HCL BigFix vs. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BigFix
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
BigFix, now supported by HCL Technologies since the acquisition of BigFix from IBM in 2018, is an endpoint management solution providing endpoint visibility and IT asset discovery, automated endpoint patching (BigFix Lifecycle and BigFix Patch) policy enforcement (BigFix Compliance), and software asset discovery for licensed and unlicensed software (BigFix Inventory).N/A
SolarWinds NPM
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds NPM is a monitoring and performance management platform. It provides performance troubleshooting support, auto network discovery, customizable thresholds, and can be rapidly deployed.
$1,638
per year
Pricing
HCL BigFixSolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
NPM
$1,638
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BigFixSolarWinds NPM
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HCL BigFixSolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Considered Both Products
BigFix
Chose HCL BigFix
The functionality seemed greater and the pricing was more advantageous for the firm at the time of purchase. The decision was made due to our business relationship with IBM, the demonstrations provided by several former users of BigFix and the expansive feature set that can be …
SolarWinds NPM
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
SolarWinds gives a more holistic view of your environment. The price was on par for value received and the usability was a little easier with SolarWinds than the other tools. The reporting out of SolarWinds was a little easier to grasp for us, as well. Overall, it's a great tool.
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
We used PRTG for several years before switching to SolarWinds.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
HCL BigFixSolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Network Performance Monitoring
Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of Product A and Product B
HCL BigFix
-
Ratings
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
7.9
231 Ratings
4% below category average
Automated network device discovery00 Ratings7.8210 Ratings
Network monitoring00 Ratings8.7231 Ratings
Baseline threshold calculation00 Ratings8.0201 Ratings
Alerts00 Ratings8.9228 Ratings
Network capacity planning00 Ratings7.8188 Ratings
Packet capture analysis00 Ratings7.2130 Ratings
Network mapping00 Ratings7.1190 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings7.9212 Ratings
Wireless infrastructure monitoring00 Ratings7.2153 Ratings
Hardware health monitoring00 Ratings8.8215 Ratings
Best Alternatives
HCL BigFixSolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Small Businesses
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Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.2 out of 10
Nmap
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Score 8.8 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 8.3 out of 10
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Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HCL BigFixSolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(5 ratings)
8.6
(237 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(27 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(21 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
6.0
(3 ratings)
8.0
(28 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(7 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
HCL BigFixSolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Likelihood to Recommend
HCL Technologies
HCL BigFix is well-suited:
  1. Patch Management for Diverse Devices: HCL BigFix is ideal for organizations with a diverse range of devices, including laptops, desktops, cloud, virtual machines, and mobile devices. Its endpoint management functionality enables seamless patching across various operating systems such as Windows, MacOS, ChromeOS, and Linux.
  2. Comprehensive Patch Management: With HCL BigFix, organizations can achieve comprehensive patch management across their IT infrastructures. It ensures that all endpoints, regardless of the operating system, receive timely and secure patches, reducing vulnerabilities and enhancing overall security.
  3. Troubleshooting and Monitoring: HCL BigFix excels in providing a dashboard that effectively displays problematic and functional machines. This feature allows IT teams to quickly identify and address issues, improving overall troubleshooting efficiency.
    However, there are some scenarios where HCL BigFix may be less appropriate or areas for improvement: 1. Coverage Expansion: It is important for HCL BigFix to continue expanding its coverage to include all possible resources installed within the IT infrastructure. Ensuring comprehensive coverage can enhance its effectiveness. 2.On-Site and OS Upgrades: Optimizing the process of on-site and operating system upgrades can help streamline the deployment process further. Improvements in this area would contribute to a smoother and more efficient upgrade experience. 3.Communication Speed: Enhancing the speed of communication between the HCL BigFix agent and the server can help improve the overall responsiveness and efficiency of the solution.
  4. Pricing Optimization: Adjusting the pricing of HCL BigFix to be more cost-effective would make it more accessible and attractive to organizations of different sizes and budgets.
Read full review
SolarWinds
Solarwinds NPM is well suited for medium to large networks, it may be a bit heavy for the SOHO environment as most of the tools and reports are designed for monitoring KPIs which may not be critical for a small shop. NPM can handle large networks with several sites and mixed technologies ranging from networks, server systems, storage devices and SLA reporting.
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Pros
HCL Technologies
  • Software inventory.
  • Patch deployment.
  • Patch review.
Read full review
SolarWinds
  • Out of the Monitoring of almost all Network Devices.
  • Build custom pollers to monitor which is not supported out of the box.
  • Further you can alert on these custom metrics and Out of the box metrics.
  • It provides you great dashboards, Reports features.
  • You can integrate it with any MoM layer tools either using its API or sending out traps.
  • Out of the box Integration with Service Now ITSM Tool.
Read full review
Cons
HCL Technologies
  • The patching function is difficult for RedHat Linux servers, and can be improved.
  • The site configuration and access control appears to be cumbersome.
Read full review
SolarWinds
  • The software upgrade process is a little hairy and has caused me trouble on occasion.
  • The server that it needs to run is a bit of a resource hog along with the SQL server.
  • Some additional features like the network map are a bit clunky compared to some other products that we use.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
The entire IT staff relies on NPM in its daily operations. It would be impossible for us to maintain our level of service without it. If SolarWinds gets to proud of their product and begins to over charge for it, we would be forced to reconsider and use a different product. But as it stands it is worth the price to renew it.
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Usability
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is quite an extensive product, covering all our bases and requirements. There are a lot of customizable options and features which you can work with for their alerting which is really useful. I haven't found anything yet which I thought SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) could do, but it actually couldn't so overall it works nicely and does the job.
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Reliability and Availability
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
Always available. Always is important to plan the software available during the machine/application setup.
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Performance
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
Pages load slow, especially the bettors map. Could be that my server is old.
Read full review
Support Rating
HCL Technologies
Recently we noticed the customer service on the support has dropped compared to when we first deployed the software.
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SolarWinds
In all of the times that we called support, someone at SolarWinds had the answer for us in a timely manner. Through thwack and other internet searching, we have been able to resolve all of our issues that arose to our satisfaction. The support staff have always been knowledgeable of their products or had a fellow support staff member to rely on to get the needed answers.
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Online Training
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
The training is good but during the implementation, you can get situations not learned during the training. The trainer was very open to hearing the questions about use cases and always sharing his experience. I really recommend having official training to take advantage of all features that the NPM can bring.
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Implementation Rating
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
Make sure your inventory is accurate. Stand up some virtual machines for testing prior to installation. Make sure your database and its credentials are setup. Think about things you want to monitor that may not be obvious - UPS units, Door hardware, PBX systems, Fabric Channel switches, firewalls, routers, switches. Try to setup SNMP on these devices and have an IP that you will assign to the new server. If you do that it will go well.
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Alternatives Considered
HCL Technologies
We have significantly enhanced our ability to patch desktops, including laptops, desktop, cloud, virtual machines and other mobile devices used by end-users. BigFix's endpoint management functionality allows us to seamlessly patch a wide range of operating systems, such as Windows, MacOS, ChromeOS, and Linux systems, ensuring comprehensive patch management across IT infrastructures. We have established a track record of delivering secure and hassle-free patching solutions to our clients
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SolarWinds
We selected SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor because of the capabilities of the product versus the price. The tools also work well with their other products and support is fairly good. We have never had a problem when we needed to make a call.
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Scalability
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
From the direction and information I have been given it is very flexible and scalelable
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Return on Investment
HCL Technologies
  • When there is a need to patch a Windows System it has worked
Read full review
SolarWinds
  • SolarWinds allows us to proactively address hardware issues before they impact the business. We recently had a server that was experiencing issues sporadically and we were able to use the data from SolarWinds to track down and correct the issue before it tanked the server.
  • SolarWinds gives our IT department some piece of mind knowing that they'll be alerted of any issues real time.
  • We can use SolarWinds data to justify needed to replace or upgrade certain equipment that is key to our core business.
Read full review
ScreenShots

SolarWinds NPM Screenshots

Screenshot of Network monitoring software used to reduce network outages and detect, diagnose, and resolve multi-vendor network performance issues.Screenshot of See relationships for routers, switches, interfaces, volumes, and groups, updated automatically without user intervention to maintain the network, not network maps.Screenshot of Reduce visibility gaps into critical network switches, firewalls, and load balancers with Network Insight for Cisco Nexus, Cisco ASA, and F5 BIG-IP.Screenshot of Reduce the flood of unnecessary network alerts. Create alerts based on simple or complex nested trigger conditions, defined parent/child dependencies, and network topology.Screenshot of Identify dead zones and improve wireless coverage. With its network monitoring tool, users can access out-of-the-box wireless reports, including wireless availability and rogue access points.Screenshot of Configure alerts by calculating dynamic baseline threshold data with network performance monitoring software.