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SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) vs. Splunk Cloud Platform

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    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

    Splunk Cloud Platform

    Score8 out of 10
    N/ASplunk Cloud Platform is a data platform service thats help users search, analyze, visualize and act on data. The service can go live in as little as two days, and with an IT backend managed by Splunk experts.N/A
    Pricing
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Splunk Cloud Platform
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Splunk Cloud Platform
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Splunk Cloud Platform
    Considered Both Products
    SolarWinds
    No answer on this topic
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    15 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    89%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    92%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    15 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    31 Answers
    91%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    10 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    32 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    13 Answers
    Features
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Splunk Cloud Platform
    Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
    Comparison of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) features of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) and Splunk Cloud Platform
    Feature
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    Splunk Cloud Platform
    8.2
    20 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Centralized event and log data collection00 Ratings9.019 Ratings
    Correlation00 Ratings8.419 Ratings
    Event and log normalization/management00 Ratings9.220 Ratings
    Deployment flexibility00 Ratings7.220 Ratings
    Integration with Identity and Access Management Tools00 Ratings7.718 Ratings
    Custom dashboards and workspaces00 Ratings8.920 Ratings
    Host and network-based intrusion detection00 Ratings8.217 Ratings
    Data integration/API management00 Ratings7.310 Ratings
    Behavioral analytics and baselining00 Ratings7.28 Ratings
    Rules-based and algorithmic detection thresholds00 Ratings8.210 Ratings
    Response orchestration and automation00 Ratings7.48 Ratings
    Reporting and compliance management00 Ratings8.810 Ratings
    Incident indexing/searching00 Ratings8.711 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Splunk Cloud Platform
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    Medium-sized Companies
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    IBM Security QRadar SIEM
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM)
    Score8 out of 10
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    User Ratings
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Splunk Cloud Platform
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (142 ratings)
    8.8
    (21 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.1
    (6 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    7.0
    (9 ratings)
    8.4
    (7 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.7
    (9 ratings)
    7.2
    (4 ratings)
    Online Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Splunk Cloud Platform
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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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    Cisco
    Splunk is excellent when all your data is in one location. Its ability to correlate all that data is intuitive (once the hurdle of learning the query language is overcome). It is also easy to standardize the presentation of information to the company. When data is siloed/standalone, other systems can be cheaper and faster to implement.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    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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    Cisco
    • This SIEM consolidates multiple data points and offers several features and benefits, creating custom dashboards and managing alert workflows.
    • Splunk Cloud provides a simple way to have a central monitoring and security solution. Though it does not have a huge learning curve, you should spend some time learning the basics.
    • Splunk Cloud enables me to create and schedule statistical reports on network use for Management.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    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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    Cisco
    • The SPL programming language that the queries are built in is not very intuitive.
    • There should be a better repository of pre-built queries for what I would think of as common Active Directory usage monitoring.
    • I would like to see more free training/familiarization information made available.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    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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    Cisco
    Ease of use and have all the features we need
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    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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    Cisco
    Splunk AI Assistant for SPL is good tool, as I said, it is really useful for educational purpose, taking in its hands small and simple tasks (ex:small query dashboard,...), but it's not a ten because the contextual memory for complex issues/dashboarding/reports etc can be limited, and can sometime suggets none optimized query which are not always checked by teammates and can cause issue on the long term.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    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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    Cisco
    Splunk Cloud support is sorely lacking unfortunately. The portal where you submit tickets is not very good and is lacking polish. Tickets are left for days without any updates and when chased it is only sometimes you get a reply back. I get the feeling the support team are very understaffed and have far too much going on. From what I know, Splunk is aware of this and seem to be trying to remedy it.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    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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    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    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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    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    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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    Cisco
    Vs elastic: - SPL's statistical functions superior to KQL for complex correlations - Better enterprise support, less operational overhead - Splunk Cloud Platform's detection engineering more mature vs Sentinel: - SPL more powerful than KQL for custom analytics - Better cross-platform visibility (non-Azure environments) vs Datadog - SPL enables deeper forensic Investigations - Superior compliance/audit capabilities
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    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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    Cisco
    • End-end visibility across your departmental silos
    • Strengthen the overall global monitoring posture
    • Move from Reactive to Proactive Monitoring
    • Highly secure environment at your finger-tips
    • Takes you away from managing infrastructure/administration, allows saving time & money. Reduce the overall TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)
    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.