We compared Centreon and SolarWinds NPM across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Centreon features a user-friendly interface with useful options for customization and manual configuration. Users like the solution’s flexible dashboards and the ability to create plugins. SolarWinds NPM is commended for its adaptability and extensive network surveillance functionalities.
Room for Improvement: Some Centreon users requested better documentation and more flexibility to customize reporting. Other areas for improvement include auto-scanning efficiency and integration. 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: Centreon is highly regarded for its prompt and knowledgeable customer service that offers support in multiple languages. However, some customers feel that the lower levels of support are inadequate. While some customers described SolarWinds support as helpful and responsive, others reported delayed responses.
Ease of Deployment: Centreon's initial setup is described as time-consuming and complex. The deployment varies in duration depending on the IT infrastructure. Some users said SolarWinds NPM was straightforward to set up, while others perceived it as complex.
Pricing: Centreon's cost depends on the company's size. It is affordable and suitable for small companies, but it can be costly to scale up. The cost of SolarWinds NPM varies depending on the customer’s size and requirements. Some users find it costly.
ROI: Centreon delivers value by helping users identify and resolve critical issues fasters, which could yield large savings. Some users reported immediate benefits from using SolarWinds NPM in terms of security and business outcomes, while others have not.
Comparison Results: Centreon is a flexible solution offering a range of customization options. The solution has earned high marks for support and affordability. At the same time, users say the setup can be complicated and time-consuming. Others said that auto-scanning and integration have room 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 single dashboard is a valuable feature."
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"We have a single GUI where we can view the status of all our infrastructure."
"We have all our tickets inside Centreon in real-time and can monitor a lot of ELP and CLN in real-time for application purposes."
"I really like the filtering capabilities of it. You can easily tell what's critical next to what's okay, the state of the services. It's very easy to get the whole picture quickly."
"I can't point to one valuable feature. All of Centreon is good."
"Valuable features include the ability to schedule downtime, intensity or depth of monitoring which it does, different plugin packs, Centreon MAP, Centreon BI."
"The most valuable feature is that we can manually configure everything we need. After it comes inside the interface of Centreon, you can display it. Because the interface is quite user-friendly, you can manually configure the configuration very deeply, which is very pleasant and useful because you can monitor and see everything on your service list, dashboard, or MAP. The most useful feature for me is that you can create your own plugin and monitoring query."
"The product is available in ISO image format, ready for deployment. Centreon also has a comprehensive guide and documentation that are simple and easy to follow."
"For servers and for applications, it was very, very efficient."
"The ability to quickly identify downtime is the most valuable."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We deployed the solution from new and completed the upgrades."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the alerts."
"Their support team is efficient, and it is easy to set up."
"The product covers our needs for the basic care and feeding of servers, whether they are physical or virtual."
"The alerting and usage tracking notifications on disk space capacity, network and processor utilization."
"The connectivity of the solution is very good."
"SolarWinds' network and server application monitoring features are strong."
"The technical support needs improvement."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"It is necessary to improve service monitoring of database services in the free version."
"Release management and quality of testing need improvement, because with each major upgrade we have many issues coming in. Then, it takes several minor upgrades to get rid of them."
"Centreon needs to improve the granularity of the data as well as the graphical data. It would also be better to if there was improvement to the filtering/grouping system as well as the creation of views."
"During the initial setup we faced some issues. Part of it was because we had to become more knowledgeable in the solution. There are some gray areas and if you don't know the product well you may have issues. Another part of it was some bugs that we came across, although that's part of every software solution in IT nowadays. But the initial setup could be easier."
"Centreon is very bad with auto-scanning. It's very monolithic software. It doesn't have microservices and it only has basic clustering. You cannot, for example, have six or seven nodes for Centreon's cloud processes."
"There are improvements that they need to make to their API. When we're using different systems and we want to disable monitoring for a specific server, we still can't do that through the API. That's something that's lacking."
"I would like to see an improvement of the communication with big data systems, because Centreon is a monitoring system. In our point of view, Centreon should be a part of a source for a big data system, not a big data system itself. So, it should be easier to add data from the Centreon system to a big data system. For example, it should be able to teach machine learning."
"I think Centreon's security could be improved by leveraging AI. That's where things are heading in the industry."
"I would like to see integration with antivirus or other security endpoint solutions."
"The integration needs to be improved."
"The product is scalable, but at a cost. Extra modules have to be purchased for each extra server. The initial set up isn't complex, but will require someone who is experienced with the network monitoring system"
"The scalability can be better."
"The aesthetic widgets should be dynamic widgets, so the customization can be even more customizable."
"The solution could be more secure."
"Technical support and releases are not particularly reliable."
"One of the challenges with SolarWinds is that in order to pull the data, we have to have a lot of false positives."
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Centreon is ranked 11th in Network Monitoring Software with 27 reviews while SolarWinds NPM is ranked 4th in Network Monitoring Software with 147 reviews. Centreon is rated 8.6, while SolarWinds NPM is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Centreon writes "Proactive reporting guides our NOC on what needs to be fixed, saving them time". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds NPM writes "High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface". Centreon is most compared with Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor, Nagios Core, Icinga and Checkmk, whereas SolarWinds NPM is most compared with Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor, ManageEngine OpManager, ThousandEyes and Entuity. See our Centreon vs. SolarWinds NPM report.
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