TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

IBM SevOne vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM SevOne

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/AIBM SevOne’s app-centric, hybrid network observability empowers NetOps teams with ML-driven insights, enabling proactive issue prevention and resolution. With a single source of truth for network performance, it delivers visibility to optimize operations and support agility in complex, multi-cloud environments.N/A

    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/ASolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is network diagnostics and troubleshooting technology, from Austin-based SolarWinds.N/A
    Pricing
    IBM SevOneSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM SevOneSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional DetailsIBM® SevOne® uses Managed Device (MD) and Managed Client Device (MCD) as pricing metrics. These can be mapped to managed devices for physical, virtualized and containerized functions in the managed environment.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM SevOneSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    SolarWinds
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Needs several updates and better documentation on how to create deployment templates
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    15 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    89%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    15 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    31 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    32 Answers
    Features
    IBM SevOneSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Network Performance Monitoring
    Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of IBM SevOne and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Feature
    IBM SevOne
    7.6
    16 Ratings
    4% below category average
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    Automated network device discovery8.016 Ratings00 Ratings
    Network monitoring7.516 Ratings00 Ratings
    Baseline threshold calculation7.515 Ratings00 Ratings
    Alerts7.015 Ratings00 Ratings
    Network capacity planning7.615 Ratings00 Ratings
    Packet capture analysis7.610 Ratings00 Ratings
    Network mapping7.716 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable reports7.716 Ratings00 Ratings
    Wireless infrastructure monitoring7.413 Ratings00 Ratings
    Hardware health monitoring8.37 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM SevOneSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Small Businesses
    Auvik
    Score8.8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    PingPlotter
    Score9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    Nmap
    Score8.7 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM SevOneSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.7
    (16 ratings)
    8.0
    (142 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.1
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (9 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.7
    (9 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM SevOneSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    IBM SevOne ensures deep performance and in depth monitoring and allows customization according to specific organisation or business needs. Availability of real-time alerts and unlimited customization. The software integrates freely with many third party applications and has reliable analytics and reporting systems. Ability of the software in automating routine network monitoring tasks which reduces operational costs. Software pricing is a major challenge towards smooth implementation of the software. It is expensive and not affordable to small businesses and organisations.
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    Network Configuration Manager is well suited for backing up configurations of all your devices. It also has a great comparison tool for seeing only the differences in config. Another great feature is it's ability to push a script to any number of devices. This is very handy for pushing changes to one, 10 or multiple devices. There are also some great reports that you can run against the devices in inventory
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    IBM
    • To see trends in network usage, identify upgrade switches, increase bandwidth and cabling
    • Provide dashboards to operations, logistics for both warehouse and production managers
    • Can integrate into incident systems to auto create tickets when issues happen
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • Integrates with Network Performance Management for Alerting and Reporting.
    • NetPath and detects issues due to Configuration Change.
    • Keeps a record of which user made the change.
    • Which devices are not being backed up, devices where backups are failing, dashboard and alerting available.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    IBM
    • Documentation for the embedded help pages in NMS and more. In my opinion, these do not provide anything of any depth or maybe anything helpful at all. If anything it just seems to be a guide of what actually exists on the page. It is nicely searchable documentation though.
    • It is very surprising and disappointing for us to learn that it isn't until the latest version of IBM SevOne that bulk editing was introduced. I think this is such a basic and foundational feature that should have been a part of the original rollout. My team is still trying to configure the REST API.
    • It was disappointing for the webinar to start with a speaker who had a thick accent and simply read from slides. To me, it felt hopeless until the second speaker, who was engaging and easy to understand. It's as if this fact wasn't considered. I'm sure the first speaker lost a lot of viewers who didn't stick around to discover the 2nd speaker.
    • I asked three different questions during the webinar and none were answered.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • For our use case, it does everything great and some of the features we underutilize but I would like to be able to set a configuration baseline when initially adding a node instead of after the configuration is pulled but it's not a particularly big deal to let it pull the configuration then set it as the baseline.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    Medium complexity to set up in the beginning if using any non-standard devices or configurations, else fairly easy (e.g. Cisco Nexus or IOS-based devices). Reports are fairly straightforward to set up. Updates to the platform are fairly straightforward and don't take a major effort. Easy to add or remove devices.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    The user interface is lacking. It is difficult to navigate at times and things can be done multiple ways. Quite often I am confused by how their notification structure works. It is not very intuitive. They do offer a free Academy. They also offer a community of other technical folks. I have enjoyed both.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    To be fair, I have not had to involve Support in a number of years, but when I did, I was greeted with enthusiastic engineers who wanted to understand and solve the issue. It was a fairly complex scenario and I have discovered in my most recent implementation that engineering included that option as a standard now.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    Solarwinds has actually produced new training since I last used it that is available on their site at any time. Their previous training was more than enough to get us started but now there is significantly more content. Since I'm comfortable with the Orion platform and the products we use I haven't checked the new training out yet but we have new staff go through portions of that training and they always come away with an understanding of the platform and ready to use it
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    it was a fairly easy implementation and everything was pretty straightforward. only challenge we had was getting all the snmp communities updated on the networking equipment
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    IBM
    IBM SevOne was selected instead of Datadog because it is perfect for large insurance networks and also connects trouble-free between the on-premise and cloud environments. Its alerts are in real-time, it offers comprehensive dashboards and it allows to gain a better grip on the network issues, thus helping to keep the downtime small and the operations well managed thanks to the good communication.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    At the time SolarWinds was the biggest player in the space and their whole portfolio was very comprehensive. As time progressed and newer technologies came about (i.e. SDWAN) their products couldn't keep up with the consumer demands and changing market. Security became such a big focus that once Solarwinds got hacked we had to remove all their products from our environment
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • Being able to create reports with variables, so end users can check on a multitude of devices easily.
    • Proactive alarming on issues that will cause outages.
    • Automatic provisioning of Virtual Machines into IBM SevOne through the VMWare plugin
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • Saves 100s of hours a year in man hours over manual configuration.
    • Saved easily 50k in lost revenue when a switch rebooted with months old unsaved configuration. NCM let us quickly restore a snapshot of the running config from the previous day.
    • Saves us several man hours per week of config auditing by reducing all changes to a summary email.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    IBM SevOne Screenshots

    Screenshot of Hybrid cloud network monitoring. This view helps achieve application-centric observability in hybrid cloud environments for maintaining optimal performance across infrastructure.Screenshot of MSP network monitoring. This provides comprehensive network monitoring and observability that empower MSPs to support enterprise clients on their hybrid multicloud journeys.Screenshot of SD-WAN monitoring. This helps mitigate the transitional risk of moving from traditional WANs to fast and dynamic SD-WAN links.Screenshot of SDN monitoring. This helps maximize the performance and value of Cisco ACI infrastructure with built-in support for monitoring Cisco ACI-based software-defined networks (SDNs).Screenshot of Enterprise wifi monitoring. This creates visibility across wifi infrastructures to assure consistent high-quality services with modern wifi monitoring and management capabilities.Screenshot of A view of the default machine learning analytics and visualizations that aid in troubleshooting, anomaly detection, and forecasting. This allows for proactive identification and troubleshooting of issues before they impact end-users.

    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) Screenshots

    Screenshot of Network Automation -  manage rapid change across complex and multi-vendor networks, reduce time needed to complete repetitive tasks, and maintain standards and service levels for uninterrupted ITScreenshot of Config Backup - rest easy knowing you can locate the most current configuration and quickly apply it to a replacement spare, or to roll back a blown configuration.Screenshot of Vulnerability Scanning - Take the hassle out of vulnerability scanning using NCM's integration with the National Vulnerability Database and access to the most current CVE’s to identify vulnerabilities in your Cisco devices.Screenshot of Inventory Management - Be able to know what devices are connected to your network, their hardware and software configurations, and when they approach end-of-service and end-of-life, with NCM device configuration management tool.Screenshot of User Management - Use NCM's integrated console to lock down devices from unauthorized access, delegate who can view device details and make configuration changes, and determine when network changes can occur.Screenshot of Baselines and Diffs - IT professionals can get a more comprehensive view by leveraging baselines across multiple nodes. Diff view in NCM’s network configuration management tool is designed to highlight only those lines that changed.