We compared PRTG Network Monitor and SolarWinds NPM across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: PRTG Network Monitor customers like its user-centric approach, straightforward reporting, and customizability. SolarWinds NPM is commended for its adaptability and extensive network surveillance functionalities.
Room for Improvement: PRTG Network Monitor could improve its performance and resource efficiency. Other pain points include usability and cross-platform compatibility. 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: PRTG Network Monitor received mixed reviews for its customer service. Some users commended the support team’s prompt service, while others reported slow response times and noted the lack of remote session support. While some customers described SolarWinds support as helpful and responsive, others reported delayed responses.
Ease of Deployment: PRTG Network Monitor’s setup isn’t considered to be overly complex. Deployment times may vary depending on the environment's complexity and device count. Some users said SolarWinds NPM was straightforward to set up, while others perceived it as complex.
Pricing: PRTG Network Monitor is deemed reasonably priced and cheaper than its competitors. The cost of SolarWinds NPM varies depending on the customer’s size and requirements. Some users find it costly.
ROI: Users said that PRTG Network Monitor has proven to save time and money through automation and proactive support. Some users reported immediate benefits from using SolarWinds NPM in terms of security and business outcomes, while others have not.
Comparison Results: PRTG Network Monitor is regarded as a simple, user-friendly, and cost-effective solution, but users would like to see improvements in performance, documentation, integration, and technical support. 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.
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"We can see trends for a lot of different things, such as hard drive space and bandwidth usage. We can see and plan for the future by knowing, "We're sort of at 75% capacity now. In three months time, we know we're going to be up to 90%,so we need to plan ahead for it, getting upgrades booked in place." Since things like this take time and effort, it's handy to see trends into the future of where our company is going."
"The fact that I can use custom MIB files to customize my sensors for the things that are not there as a default is a good feature."
"The solution is very easy to use and the web provides information with ease."
"The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts."
"This solution provides us with the needed feedback on our IT infrastructure. It allows us to grab all the information from a single point of view."
"The most valuable feature of PRTG Network Monitor is its ease of use."
"Technical support is helpful."
"Nice product with an easy interface to use and a large variety of sensors."
"We can proactively fix historical issues, so we won't face those problems in future."
"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."
"Monitoring capabilities are at a high level and it is easy to see utilization, access ports, and CPU memory in real time or through a lens for long-term visualization."
"It is considerably cheaper compared to other tools."
"Can easily be interconnected with other management systems."
"Technical support is very helpful with our upgrades."
"The product is lightweight in terms of memory use, requiring only 10 megabytes or less."
"The interface is user-friendly, making it easy to use."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"The solution has to evolve as an end-to-end monitoring solution. It has to do better at understanding the application at the deepest level."
"I would like to see more updates available in this solution."
"I would like to see network mapping."
"Its price can be better. Its price is a problem for us because it is in dollars, and there is a high conversion rate. In terms of new features, it can have BGP monitoring. It should also have a dashboard and maps editor."
"PRTG's application monitoring sensor is not strong."
"If PRTG could help me see the bandwidth for each host I have on my network, either for a wireless or a wired network, that would be very helpful."
"The automation should be improved."
"Their penetration within the market could be much better. If their pricing was lower, even though it's reasonable now, it might help them achieve this."
"Complex and overly detailed setup."
"Having more technical and support resources available in Saudi Arabia would be helpful."
"The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market."
"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."
"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."
"SolarWinds NPM could improve the graphics of the interface and more customized reporting."
"It is difficult for stakeholders to translate technical requirements, which results in difficulties selecting a platform or implementing a solution."
"Sometimes there are issues when upgrading to a new version of the product."
PRTG Network Monitor is ranked 7th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 96 reviews while SolarWinds NPM is ranked 6th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 147 reviews. PRTG Network Monitor is rated 8.2, while SolarWinds NPM is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of PRTG Network Monitor writes "It's an all-in-one solution, and net flow is included in the licensing ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds NPM writes "High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface". PRTG Network Monitor is most compared with Zabbix, Centreon, Nagios XI, ManageEngine OpManager and Fortinet FortiSIEM, whereas SolarWinds NPM is most compared with Zabbix, ManageEngine OpManager, ThousandEyes, LogicMonitor and Entuity. See our PRTG Network Monitor vs. SolarWinds NPM report.
See our list of best IT Infrastructure Monitoring vendors, best Cloud Monitoring Software vendors, and best Network 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.
PTRG would give you almost the same functionality as solarwinds at less cost. the key is to understand the protocols that run monitoring which would include SNMP, and netflows which actually show you human readable data in terms of monitoring your network bandwidth. in my opinion if you wnat cost savings go with PTRG if you can afford it then go with solarwinds.
My Pittsburgh experience shows that Zabbix is worth checking out:
www.zabbix.com
add Grafana for custom charting and dashboards:
play.grafana-zabbix.org
I would strongly recommend that you perform a Proof of Concept with at least two candidates. Look at how they will be able to scale both in number of input sources as well as handling for instance different data centers for storage... Also how is per node licensing or costs handled.
We're really happy with PRTG. It's a graphically-rich environment that really has helped us to diagnose difficult issues and solve them. And hey, Germans make good stuff...
I used both and found SolarWinds to be the more intuitive, more full-featured, preferred product.
I strongly recommend to use SevOne. The SevOne toolset is the fastest and most scalable on the market through our distributed architecture approach. Where similar tools can take hours to report once used at scale SevOne can monitor and report in seconds on all digital infrastructure including network, compute, storage, cloud, virtual, SDN etc.
I used both in large network environments; Solarwinds outlook interface is quite simple than PRTG but if you want to monitor real time traffic using SNMP, PRTG is the best choice but Solarwind counts on an average basis from interface. Even PRTG better to monitor hardware ram, harddisk, processors utilization , SQL traffic status , AD information is good than Solarwind. Two separate PRTG server at remote place support clustering in WAN environments with same costing but Solarwind has limitations. I used to generate customs SLA with respect to defined time frame ; PRTG is good choice for best report generation than Solarwind. PRTG license cost is flexible against interfaces but Solarwind counts per device , users, interface basis.
Now weak points of PRTG : 1) Log kills huge spaces as it counts per second basis. It doesn't have auto removal option based on duration. I made a scripts to remove logs earlier than 365 days. 2) Solarwind quickly detects interface up status than PRTG. Another fantastic NMS software is "whatsUpGold' which is better than Solarwind and cost is device based (not interface ) and cheaper than Solarwind. With respect to log/event management /SIEM /SOC Solarwind is good for SME type environments.
-moshiur
Would prefer Solarwinds for the following reasons -
Tight integration with major vendors - Cisco, Arista, Juniper and more
New NetPath feature enables faster troubleshooting
Scales well to support larger setups
Modular platform to include Servers, Applications, NetFlow, IPAM, DB's, Storage devices & more