TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

ScienceLogic SL1 vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    ScienceLogic SL1

    Score8.9 out of 10
    Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
    ScienceLogic is a system and application monitoring and performance management platform. ScienceLogic collects and aggregates data across and IT ecosystems and contextualizes it for actionable insights with the SL1 product offering.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 SL1SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    ScienceLogic SL1SolarWinds 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 To get pricing for each tier, please contact the vendor.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    ScienceLogic SL1SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Considered Both Products
    ScienceLogic
    Chose ScienceLogic SL1
    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
    71 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    33 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    90%
    Delivers good value for the price
    62 Answers
    88%
    Delivers good value for the price
    30 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    75 Answers
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    34 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    83%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    39 Answers
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    30 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    80%
    Implementation went as expected
    53 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    31 Answers
    Features
    ScienceLogic SL1SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    AIOps Features
    Comparison of AIOps Features features of ScienceLogic SL1 and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Feature
    ScienceLogic SL1
    6.5
    19 Ratings
    0% above category average
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    Monitoring and Alerting7.218 Ratings00 Ratings
    Performance Analytics6.419 Ratings00 Ratings
    Incident Management6.619 Ratings00 Ratings
    Service Desk Integration6.319 Ratings00 Ratings
    Root Cause Analysis6.015 Ratings00 Ratings
    Capacity Planning Tool5.817 Ratings00 Ratings
    Configuration and Change Management5.717 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automated Remediation6.915 Ratings00 Ratings
    Collaboration and Communication7.315 Ratings00 Ratings
    Threat Intelligence6.715 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    ScienceLogic SL1SolarWinds 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 SL1SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.6
    (220 ratings)
    9.4
    (141 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.0
    (24 ratings)
    8.1
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    9.5
    (15 ratings)
    7.1
    (8 ratings)
    Availability
    9.7
    (14 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.2
    (14 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.6
    (20 ratings)
    7.7
    (9 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.2
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.7
    (7 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    6.9
    (91 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
    8.9
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    ScienceLogic SL1SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    ScienceLogic
    I would definitely recommend ScienceLogic to anyone looking for a low-budget, yet enterprise-ready, observability solution. Additionally, it offers multi-tenancy, which can help you manage your managed service providers. It provides comfort in secure channels for discovery, such as WinRM for Windows devices, which is more secure than WMI-based discovery.
    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
    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
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    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
    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
    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
    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
    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

    ScienceLogic SL1 Screenshots

    Screenshot of Application to infrastructure mapping with APM toolsScreenshot of CRM Business Service MapScreenshot of Mobile Banking Business Service Dashboard OverviewScreenshot of Mobile Banking Business Service Dashboard Availability ViewScreenshot of Mobile Banking Business Service Dashboard Anomalies ViewScreenshot of Business Services Leaderboard Dashboard Overview

    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.