SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs. Zabbix

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
SolarWinds Network Device Monitor
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds Network Device Monitor is a network diagnostic tool, from Austin-based SolarWinds.N/A
Zabbix
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Zabbix is an open-source network performance monitoring software. It includes prebuilt official and community-developed templates for integrating with networks, applications, and endpoints, and can automate some monitoring processes.N/A
Pricing
SolarWinds Network Device MonitorZabbix
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SolarWinds Network Device MonitorZabbix
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SolarWinds Network Device MonitorZabbix
Considered Both Products
SolarWinds Network Device Monitor
Chose SolarWinds Network Device Monitor
Zabbix is now a complete new-age infra monitoring tool while SolarWinds is specific to be used with complex and multi-architecture setups. SolarWinds has its own benefits and cost is still on the higher side which is one of the reasons you will not find it being used with all …
Chose SolarWinds Network Device Monitor
Cognizant has done extensive POC/POV on SolarWinds modules specifically on NPM and we believe it has out of the box broad range of devices, vendors, and versions monitoring and also multiple modules options like NCM for
Zabbix
Chose Zabbix
Most of the SolarWinds are separated out, whereas Zabbix includes templates and capabilities for all of them out of the box. Other solutions listed include most or all of them to varying degrees as well.

New Relic is more for Application Monitoring, but the New Relic …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
SolarWinds Network Device MonitorZabbix
Small Businesses
Auvik
Auvik
Score 8.4 out of 10
Pulseway
Pulseway
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PingPlotter
PingPlotter
Score 9.4 out of 10
IBM Instana
IBM Instana
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Score 8.8 out of 10
IBM Instana
IBM Instana
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
SolarWinds Network Device MonitorZabbix
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(19 ratings)
9.0
(25 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
SolarWinds Network Device MonitorZabbix
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds
On its own, it's a solid choice for an SMB or Mid-size Enterprise if you're price sensitive and looking primarily for core functionality. SolarWinds has a large family of products that can also be leveraged in conjunction with SWNDM. Turning the product loose on a very large environment for discovery and mapping should be done with care and concern for a number of reasons but including the performance of the product for this task. If you're looking for an all-in-one product with some presumed supporting features built in (config manager, etc.) you'll need to look elsewhere.
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Zabbix
Zabbix is very well suited for infrastructure monitoring i.e. the underlying host servers, basically, compute nodes. However, it has limited FM & PM capabilities for the workloads, i.e., the virtual machines (VMs). Zabbix has an easy-to-use GUI which can be explored easily & provides good filtering of the data.
Read full review
Pros
SolarWinds
  • Monitor for and record network device configuration changes.
  • Allow for the creation, or modification, of hardening standards for multiple vendors' network devices.
  • Automate the creation of alerts that can be sent to owners for correction of compliance violations.
  • Allow you to organize a visualization of your network devices.
Read full review
Zabbix
  • Collecting hardware data - CPU, Memory, Network, and Disk Metrics are collected and reported on.
  • Flexible design - It is very easy to build out even very large environments via the templating system. You can also start where you are - network monitoring, server monitoring, etc. and then build it out from there as time and resources permit.
  • Provides a "plugin architecture" (via XML templates) to allow end users to extend it to monitor all kinds of equipment, software, or other metrics that are not already added into the software already.
  • Very complete documentation. Almost every aspect of Zabbix has been documented and reported on.
  • Cost - Zabbix is FOSS software and always free. Support is reasonably priced and readily available.
Read full review
Cons
SolarWinds
  • More security put into the product, the Orion hack was not good news.
  • More frequent releases to address small bugs rather than big releases that are rare.
  • More IPv6 related features to make it easier for people familiar with IPv4 to learn IPv6.
  • Ability to edit dashboards using JSON or another similar language.
Read full review
Zabbix
  • In a busy Zabbix environment, it can easily overwhelm the underlying database. Plan on having SSDs and a significant server infrastructure to keep up with more than a hundred hosts.
  • Building out Zabbix metrics that suit your environment can be very time consuming. When choosing a monitoring platform like Zabbix, expect a steep learning curve and to invest significant resources to make the tool valuable.
  • This is less important than it has been in the past, but current versions of Zabbix still do not handle IPMI checks of hardware very well. We needed to write our own wrapper for IPMI checks rather than using the built in IPMI poller.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Zabbix
It is free. It didn't cost anything to implement (other than my time and the cost incurred for it) and it is filling a badly needed gap in our IT infrastructure. Support is available if we have issues and can be done annually or paid for on a per incident basis as needed. Expansion, updates, and all other future lifecycle activities are likewise free of cost, so as long as someone is able to implement/maintain the software (and the OSS project is maintained) then I imagine the company will never leave it.
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Usability
SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Zabbix
If you go deeper than the dashboards, the user friendliness goes away quickly
Read full review
Support Rating
SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Zabbix
The setup is the most time-consuming portion of using zabbix. It takes a lot of effort to shape it into a usable format and even then it can get very messy. It's not exactly intuitive and as mentioned the UI seems a bit antiquated. If I was to roll out a monitoring solution from scratch, I'd probably look for alternatives which are easier to use and maintain.
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Implementation Rating
SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Zabbix
We are a mainly Windows environment, so it would be useful if we could have used Active Directory to deploy agents. As of version 4.2, Zabbix has announced a new agent MSI file to allow exactly that. Unfortunately, we didn't have that option. Also, for Linux and MAC deployments, there is no simple way to deploy that. Using remote scripts you may be able to create something, but most places will opt for either SNMP (agentless) or manual installation of agents to add to Zabbix. A way of deploying agents via discovery would go a long way to helping in the adoption of the tool.
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Alternatives Considered
SolarWinds
MS is meant for windows monitoring and up/down for mostly everything else. Moved away from MS System Center. Now we have better visibility and management can get reports. The other teams have added Linux to Solarwinds and also see improvements in monitoring. Whether you use snmp (v3), wmi or some other credentials to connect to you system, Solarwinds will more than likely be able to manage and monitor it.
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Zabbix
We're using the Solarwinds suite as our global monitoring standard, but it is very complex and its licensing model makes it difficult to monitor a wide range of technologies. So, we're using Zabbix as a complement on our monitoring process. Zabbix is a way more flexible and has free integrations to a wide range of technologies. It is also more 'user friendly' and easy to manage.
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Return on Investment
SolarWinds
  • Reduced site visits and recurring issues by 25 to 35%
  • Enables proactive warning, thereby reducing downtime caused by unforeseen issues
  • Provides a central panel for monitoring the entire network at a glance
  • Allows for SLA management thereby increasing accountability by 50%
  • Reduced time to repair by 35% as techs are more informed of root cause
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Zabbix
  • Zabbix simply makes it easier to identify, and subsequently resolve problems quickly
  • Zabbix gives one web page to look at to see a list of all on-going issue in a single place
  • Zabbix can automate response to alerts. For example, Zabbix allows you the customization to take a monitored server out of production rotation if it is identified as unhealthy
Read full review
ScreenShots