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Perforce P4 vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Perforce P4

    Score7.5 out of 10
    N/APerforce P4 (formerly Helix Core) is the company's version control and peer code review solution. Perforce offers add-on products for code review for free, and Git support products.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
    Perforce P4SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Perforce P4SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    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
    Perforce P4SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Considered Both Products
    Perforce Software
    No answer on this topic
    SolarWinds
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    86%
    Would buy again
    6 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    83%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    89%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    86%
    Happy with the feature set
    6 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    31 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    32 Answers
    Features
    Perforce P4SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Version Control Software Features
    Comparison of Version Control Software Features features of Perforce P4 and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Feature
    Perforce P4
    7.9
    1 Ratings
    11% below category average
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    Branching and Merging8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Version History8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Version Control Collaboration Tools8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pull Requests8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Code Review Tools8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Project Access Control8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automated Testing Integration8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Issue Tracking Integration7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Branch Protection8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Perforce P4SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Small Businesses
    GitHub
    Score9.2 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Git
    Score10 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    Git
    Score10 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Perforce P4SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    6.5
    (15 ratings)
    8.0
    (142 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    6.6
    (5 ratings)
    8.1
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    7.0
    (9 ratings)
    Availability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.6
    (3 ratings)
    7.7
    (9 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Perforce P4SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Perforce Software
    While Perforce Helix is the best version control software out there, it can also be used to track your documentation, training videos and materials, and requirements. If you have strict compliance requirements, it can be used to ensure that those requirements are satisfied. Perforce Helix is incredibly flexible and can meet the needs of individual users as well as companies with thousands of users.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Pros
    Perforce Software
    • The branching mechanisms in Perforce allow for an enormous codebase to be duplicated into release versions weekly with little impact upon things such as the speed of queries against the version control.
    • Action triggers permit such things as automated builds of software versions, dynamic messaging when issues are identified either within or prior to a build process, and much more.
    • Locking provides the ability to prevent modifications of stable, tested versions in order to ensure validity when they are released.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Cons
    Perforce Software
    • Perforce tends to feel backwards in how it approaches certain tasks, like branching and integrating - even once you figure out how it wants you to perform these tasks, you will likely forget when it comes around to the next time you need to do them again.
    • Perforce has a higher price tag, comparatively.
    • Perforce make some tasks very easy, and yet other tasks very difficult - it doesn't always seem to have found its target user's proficiency.
    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
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Perforce Software
    We are fully committed to our use of Perforce. It works well within our organization and our desire to share our code base with our customers. Their support staff are responsive, inquisitive, and eager to improve their software. I feel like we have a direct line to their design/feature team as they often solicit our feedback.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
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    Usability
    Perforce Software
    With Perforce Helix, you can use it via the command line, via P4V, or any of the other APIs included with the product. It is extremely easy for new users to get up and running. Users of Perforce Helix only have to pull in the files of interest to them. Also, Perforce is very easy to script and integrate into your CI/CD pipeline. Streams allows you to have pinpoint control of your workflow, and P4Search is the absolute best--I wish Perforce (the company) would talk more about this. It is absolutely fabulous!
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Reliability and Availability
    Perforce Software
    In our large environment, Perforce is rarely "down". We have regular maintenance windows and from time to time Perforce can feel a little slow, but its always available. Tech support has always worked with our engineers and IT department to make sure that any real performance or stability issues are addressed quickly.
    Incentivized
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    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Perforce Software
    I had two representatives from Perforce contact me after downloading it but never responded when I had questions. I also had a difficult time finding good training material for getting started. There is a lot of available support material when running into issues, though, because of how many large companies use it.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Online Training
    Perforce Software
    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
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    Implementation Rating
    Perforce Software
    This rating is related to setting up an environment from an existing Perforce repository. Initial setup of Perforce as the repository for the company was done by a separate team long prior to my inception.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Alternatives Considered
    Perforce Software
    Git is great, I love Git. But it's not great for dealing with binary assets, even when using Git LFS. Locking is not as simple as on perforce. Git presents some problems on using for non-tech people it can get overwhelming and tech people have to come by and help.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Return on Investment
    Perforce Software
    • Decreased our implementation costs by allowing versioning and back out of customizations made in the field.
    • saves developers time through automation of changes between branches - they think less of the plumbing and have more time to write code.
    • Downside is training/managing expectations of new developers who come in assuming they will use Git.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    ScreenShots

    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.