PRTG Network Monitor vs. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
PRTG
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
PRTG Network Monitor is the flagship offering from German software company Paessler, for monitoring local and wide area networks (LANs & WANs), servers, websites, apps, and more.
$1,750
perpetual license
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
PRTG Network MonitorSolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Editions & Modules
PRTG 500
1,750
perpetual license
PRTG 1,000
3,200
perpetual license
PRTG 2,500
6,500
perpetual license
PRTG 5,000
11,500
perpetual license
PRTG XL 1
15,500
perpetual license
PRTG Enterprise
Custom Pricing
subscription license
NPM
$1,638
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PRTGSolarWinds NPM
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
PRTG Network MonitorSolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Considered Both Products
PRTG
Chose PRTG Network Monitor
I have only used it once and found it good also. But whatever things I wanted, I got them from PRTG Network Monitor; so basically, my purpose was over, so further R&D was not required. I adhered with the PRTG Network Monitor tool only happily. Many other tools are also …
Chose PRTG Network Monitor
PRTG is much simpler to use than SolarWinds. SolarWinds wins in the category of a massive amount of purpose built bolt-ons. If the intention is to go after a system which you can fully use to customize and integrate into your needs easily, PRTG wins. This was what the need was …
Chose PRTG Network Monitor
In my opinion, there are many products in the market that provide vast monitoring options and a lot of customization flexibility and out-of-the-box integration with 3rd party tools such as Service Now, Splunk, and reporting tools. I find PRTG as a good tool for the following …
Chose PRTG Network Monitor
PRTG is a light weight Network Fault and performance monitoring tool with low cost and lower server specification. Although it is light weight still it covers all required network fault and performance monitoring parameters out of the box and also allows you to customize …
Chose PRTG Network Monitor
Compared to SolarWinds licensing model on monitors, we bought PRTG xl-1 unlimited license monitoring any device without any difficulty and not specific to servers, devices, network devices. We monitor any device in our organisation. We monitor location, temperature, specific …
Chose PRTG Network Monitor
The mobile app and ease of use set PRTG apart from the others. PRTG can be up and running in a much shorter time than any other product I have used or evaluated. Templates can be set up so once a system is detected the appropriate sensors will be created automatically.
Chose PRTG Network Monitor
Both PRTG and Solarwinds work great, and they are great systems. But for the specific task of monitoring and alerting if there is a VPN connection failure, PRTG works great at monitoring and sending out a status report when a failure does occur. I like both products, but I find …
SolarWinds NPM
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Having been a user of Nagios XI for many years, we needed more visibility. Nagios is great if you have the time to develop it and write your own scripts. SolarWinds NPM has just about every metric check possible working out of the box, with no development time required, this …
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
SolarWinds vs NewRelic is apples to oranges. New Relic provides a lot of metrics for our applications that NPM was never designed to do. However, NewRelic Infrastructure provides a much better visualization (a closer to real-time look) of hardware utilization than NPM does.

PRTG
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
I much prefer Zabbix in most cases, but SolarWinds NPM is easier to set up and use for end-users. PRTG is fine, but I'd use NPM or Zabbix over it.
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
A couple years ago, I compared SolarWinds IP Address Manager to PRTG, and, although they both could do everything, the layout and report builder in SolarWinds are much more intuitive and better designed than in PRTG. PRTG comes off as a simpler option that has the advantage of …
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
PRTG monitoring and SolarWinds NPM are very similar in their ability to monitor network-related events. However, I feel that SolarWinds' vast array of features and its ability to expand far beyond just NPM gives it a major lead in this category. Often times with PRTG there …
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
I have tried PRTG and WhatsUp Gold prior to selecting SolarWinds at a few institutions. I prefer the features available with SolarWinds and the licensing model as opposed to other solutions. Getting all the features we could benefit from with SolarWinds products, in general, is …
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
We tested Observium as an alternative to Solarwinds in the past and it required all host to be added by DNS instead of IP addresses which we prefer. We have over 2000 devices so creating DNS records for all of these was a deal breaker.
We tested PRTG and it required to much …
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
We evaluated PRTG Network Monitor which was similar to SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor but was very resource-intensive, and the server kept crashing when we got close to 100 devices. Whereas on SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor, we were able to add several …
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is dedicated to network devices so it's really efficient, Zabbix or PRTG are trying to do too many things and it's very complicated to achieve same things as with SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor.
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
PRTG has been a very old tool that was good for plotting the utilization graphs of interfaces but lacked comprehensive device views, overall end-to-end dashboards, comprehensive reports, and alerting functions. WhatsUpGold lacked comprehensive Dashboards, Alerts, and Reporting …
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
We use NPM along with PRTG Network Monitor. While NPM is great at monitoring network devices and network links and some aspects of the servers, PRTG provides more in-depth monitoring for Server systems, applications and application ports such as Web Ports etc. PRTG also …
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
It has great out-of-the-box templates and is easy to configure.
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
We chose SolarWinds for the functionality it offered us for the price point.
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
SolarWinds is an all in one solution. We don't need to install different servers for different packages. It provides easy installation, easy maintenance, easy monitoring by NOC and end-users of NOC. SolarWinds tools have more features than other tools. We have done POC for many …
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
We choose each product based on their capabilities and our needs. Overall, SolarWinds [Network Performance Monitor (NPM)] was one of the top 3 options based on our requirements.
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
We have been using a mish-mash of toolsets to be able to do reports, backups, monitoring, alerting, etc. Each individual tool has its strengths, but each has a major downside in that they don't play nice (AKA do not integrate) with other tools.
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
I have not used this product but I started to look into it and its features and pricing.
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
I mentioned that tool is a bit complicated but its still easy to understand whats going on, cant say same on mentioned tools, which are mostly for admins.
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
I regularly seek out and evaluate alternatives because we would prefer to use an open-source operating system and database. All the other products I have reviewed are lacking features we depend on from SolarWinds. Many products use an inferior graph-rendering package and are …
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
NPM/SAM/NTA combo is more advanced and simple compared to others in the market. Nagios XI and NPM are pretty close and to be honest, Nagios is way less expensive. But having the ability to incorporate SAM and NTM and how reliable is. If you have the resources available, I would …
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
There are tradeoffs in all of these tools. I really like Observium, but it's alerting seems far below SolarWinds NPM. The Nagios-based tools have tons of flexibility, but require a lot more configuration to provide value.

I didn't select NPM as it was already here, but I've …
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
We had an existing skill set
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
The support is better compared to the open-source products that we have tested.
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
SolarWinds is an old, outdated codebase. It is sluggish and difficult to work with for the most part. It is very easy to set up initially and maintain if you have a small or simple network. I would recommend a combination of ELK stack and a time series metric recorder instead.
Chose SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
SolarWinds was very competitive from a function and feature standpoint, but was the most cost effective solution. Support has been great and the Solarwinds team has always been available for any questions that we have.
Top Pros
Top Cons
TrustRadius Insights
PRTG Network MonitorSolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Highlights

TrustRadius
Research Team Insight
Published

PRTG and SolarWinds NPM are network performance monitoring options with similar feature sets, both able to support multi-vendor and multi-site enterprise networks, both well rated. They are directly competing solutions and are both available on a paid license (subscription or perpetual), however PRTG also is available on a limited free version. SolarWinds NPM is generally deployed at midsize or larger organizations and enterprises, while PRTG is deployed at companies of all sizes, predominantly midsize companies.

Features

Users describe several standout reasons that either PRTG or SolarWinds NPM might be an excellent choice for monitoring network performance. They are solutions with somewhat overlapping strengths.

PRTG is generally noticed for its customizability, offering a vast array of sensors as well as configurable alerting to suit any need. It is a leading agent-based solution, and its sensors are noted to be easy to set up and flexibly deployed to monitor almost anything. Additionally, users like the price, and report that PRTG stands out as one of the most affordable, enterprise capable monitoring options.

SolarWinds NPM is also favored for its configurability, though the emphasis is on its reporting and historicals, as well as its detailed high-level overview of network performance; it’s excellent reporting is its standout feature. Also, SolarWinds NPM, as part of the SolarWinds Orion platform, is more highly extensible than alternatives, with innumerable highly functional add-ons, modules and integration with other well-regarded SolarWinds tools (e.g. Netflow, SolarWinds SAM, ). Notably, users deploying SolarWinds for challenging multi-site networks, or for monitoring multiple clients’ networks (e.g. MSPs) are among the solution’s fans.

Limitations

There may also be reasons to not deploy PRTG or SolarWinds NPM to monitor a network.

Especially compared to SolarWinds NPM, PRTG is not as well liked for its reporting. Its UI, mobile app, are said by some to be ugly, and its reporting is less scrutable than SolarWinds’. Also some say its MIB could use updating. The more complex the network, the less users say PRTG is easy to use and begin to start describing issues with configuration, indicating it may be best for modestly sized networks.

SolarWInds NPM is a pricey solution, it costs more than similar options, and that it has greater hardware requirements and resource usage than similar solutions as well. User complaints frequently include that the support is not as good as it could be,  and that response to feature requests and new device support is slow. Also, many dislike that it is tied to Windows, and does not optionally support Linux environments.

Pricing

PRTG offers custom subscription based licensing for enterprises, or a number of tiers for perpetual licensing: PRTG 500 (500 sensors, 1 server installation) is $1,750; PRTG 1000 (1000 sensors, 1 server) is $3,200; PRTG 2500 (2,500 sensors, 1 server) is $6,500; PRTG 5000 (5000 sensors, 1 server) is $11,500; and PRTG XL1 includes unlimited sensors and 1 server installation for $15,500. PRTG “sensors” are one aspect monitored on any particular device (e.g. CPU load, a port switch, etc.). PRTG is free to use with up to 100 sensors.

SolarWinds NPM is available from SolarWinds and from third-party VARs. It is available with a 30 day free trial, and then priced per number of items monitored. afterwhich pricing starts at $1,583 for a year-long subscription (100 monitored elements) or via perpetual license for around $3,000 (1 year support included). Higher product tiers’ pricing is not published, though it can be fairly estimated to be similarly priced per element as the 100 element tier.

Features
PRTG Network MonitorSolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Network Performance Monitoring
Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of Product A and Product B
PRTG Network Monitor
7.1
55 Ratings
15% below category average
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
7.9
231 Ratings
4% below category average
Automated network device discovery7.449 Ratings7.8210 Ratings
Network monitoring7.754 Ratings8.7231 Ratings
Baseline threshold calculation6.747 Ratings8.0201 Ratings
Alerts7.755 Ratings8.8228 Ratings
Network capacity planning6.739 Ratings7.8188 Ratings
Packet capture analysis5.528 Ratings7.2130 Ratings
Network mapping7.639 Ratings7.1190 Ratings
Customizable reports7.448 Ratings7.9212 Ratings
Wireless infrastructure monitoring7.438 Ratings7.2153 Ratings
Hardware health monitoring6.952 Ratings8.7215 Ratings
Best Alternatives
PRTG Network MonitorSolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Small Businesses
NinjaOne
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Score 9.1 out of 10
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Nmap
Nmap
Score 8.8 out of 10
Nmap
Nmap
Score 8.8 out of 10
Enterprises
Nmap
Nmap
Score 8.8 out of 10
Nmap
Nmap
Score 8.8 out of 10
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User Ratings
PRTG Network MonitorSolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(55 ratings)
8.6
(237 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.3
(27 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(21 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(17 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
PRTG Network MonitorSolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Likelihood to Recommend
Paessler
If there are a number of different protocols and devices to monitor PRTG is really an all in one solution. There are network specific solutions, telephony solutions, server solutions, etc - but this tool can do anything. Even if you don't use this tool as your main "monitoring solutions" every IT professional should have access to this tool for at least troubleshooting purposes. If you are looking for something specific built for a task you may be able to find [a] more direct and easy tool to use that would be easier and quicker to setup as customization is not needed.
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.
Read full review
Pros
Paessler
  • Very, very configurable. You can create all kinds of monitors for all kinds of things. Plus it has loads of suggestions out of the box. It can get complicated but monitoring is complicated. Pretty decent interface and good support - active community.
  • I really liked how easy it was to add alerts by SMS. So easy to setup.
  • I like their sizing models (for purchase). We're actually small enough that we are free. But it's not free as in stripped down - it's free because we don't use many "sensors" and don't honestly have the need.
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
Paessler
  • The probe service can be quite resource-intensive. This can cause false-positive readings from some sensors sometimes.
  • The software gets updated very regularly. Whilst this is usually a good thing to fix bugs etc, it does meantime downtime of the monitoring quite often while they are installed.
  • The ability to create Maps from Libraries. Very specific issue but a lot of people have been asking for it for years and it is still not available.
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
Paessler
It is now an essential tool for monitoring and maintaining the health of our network and systems.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Usability
Paessler
The tool is very intuitive to use and it is Windows-based (everybody knows how to use Windows) so it's easy to get into. Every time is setup in a hierarchy so if you have a good initial hierarchy design, it will really reduce administrative effort down the road.
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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.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Paessler
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
Always available. Always is important to plan the software available during the machine/application setup.
Read full review
Performance
Paessler
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
Paessler
I am giving this a 6 simply because I have never had to contact support. The online documentation is adequate for most things, and the user-maintained knowledgebase is excellent. The few times I have run into issues that were not easily resolvable with intuitive UI, I was able to find the answers that I needed either in the PRTG-provided documentation, the knowledgebase, or with a quick online web search.
Read full review
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
Paessler
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
Paessler
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
Paessler
I have deployed and tested three products for evaluation I found [PRTG Network Monitor] very easy to deploy, the deployment literally took not more than one hour including basic configuration and network discovery. After deployment few configuration changes and creation of maps, reports and little tweaking is required. [Then] it would go through its process of recommendation that took some time to complete, while [on] other hand other software's took lot of time to install and configure. And features were also missing, which resulted in decision in favor of [PRTG Network Monitor].
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Scalability
Paessler
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
From the direction and information I have been given it is very flexible and scalelable
Read full review
Return on Investment
Paessler
  • The ability to analyze multiple pieces of information in one place, especially with historical data, has saved our IT department time and headaches. It would be so much more difficult to trace an issue without PRTG, just relying on event logs and an open task manager window.
  • The cost is not cheap, so it's an expense that hits the bottom line like everything else. Figure in hardware costs as well, ideally a server outside of your main environment.
  • I keep saying this, but the historical data piece is worth so much. There's really no good way to collect all of that information in one place without something like PRTG. And that definitely saves time and money in the long run.
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.