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Datadog vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Datadog

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/ADatadog is a monitoring service for IT, Dev and Ops teams who write and run applications at scale, and want to turn the massive amounts of data produced by their apps, tools and services into actionable insight.

    $18

    per month per host

    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
    DatadogSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Editions & Modules
    Log Management
    $1.27
    per month (billed annually) per host
    Infrastructure
    $15.00
    per month (billed annually) per host
    Standard
    $18
    per month per host
    Enterprise
    $27
    per month per host
    DevSecOps Pro
    $27
    per month per host
    APM
    $31.00
    per month (billed annually) per host
    DevSecOps Enterprise
    $41
    per month per host
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    DatadogSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
    Additional DetailsDiscount available for annual pricing. Multi-Year/Volume discounts available (500+ hosts/mo).—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    DatadogSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Considered Both Products
    Datadog
    No answer on this topic
    SolarWinds
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    For NCM, there is no other tool that I know of that can work as well as SolarWinds does. All other products that I have used are mainly used for application performance monitoring more than network configuration capture.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    21 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    33 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    95%
    Delivers good value for the price
    19 Answers
    88%
    Delivers good value for the price
    30 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    22 Answers
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    34 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    14 Answers
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    30 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    14 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    31 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    DatadogSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Small Businesses
    Amazon CloudWatch
    Score8.2 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Sumo Logic
    Score9.5 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    NetBrain Technologies
    Score9.2 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    DatadogSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (22 ratings)
    9.4
    (141 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.1
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.1
    (8 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.9
    (6 ratings)
    7.7
    (9 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    DatadogSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Datadog
    Datadog works really well with complex microservices architecture like any E-commerce platform which will be having multiple services but they all are interdependent to others so in this scenario Datadog will be best to monitor these as it will show the transactions also between those microservices. If you are using multiple services in your architecture whether it will be cloud services or on prem services Datadog will be the best choice to monitor all those service with in Datadog so that you can see everything in a single place. But if you are having small architecture and few services in that then in that scenario you can use Datadog but it will be little costly as compared to other but obviously the features are very well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    If your IT team isn't proficient in automation and scripting, Solarwinds NCM can fill that gap (assuming your company's security team signs off on approving SW in your environment given the hack.) Basic device configuration, pushing mass changes reliably and backups are NCM's strong suites. If you have a complex scenario where if/then cases are needed, NCM is a bit lack luster. Auto discovery isn't as easy either as certain parameters need to be met for that feature to work 100% of the time
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Datadog
    • Create Dashboards as per application, environments, and Custom metrics in one panel.
    • Log aggregation, one-stop Application monitoring tools for the whole infrastructure.
    • Playbooks, SLA definition, success and error quotas, request visualizations.
    • DB monitoring, Serverless stack monitoring.
    • Alerting of Production incidents so we can quickly resolve the issues on time.
    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
    Datadog
    • Alert windows cause lag in notifications (e.g. if the alert window is X errors in 1 hour, we won't get alerted until the end of the 1 hour range)
    • I would appreciate more supportive examples for how to filter and view metrics in the explorer
    • I would like a more clear interface for metrics that are missing in a time frame, rather than only showing tags/etc. for metrics that were collected within the currently viewed time frame
    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
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Datadog
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Datadog
    There is some room for improvement, but the Datadog team sends out updates frequently, and the UI is user-friendly for engineers, with no significant loading issues or region-specific problems. That was one of the key reasons we preferred Datadog; our company has employees worldwide, and it wasn't difficult to transition to the tool.
    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
    Support Rating
    Datadog
    The support team usually gets it right. We did have a rather complicate issue setting up monitoring on a domain controller. However, they are usually responsive and helpful over chat. The downside would be I don’t think they have any phone support. If that is important to you this might not be a good fit.
    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
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Datadog
    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
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Datadog
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Datadog
    We are still trying other products, but people still like Datadog. After setting up a dashboard, it's great for monitoring instances on Datadog. Also, the DevOps team had a good time setting up Datadog. It means Datadog was way easier to set up compared to those others.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a great tool and matches much of the functionality of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. Nothing about Ansible will likely be overwhelming to an engineer with a little time to spare, but that spare time combined with SolarWinds already being our monitoring tool made the decision easy. Time is at a premium in small teams and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is very easy to use right out of the box without all the tweaking required by powerful command line driven tools like Ansible.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Datadog
    • Saved us (time & money) from developing our own monitoring utilities that would pale in comparison
    • Alerts allow us to remedy issues before our customers even know about them
    • Tracking resource usage over time allows us to better plan for future needs, before it becomes a pain-point.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • The time savings from automatic daily backups is significant
    • The compare configuration tool is super helpful at spotting errors when small changes occur that are hard to detect otherwise.
    • The compliance check tool saves countless hours going through configurations for errors.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Datadog Screenshots

    Screenshot of the out-of-the-box and customizable monitoring dashboards.Screenshot of Datadog's collaboration features, where users can discuss issues in-context with production data, annotate changes and notify their teams, see who responded to that alert before, and discover what was done to fix it.Screenshot of where Datadog unifies traces, metrics, and logs—the three pillars of observability.Screenshot of some of Datadog's 400+ built-in integrations.Screenshot of Datadog's Service Map, which decomposes an application into all its component services and draws the observed dependencies between these services in real timeScreenshot of centralized log data, pulled from any source.

    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.