SolarWinds Web Performance Monitor (WPM) vs. Vercara UltraWPM

We've found WPM to be a fit for every web application that we wanted to monitor. If you have a web app that you'd like monitoring/alerting for then WPM may work for you. So far our only struggles have been when after logging in the app launches a new tab.

Incentivized

If you need to gauge whether your site is up or down, then Neustar will give you exactly what you are looking for. However, if you need more granularity for specific application or sub-systems and their functionality, this product will need to be subsidized with other applications that provide more data or information on how individual components or systems are working.

Incentivized

• Testing web applications
• Ability to log in to secure sections of websites in order to test user authentication
• Provides a detailed history of steps taken and provides print screens of each step. If an error occurs you can see the web page to better diagnose issues.

Incentivized

• It allows access to a history of checks, how much time they took, and if any errors were detected.
• It can alert several people, or many in a group, for information related to the application availability.
• When drilling down into the check, the logs can pinpoint the exact time and code events and how long each step took to respond.

Incentivized

• The recorder is clunky and must be run on a local machine.
• It does not support frames.

Incentivized

• The interface can be buggy.
• We have experienced false positives of a system outage that was not accurate.
• It's not a true measure of system performance or uptime, but simply judges up or down from a holistic view.

Incentivized

Solarwinds support is top-notch, and while we rarely have to call them, they are always very helpful when we do.

Incentivized

At the time we purchased WPM we were not aware of alternatives and therefore did not compare them.

Incentivized

To be honest, I am not certain why this product was initially chosen over other products. It was being used when I started working at a new job. I was trained on its use and focused on tracking issues when an alert was given. There are many products that can be used for monitoring site uptime. Neustar definitely has its uses for monitoring if a site is up or down, but its lack of granularity can turn some away.

Incentivized

• Better reporting of down states to allow for SLA reporting
• Better alerting during certain failure conditions which allows the IT org to respond faster
• More thorough history to review past errors and see screenshots of the errors.

Incentivized

• Our company at one time gauged overall system uptime using Neustar WebMetrics to provide this data
• Due to the limitations with the applications ability to show system functionality and uptime we have begun using other methods for determining system uptime for our customers.
• The interface can be a bit tricky to understand during first use. There is somewhat of a learning curve.

Incentivized