was around $3500 with an annual cost of around $1200-$1500 to renew the support license. This would bring the average day-to-day cost of around $5-$6 over three years."
  • "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."
  • "The pricing needs to be improved. It is too high. One full engine costs around $10 000, which is why we don't have high availability right now."
  • More SolarWinds NPM Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    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 using these, but they require quite some expertise before you can use them. Then there are the ones that are not open source, the enterprise softwares and cost you some money, but on the other hand, they are extremely easy to set-up and learn. You can have them up and running in a matter of minutes. And then there are those which are completely cloud based. They can be free of cost or charge some money depending on the software. The good thing about these is that you don’t have to install any extra software, and it can be managed completely online but then again these have limited features and you cannot exploit them to the full extent as you can do with the open-source and to some extent the enterprise software, so I won’t suggest you to use these, because these are generally not the complete solutions and require other support software to achieve the same. Below I have listed the outstanding pros and cons of the various Network analyzers that you can look into Nagios Pros: Nagios offers an extensive set of collector plug-ins that allows users to gather performance and availability data from a broad range of operating systems, including  Windows and Netware Nagios… Read more →
    Answers from the Community
    Michael Bruen
    Shibu Babuchandran - PeerSpot reviewerShibu Babuchandran
    Real User

    Hi @Michael Bruen ​,


    Probably, the below data has already been published on PeerSpot and can help you identify the difference.


    Hope this helps. Please kindly share your views.


    https://www.peerspot.com/produ...

    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The key is to have a holistic view over the complete infrastructure, the ones you have listed are great for APM if you need to monitor applications end to end. I have tested them all and have not… more »
    Top Answer:While the environment does matter in the selection of an APM tool, I prefer to use Dynatrace to manage the entire stack. Both production and Dev/Test. I find it to be quite superior to anything else… more »
    Top Answer:There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra… more »
    Top Answer: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 or… more »
    Top Answer:From my point of view, SolarWind is the best tool.
    Top Answer: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 are… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    45,838
    Comparisons
    27,551
    Reviews
    13
    Average Words per Review
    502
    Rating
    8.4
    Views
    15,197
    Comparisons
    8,289
    Reviews
    29
    Average Words per Review
    485
    Rating
    8.1
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
    Learn More
    Overview

    Dynatrace is an AI-powered software intelligence monitoring platform that accelerates digital transformation and simplifies cloud complexities. Dynatrace is an entirely automated full-stack solution that provides data and answers about the performance of your applications and deep insight into every transaction throughout every application, including the end-user experience. By modernizing and automating enterprise cloud operations, users can deliver an optimal digital experience with higher quality software to customers faster.

    Dynatrace offers an all-in-one automated artificial intelligence solution that brings together application performance, cloud and infrastructure, and digital experience monitoring. Dynatrace accelerates performance-driven results through operations, development, and business teams with a shared metrics platform. In addition, users are provided a full-stack monitoring experience with three patented technologies:

    • Smartscape - visualization mechanism that maps the totality of everything working in your environment and detects any casual dependencies between your applications, processes, websites, services, hosts, cloud infrastructure, and networks.

    • OneAgent - a technology that analyzes, gathers ,and unifies all business performance metrics throughout every layer of your technology stack.

    • PurePath Technology - code-level context and timings are captured from the mainframe to the cloud for all end-to-end transactions.

    What does Dynatrace offer?

    Dynatrace redefines how organizations monitor their digital ecosystems. The solution offers:

    • Cloud Automation: With AI engine Davis®, users can see the exact reason for problems and facilitate quick auto-remediation and intelligent cloud orchestration.

    • Application Security: With automated application vulnerability management, users can deliver applications faster and more securely.

    • Infrastructure Monitoring: Convenient broad visibility across your environments is provided with streamlined, automated infrastructure monitoring.

    • Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM): Optimize your applications, provide better support, and improve user experience with a combination of Real User Monitoring (RUM), Session Replay, and synthetic monitoring throughout your environment.

    • Applications and Microservices: For complex cloud environments, Dynatrace can automatically provide visibility and root-cause answers. It can also monitor microservices.

    • Digital Business Analytics: Get AI-powered, real-time answers to analytical business queries with KPIs and metrics that are already flowing through applications.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Dynatrace is the only solution that provides answers to organizations based on deep insight into each user, transaction, and organization's environment.

    Barry P., a managing performance engineer at Medica Health Plans, writes, "With Dynatrace, we have synthetic checks and real-user monitoring of all of our websites, places where members and providers can interact with us over the web. We monitor the response times of those with Dynatrace, and it's all integrated into one place."

    A consultant at a tech service company notes, "A feature that's one of the highlights of Dynatrace is the AI. The second most valuable feature is OneAgent. Between infrastructures, applications, operating systems, you can deploy with just a single agent and can practically install and forget about it."

    SolarWinds NPM is a network monitoring solution that enables you to detect, diagnose, and resolve network performance issues and outages quickly and efficiently. The solution is a powerful tool that can help you increase service levels, reduce downtime with multi vendor network monitoring, simplify the management of complex network devices, improve operational efficiency, and much more.

    SolarWinds NPM Features

    SolarWinds NPM has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Increased scalability
    • Fault, performance, and availability monitoring
    • Dynamic network discovery and mapping
    • Cross-stack network data correlation
    • Customizable topology
    • Dependency-aware intelligent alerts
    • Intelligent maps
    • Automated capacity forecasting, alerting, and reporting
    • Logical and physical network monitoring
    • Monitor Azure vNet gateway visibility

    SolarWinds NPM Benefits

    There are several benefits to implementing SolarWinds NPM. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Comprehensive monitoring for advanced network devices: With SolarWinds NPM, you can gain insight into the health and performance of your load balancers, Cisco ASA and Palo Alto Networks, firewalls, and Cisco Nexus switches.
    • Hardware health monitoring: SolarWinds NPM makes it easy for you to monitor, alert, and report on key device metrics, including power supply, fan speed, and temperature.
    • Customizable performance and availability reports: With this feature, you can choose from more than 100 templates to schedule and also generate custom network performance reports.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the SolarWinds NPM solution.

    PeerSpot user Andrew N., Senior Network Engineer at Element Critical, says, “The "Performance Analyzer" feature is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's able to do the bounded graphs of all the interface stats, from errors to broadcasts and to current traffic. With a click of a button you're able to, in one interface, look at historical data for those items.” He also adds, “From the troubleshooting point of view, just having that peace of mind is great. And, The solution is extremely stable. We haven't had any issues in that regard. We haven't had issues with bugs, glitches, or crashes."

    Daniel S., Systems and Data Warehouse Supervisor at MMSD, mentions, “The alerting and usage tracking is a valuable feature because it alerts us when we're getting near capacity on disk space, network utilization or processor utilization. It helps us manage our capacity and enables us to be proactive.”

    A Senior Vice President and CIO at a financial services firm explains, “As we look to add more servers to our virtual environment and to understand the impact, the solution allows us to dig into the historical charts related to capacity planning. It also gives us visibility of spikes and allows us to track down the reasons for their occurrences. So too, it makes room for potential processes that have gotten hung or runaway and to know when it's time to reboot a server or service.”

    Dinesh N., Digital Innovation at Bobcat Company, states, “The best part of the solution is the sharing display. It gives a general public ID wherein everyone can link to a public display. That's a good feature.”


    Fazal A., Implementation & Support Specialist at 360Factors, comments, “We have configured multiple alerts for our network devices, including routers and switches, so that we are notified if any interface goes down. In the event an interface goes down, we have multiple reports that include availability monitoring, network uptime monitoring, and network downtime monitoring. These reports are on multiple schedules such as the end of the day, end of the last business day of the week, monthly, and quarterly. This gives us the ability to provide reports to our management and let them know the performance of our network.”

    Sample Customers
    Audi, Best Buy, LinkedIn, CISCO, Intuit, KRONOS, Scottrade, Wells Fargo, ULTA Beauty, Lenovo, Swarovsk, Nike, Whirlpool, American Express
    Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm28%
    Insurance Company9%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization28%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company12%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Healthcare Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization51%
    Computer Software Company7%
    Government5%
    Manufacturing Company5%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise70%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business11%
    Midsize Enterprise34%
    Large Enterprise56%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise49%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business12%
    Midsize Enterprise56%
    Large Enterprise32%
    Buyer's Guide
    Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability. Updated: May 2024.
    771,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Dynatrace is ranked 2nd in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 341 reviews while SolarWinds NPM is ranked 4th in Network Monitoring Software with 147 reviews. Dynatrace is rated 8.8, while SolarWinds NPM is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Dynatrace writes "AI identifies all the components of a response-time issue or failure, hugely benefiting our triage efforts". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds NPM writes "High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface". Dynatrace is most compared with Datadog, New Relic, AppDynamics, Splunk Enterprise Security and Azure Monitor, whereas SolarWinds NPM is most compared with Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor, ManageEngine OpManager, ThousandEyes and Entuity.

    We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.