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ScienceLogic AI Platform vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    ScienceLogic AI Platform

    Score8.2 out of 10
    Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
    ScienceLogic provides a unified IT Operations platform designed to manage operational workflows using high-fidelity Telemetry Data and explainable automation. The ScienceLogic AI Platform is deployable across On-Premises, Cloud, and Hybrid Environments. The platform consolidates monitoring tools to provide Observability and enables engineers to automate manual processes using Machine Learning capabilities. The platform utilizes automation for Closed-Loop Remediation and provides insights…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
    ScienceLogic AI PlatformSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    ScienceLogic AI PlatformSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredOptional
    Additional DetailsScienceLogic SL1 offers four tiers: SL1 Advanced – Application Health, Automated Troubleshooting and Remediation Workflows SL1 Base – Infrastructure Monitoring, Topology & Event Correlation SL1 Premium – AI/ML-driven Analytics, Low-Code Automated Workflow Authoring SL1 Standard – Infrastructure Monitoring – with Agents, Business Services, Incident Automation, CMDB Synchronization, Behavioral Correlation
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    ScienceLogic AI PlatformSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Considered Both Products
    ScienceLogic
    Chose ScienceLogic AI Platform
    ScienceLogic SL1 is comparable with the products but with low cost of investment gives an edge in convincing customer when we offer similar features.
    Incentivized
    Chose ScienceLogic AI Platform
    As I stated earlier, SL1 seems to be best used for Servers and Network Storage devices. It doesn't seem to be a direct replacement as SL1 doesn't have a configuration management piece, visual maps are very crude and not user-friendly, and the building of the maps is not …
    Incentivized
    SolarWinds
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    87%
    Would buy again
    81 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    91%
    Delivers good value for the price
    71 Answers
    89%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    86 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    85%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    44 Answers
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    31 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    81%
    Implementation went as expected
    58 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    32 Answers
    Features
    ScienceLogic AI PlatformSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    AIOps Features
    Comparison of AIOps Features features of ScienceLogic AI Platform and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Feature
    ScienceLogic AI Platform
    7.5
    26 Ratings
    1% below category average
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    Monitoring and Alerting8.225 Ratings00 Ratings
    Performance Analytics7.726 Ratings00 Ratings
    Incident Management6.626 Ratings00 Ratings
    Service Desk Integration7.525 Ratings00 Ratings
    Root Cause Analysis7.721 Ratings00 Ratings
    Capacity Planning Tool7.222 Ratings00 Ratings
    Configuration and Change Management7.723 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automated Remediation7.620 Ratings00 Ratings
    Collaboration and Communication7.920 Ratings00 Ratings
    Threat Intelligence7.319 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    ScienceLogic AI PlatformSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    ignio AIOps
    Score8.1 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    ScienceLogic AI PlatformSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (228 ratings)
    8.0
    (142 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.4
    (24 ratings)
    8.1
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    9.6
    (15 ratings)
    7.0
    (9 ratings)
    Availability
    9.2
    (14 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.2
    (14 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.5
    (20 ratings)
    7.7
    (9 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.8
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    7.7
    (8 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    6.4
    (99 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.0
    (15 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    9.1
    (7 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.4
    (7 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    ScienceLogic AI PlatformSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    ScienceLogic
    For Windows, the issue is in higher resource consumption related to WinRM monitoring, which provides better options then the SNMP monitoring, which on the other hand is less resource intensive. The problem is also with support for OS with other than English language.
    Incentivized
    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
    ScienceLogic
    • Best overall coverage of montioring different technologies.
    • Easy to use in any environment
    • Customizable being able to generate your own reports, dashboards, DA's, RBA's, etc.
    • Have very good out of the box integrations with other monitoring solutions such as ServiceNow
    • Always improving and regularly releasing new versions and upgrades to the system/DA's.
    • Interactive community
    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
    ScienceLogic
    • Dashboards are quite old and are of Iron age. Need to have AP2 dashboards only instead of AP1 and consistent new design across all functionalities.
    • Reporting is not improved since Y2020 and need to revamp completely. Need to integrate Dashboards and Reporting. PowerBI Like functionality to be given OOTB. Reports should be extracted in Excel, PDF, HTML and should be heavily automated.
    • Create and Open APIs for basic and advanced monitoring data extraction.
    • Topology based Event Correlation and Suppression should be improved drastically. Need to identify critical network interfaces based on Topology and monitor them. Basic customization of Dynamic App and/or Powerpack to exclude/include certain metrics/events to be permitted OOTB instead of customizations.
    • Integration with ServiceNow to be improved and to be taken to next level. Automation Powerpack should be made available OOTB as part of base product and to be priced attractively.
    • Take product to next level where we can monitor actual impacted IT or Business Service instead of metrics and events BSM and Topology map to be auto discovered and identify the network dependencies and alternate paths automatically instead of manual creation of BSM.
    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
    ScienceLogic
    It is simply because of all the best possible autonomy solutions it is providing and getting better day by day. Using AI and Devops along with handy automation, The monitoring and Management of devices becomes much easier and the way it is growing in all the aspects is one the best reasons too. Evolution of the SL1 platform in the autonomy monitoring and management is quite appreciable.
    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
    Read full review
    Usability
    ScienceLogic
    The core functions are there.
    The complexity is due to the complexity of the space.
    The score is based on comfort (I no longer notice the legacy UI) and the promise that I see in the 8.12 Unified UI (a vast improvement).
    It is also based on the fact that with 8.12, you can now do everything in the new UI but you still have the legacy UI as a fallback (which should now be unnecessary for new installations)
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Reliability and Availability
    ScienceLogic
    SL is always there and online when you need to get info from it. The only times when SL was not available in our own data center, was when network links from out side of the data center was down and those links were not in our controll. Having a central database and people accessing it all over the world, may put a bit of constarin on the performance of the dashboards when reports gets generated, but that is far and few n between.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    ScienceLogic
    SceinceLogic SL1 architecture helps the platform to give a top-notch performance in every respect, Data collection to reporting happens very smoothly. With the new user interface pages load much faster. Individual appliances carrying the individual task ensure things are working without lag. Integration with ticketing tool(SNOW) is well managed by the ScienceLogic, no issue or much delay has been observed while interacting with an external tool.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    ScienceLogic
    So far, it's good as part of my overall experience, except for a couple of use cases. The support team is well knowledgeable, has technical sound, and is efficient. When support escalates to engineering, the issue gets stuck and takes months to resolve.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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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    In-Person Training
    ScienceLogic
    It was good, Do the online training first and understand it and you will get the most out of the in-person training that way. This also takes you to an advanced level which is very good and the training as been overhauled once again along with new product coming in such as Zebruim / Skylar, worth going through again if it a while back that you first did this.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    ScienceLogic
    There are a lot of educational materials and courses on the SL1 training site (Litmos university). However the recording quality is sometimes not very good - screen resolution is low. There is a lack of professional rather than user-oriented documents and there are mistakes in documentation and education is not well structured.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    ScienceLogic
    Implementation is smooth if we are to just support the out-of-the-box features available in ScienceLogic. For any custom requirement, having to go to SL1 Professional Services is the worst part of procuring this suite. And more often than not, SL1 Professional Services also ask to raise feature request. So, you subscribe to Professional Services to only hear back from them that "This feature is not supported and needs to have a separate feature request". At times frustrating.
    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
    ScienceLogic
    Science logic SL1 is so user friendly and it's really easy to navigate between function. I would recommend Sciene logic SL1 to all of them who are looking for really useful monitoring tool and expecting easy way of managing it.
    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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    Scalability
    ScienceLogic
    Our deployment model is vastly different from product expectations. Our global / internal monitoring foot print is 8 production stacks in dual data centers with 50% collection capacity allocated to each data center with minimal numbers of collection groups. General Collection is our default collection group. Special Collection is for monitoring our ASA and other hardware that cannot be polled by a large number of IP addresses, so this collection group is usually 2 collectors). Because most of our stacks are in different physical data centers, we cannot use the provided HA solution. We have to use the DR solution (DRBD + CNAMEs). We routinely test power in our data centers (yearly). Because we have to use DR, we have a hand-touch to flip nodes and change the DNS CNAME half of the times when there is an outage (by design). When the outage is planned, we do this ahead of the outage so that we don't care that the Secondary has dropped away from the Primary. Hopefully, we'll be able to find a way to meet our constraints and improve our resiliency and reduce our hand-touch in future releases. For now, this works for us and our complexity. (I hear that the HA option is sweet. I just can't consume that.)
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    ScienceLogic
    • Once a powerpack is developed and configured for a device for one customer, it is easy to deploy the same powerpack on a second customer estate and configure specifically for that customer without having to reinvent the powerpack. This saves time and therefore money.
    • Once the customer estate tuning is complete, the Operations team have come trust the alerts. This is especially true when transient or self-correcting alerts are automatically cleared without ops team involvement, but a record is still available for audit and debugging purposes. This saves time and therefore money.
    • When setup correctly, it provides good visibility into applications, devices and whole customer estates. This saves time and therefore money when issues arise.
    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

    ScienceLogic AI Platform Screenshots

    Screenshot of Unified Observability and Contextual IntelligenceScreenshot of Relationship Mapping & Service VisibilityScreenshot of ITSM and Collaboration IntegrationsScreenshot of Low-Code Workflow BuilderScreenshot of Dynamic Application DevelopmentScreenshot of Executive Overview Dashboard

    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.