We compared Amazon CloudWatch and SolarWinds NPM based on our users' reviews in five categories. We reviewed all of the data and you can find the conclusion below.
Features: Amazon CloudWatch users liked the solution’s simplicity, intuitive interface, and ability to handle large workloads. Users also praised CloudWatch’s comprehensive monitoring and alerts. SolarWinds NPM is commended for its adaptability and extensive network surveillance functionalities.
Room for improvement: Some reviews mentioned that Amazon CloudWatch could improve performance and dashboard visualization. Others noted that the solution lacked compatibility with some databases. SolarWinds NPM needs improvement in edge computing capabilities and data reporting. Users also said the performance could be better and that they would like to see expanded IPAM functionality.
Service and Support: Customers generally have positive opinions about Amazon's customer service. They commended the support team for its availability and timely issue resolution. While some customers described SolarWinds support as helpful and responsive, others reported delayed responses.
Ease of Deployment: Amazon CloudWatch is generally described as easy to set up. Some users said SolarWinds NPM was straightforward to set up, while others perceived it as complex.
Pricing: Amazon CloudWatch offers a flexible pricing structure based on usage and processing without any separate licensing cost. Some users said that scaling up can be costly due to the need for additional storage space. The cost of SolarWinds NPM varies depending on the customer’s size and requirements. Some users find it costly.
ROI: Amazon CloudWatch offers a return on investment by minimizing the need for manual monitoring. Some users reported immediate benefits from using SolarWinds NPM in terms of security and business outcomes, while others have not.
Comparison Results: Reviewers say that Amazon CloudWatch is a simple, intuitive solution that can handle large workloads, but some mentioned dashboard visualization and customizability as areas for improvement. SolarWinds NPM is a customizable solution that’s easy to deploy and features comprehensive network monitoring capabilities. However, some users consider it costly and voiced concerns about technical support and user experience.
"The monitoring features are valuable."
"The solution effectively monitors golden signals like CPU, page requests, and queues."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is the monitoring and UI."
"The product can be integrated with AWS very easily."
"I can put it in a simple term, its simplicity is always there."
"The alarms are one thing I love about AWS CloudWatch. It has alerts that notify us when resource use is approaching the limit."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is its ease of use and logs. You do not have to go to each separate system to see the logs, such as Syslog and they are located in one dashboard GUI."
"Scheduling is a valuable feature."
"There are a lot of valuable features with SolarWinds NPM. We can receive a lot of detailed data from the monitoring that can use useful for investigations, especially when you are troubleshooting. It is very helpful. Overall it was a very good experience."
"It's easy to understand, even if you are not too technical."
"The solution ranks as one of the top five monitoring tools."
"Being able to easily, and quickly obtain disc space statistics from servers and determine how much was free or used on various volumes."
"I like SolarWinds support because it's 24/7. You describe your issues, your situation and maybe two or three hours later you can discuss a solution with a technical engineer."
"It gives us a map of the network setup and one console to see the entire network."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its graphical interface and reports."
"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."
"It is hard to configure; it is not a straightforward tool."
"The drill-down aspect on the dashboard of the solution needs improvement. We get a very good high-level overview, but when we drill down, it becomes a little less clear. We have given this feedback to AWS as well and hope they will improve this in the future."
"We'd like the interface to be as easy as Datadog."
"The graphical interface has room for improvement. CloudWatch only gives you a breakdown of what's wrong. However, it would be nice if it could automatically remedy the problems it identifies. You should be able to configure it so that when a specific condition arises, it will take a predefined action."
"When customers want to see the CPU or memory utilization there is a cost. This should be free to see the utilization."
"I would like to monitor inbound and outbound transfer. I would also like to control the traffic for load balancing."
"Amazon CloudWatch's pricing needs improvement."
"I found several areas for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch. First is that it's tough to track issues and find out where it's going wrong. The process takes longer. For example, if I get an exception error, I read the logs, search, go to AWS Cloud, then to the groups to find the keyword to determine what's wrong. Another area for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch is that it's slow in terms of log streaming. It requires an entire twenty-four hours for scanning, rather than just one hour. This issue can be solved with Elasticsearch streaming with Kibana, but it requires a lot of development effort and integration with Kibana or Splunk, and this also means I need a separate developer and software technical stack to do the indexing and streaming to Kibana. It's a manual effort that you need to do properly, so log streaming should be improved in Amazon CloudWatch. The AWS support person should also have a better understanding of the logs in Amazon CloudWatch. What I'd like added to the solution is a more advanced search function, particularly one that can tell you more information or special information. Right now, the search function is difficult to use because it only gives you limited data. For example, I got an error message saying that the policy wasn't created. I only know the amount the customer paid for the policy, the mobile number, and the customer name, but if I use those details, the information won't show up on the logs. I need to enter more details, so that's the type of fuzzy matching Amazon CloudWatch won't provide. If this type of search functionality is provided, it will be very helpful for businesses and companies that provide professional services to customers, like ours."
"We'd like to see a bit more automation in the future."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"The console could be more user-friendly. It would be better if SolarWinds updated the user interface."
"This solution would benefit from expanding on the capabilities within the API."
"I think Solar Winds NPM needs to create a profile with documentation responsibility."
"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."
"There needs to be more integration of widgets, especially for reporting purposes."
"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."
Amazon CloudWatch is ranked 9th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 40 reviews while SolarWinds NPM is ranked 6th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 147 reviews. Amazon CloudWatch is rated 8.0, while SolarWinds NPM is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Amazon CloudWatch writes "Instantaneous response when monitoring logs and KPIs". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds NPM writes "High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface". Amazon CloudWatch is most compared with Zabbix, Datadog, Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver), Dynatrace and Nagios XI, whereas SolarWinds NPM is most compared with Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor, ManageEngine OpManager, ThousandEyes and Entuity. See our Amazon CloudWatch vs. SolarWinds NPM report.
See our list of best Cloud Monitoring Software vendors.
We monitor all Cloud Monitoring Software 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.
