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."
"I like the mobility of the PRTG Network Monitor and ITOps Dashboard."
"From a network point of view, we can see the state of the network, as well as bandwidth usage and downtime."
"The solution provides us with needed feedback on our IT infrastructure. It gives us really good quality of service when it comes to monitoring of available space and available resources. It allows us to preempt issues before they become a problem for the business."
"PRTG Network Monitor helps us quickly and easily discover a large number of sensors, so we can spend minimal time monitoring customer sites."
"It is a user-friendly solution."
"The most valuable features of PRTG Network Monitor are the threshold notification when certain traffic increases and goes beyond the defined threshold. The up and down status email notifications and other notifications are useful. Additionally, it is user-friendly, and customizable, and there are many features available."
"We can see which fiber links have been used heavily and, if they are used heavily, we can introduce more links to particular buildings or particular areas."
"The installation is not that complex."
"The people in technical support are very good."
"It combines and presents information from many different sources, giving a corporate-wide vision on a single pane of glass."
"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."
"A product that is well-tested and trusted in demanding situations."
"The initial setup is easy."
"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."
"The solution ranks as one of the top five monitoring tools."
"SolarWinds NPM is a scalable solution since it can handle a huge number of users."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"Can be slow in the way it polls the different engines."
"Technical support is an area with concerns in PRTG Network Monitor, where improvements are required."
"I would like to see more updates available in this solution."
"I would like to see a more robust platform and a new dashboard. In addition, the code is good, but it needs improvement."
"Improvements in data storage flexibility, such as allowing customers to specify data retention periods, would enhance PRTG."
"While the desktop app is good, they could slightly improve it. We would like it to be a single pane of glass. At the moment, you can only see certain portions of information. You have to scroll through to make it more granular. We want them to develop the desktop app to be more user-friendly."
"It would be good if there were better graphical interfaces when you have it on multiple monitors... Because we have so many servers, things can get lost in the fog a little bit. Maybe having a better way of showing different geographies, Flash, etc., would help."
"This solution is a good product so far, but I haven't been using it long enough to know how it could be improved."
"SolarWinds NPM can be very slow at times. The database optimization can be done to improve the product performance."
"The dashboard of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"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 solution does not offer much customization so is somewhat inflexible."
"I would like to see integration with antivirus or other security endpoint solutions."
"The only thing that can be improved is to continually add to the existing capabilities of the product."
"This solution would benefit from expanding on the capabilities within the API."
"We also had to be attentive to vulnerabilities, because SolarWinds NPM have some issues in that area. We had to work with our security team, so that they could help us check and backup the data, and check what they needed to secure."
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