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SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) vs. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)

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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

    SolarWinds NPM

    Score7 out of 10
    N/ASolarWinds NPM is a monitoring and performance management platform. It provides performance troubleshooting support, auto network discovery, customizable thresholds, and can be rapidly deployed.

    $1,638

    per year

    Pricing
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)SolarWinds NPM
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    NPM
    $1,638
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)SolarWinds NPM
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)SolarWinds NPM
    Considered Both Products
    SolarWinds
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    We evaluated PRTG Network Monitor which was similar to SolarWinds but was very resource-intensive and the server kept crashing when we got close to 100 devices whereas on SolarWinds we were able to add several thousand devices. We also evaluated Nagios Core as a free …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Solarwinds Network Configuration Manager is extremely powerful in allowing our organization to automate specific tasks. It is extremely simple to use and offers a Graphical User Interface for performing tasks. I am a very curious person, which has led me to use Ansible simply …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    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 …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    If it has been used and it has been functional since it reduces the work time by more than half, making the process faster, safer, and more precise, carrying out not so complex and functional processes referring to configurations of multiple devices at the same time in an agile …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    SolarWinds NCM solution is more flexible and GUI is from my point of view more intuitive, from the other hand Manage Engine solution is [a] cheaper solution which has almost [the] same functionality but suffers of luck of deeper integration with other Manage Engine modules.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) was by far the easiest to implement and it just started working right out of the box. Within a few hours were we populating our config backup repository and soon after that, we were writing scripts to audit our configurations. …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    We have a very diverse IT environment (Cisco/Palo Alto, VMWare, Cisco UC, SD-WAN, Windows Servers) and we wanted to have one suite of software that we could manage as many of our different areas in one single pane of glass. SolarWinds allows the network team, VOIP team, Storage …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Prior to implementing SolarWinds NCM, we were utilizing a free solution called RANCID. This solution is a Cisco specific opensource tool that allows a simple backup of Cisco device configurations. This tool was very limited in our ability to search, backup, restore, and …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    They are used in tandem. Our organization uses many modules within the dashboard of NCM (Orion).
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    I deal with configs on a daily basis. I needed a tool that can run scripts and automate tasks and NCM totally met my expectations.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    The products are similar; both have good features, but Spectrum was much more expensive.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    We haven't used another product like Network Configuration Manager.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Excellent companion.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    We tried a few different products at a cheaper level such as Spiceworks and PRTG. But were unable to make them work for everything we would get with Solarwinds. We also tried a few products at a higher price point like Ipswitch by What's up Gold and BladeLogic Network …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    We selected NCM because of its integration with NPM and other products. Pricing, Support, and Thwack all played a major part in the reason for the procurement and implementation of this system.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    NCM is superior to ManageEngine or Spiceworks in its ability to automate the primary tasks of a configuration management tool. Of course, it integrates well with other applications in the SolarWinds Orion suite of applications. The list of vendors supported by NCM is larger as …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    When I took over my current position, we'd already purchased SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager, but we were not using it. I can't, therefore, compare it with other tools, as the only thing I have to compare it to was our manual processes. When compared to any …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    We used to use Kiwi Cat Tools to backup the configurations on our network devices. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager has replaced that functionality and added so much more. We now are also able to run configuration change jobs and reports to make sure that all of our …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Probably the best feature of NCM is integration with other SolarWinds products. This enabled us to have a single pane of glass for management of all our network infrastructure. Simply adding NCM management to all our devices also gave us basic performance monitoring to the same …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    We haven't vetted out any other solutions for backing up our network devices. NCM does this job well, but isn't the most user friendly software out there. Our Ubiquiti networking hardware is managed through an admin console for all Ubiquiti devices. It manages our configs, and …
    Incentivized
    SolarWinds
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    PRTG has been a very old tool that was good for plotting the utilization graphs of interfaces but lacked comprehensive device views, overall end-to-end dashboards, comprehensive reports, and alerting functions. WhatsUpGold lacked comprehensive Dashboards, Alerts, and Reporting …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    We evaluated PRTG Network Monitor which was similar to SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor but was very resource-intensive, and the server kept crashing when we got close to 100 devices. Whereas on SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor, we were able to add several …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    None
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    We tested Observium as an alternative to Solarwinds in the past and it required all host to be added by DNS instead of IP addresses which we prefer. We have over 2000 devices so creating DNS records for all of these was a deal breaker.
    We tested PRTG and it required to much …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    SolarWinds is an all in one solution. We don't need to install different servers for different packages. It provides easy installation, easy maintenance, easy monitoring by NOC and end-users of NOC. SolarWinds tools have more features than other tools. We have done POC for many …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    For the most part, SolarWinds products work great 95% of the time. They have great functionality, but since SolarWinds is an application that has been developed for several years, there is plenty of bloat, which causes some severe slowness. If you can deal with the slowness, …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    Most have been SolarWinds products for either monitoring and management. As I mentioned, the top usage now is for alerting on up/down. Performance monitoring is mostly on an ad-hoc basis.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    We primarily selected NPM for its integration with our Solarwinds tools such as NCM, IPAM, SAM etc...
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    I don't think this is really a fair comparison, but both Cacti and Nagios have some similar functionality to SolarWinds NPM in that they all do performance monitoring on networked devices. Cacti and Nagios both lack the in depth feature set and customization that NPM offers, …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    A lot easier to configure. Maybe I got used to the software we are currently using or I am not too experienced in the field but I got literally lost in HP IMC not knowing what to do. İ really like SolarWind's next-next done configuration.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    Solarwinds NPM is significantly better than Intermapper. We haven't used Intermapper in a couple years now but it was leaps and bounds ahead of Intermapper for Network monitoring.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds NPM
    I've personally used SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor and Network Configuration Manager for about 10 years and it has made the task of keeping the network up and running much easier. Much more granular control than options like Nagios, MRTG, and PRTG.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    33 Answers
    91%
    Would buy again
    31 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    88%
    Delivers good value for the price
    30 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    32 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    34 Answers
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    33 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    30 Answers
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    28 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    31 Answers
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    29 Answers
    Features
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)SolarWinds NPM
    Network Performance Monitoring
    Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) and SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
    Feature
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
    8.2
    231 Ratings
    0% above category average
    Automated network device discovery00 Ratings7.8210 Ratings
    Network monitoring00 Ratings8.8231 Ratings
    Baseline threshold calculation00 Ratings8.6201 Ratings
    Alerts00 Ratings9.4228 Ratings
    Network capacity planning00 Ratings7.9188 Ratings
    Packet capture analysis00 Ratings7.2130 Ratings
    Network mapping00 Ratings7.1190 Ratings
    Customizable reports00 Ratings7.9212 Ratings
    Wireless infrastructure monitoring00 Ratings7.6153 Ratings
    Hardware health monitoring00 Ratings9.4215 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)SolarWinds NPM
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Auvik
    Score9.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    PingPlotter
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    Nmap
    Score10 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)SolarWinds NPM
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.4
    (141 ratings)
    10.0
    (237 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.1
    (6 ratings)
    9.4
    (27 ratings)
    Usability
    7.1
    (8 ratings)
    9.1
    (21 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.7
    (9 ratings)
    8.0
    (28 ratings)
    Online Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)SolarWinds NPM
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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
    SolarWinds
    Solarwinds NPM is well suited for medium to large networks, it may be a bit heavy for the SOHO environment as most of the tools and reports are designed for monitoring KPIs which may not be critical for a small shop. NPM can handle large networks with several sites and mixed technologies ranging from networks, server systems, storage devices and SLA reporting.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • Out of the Monitoring of almost all Network Devices.
    • Build custom pollers to monitor which is not supported out of the box.
    • Further you can alert on these custom metrics and Out of the box metrics.
    • It provides you great dashboards, Reports features.
    • You can integrate it with any MoM layer tools either using its API or sending out traps.
    • Out of the box Integration with Service Now ITSM Tool.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • The software upgrade process is a little hairy and has caused me trouble on occasion.
    • The server that it needs to run is a bit of a resource hog along with the SQL server.
    • Some additional features like the network map are a bit clunky compared to some other products that we use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    The entire IT staff relies on NPM in its daily operations. It would be impossible for us to maintain our level of service without it. If SolarWinds gets to proud of their product and begins to over charge for it, we would be forced to reconsider and use a different product. But as it stands it is worth the price to renew it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is quite an extensive product, covering all our bases and requirements. There are a lot of customizable options and features which you can work with for their alerting which is really useful. I haven't found anything yet which I thought SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) could do, but it actually couldn't so overall it works nicely and does the job.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    Always available. Always is important to plan the software available during the machine/application setup.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    Pages load slow, especially the bettors map. Could be that my server is old.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    In all of the times that we called support, someone at SolarWinds had the answer for us in a timely manner. Through thwack and other internet searching, we have been able to resolve all of our issues that arose to our satisfaction. The support staff have always been knowledgeable of their products or had a fellow support staff member to rely on to get the needed answers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    The training is good but during the implementation, you can get situations not learned during the training. The trainer was very open to hearing the questions about use cases and always sharing his experience. I really recommend having official training to take advantage of all features that the NPM can bring.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    Make sure your inventory is accurate. Stand up some virtual machines for testing prior to installation. Make sure your database and its credentials are setup. Think about things you want to monitor that may not be obvious - UPS units, Door hardware, PBX systems, Fabric Channel switches, firewalls, routers, switches. Try to setup SNMP on these devices and have an IP that you will assign to the new server. If you do that it will go well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    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
    SolarWinds
    We selected SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor because of the capabilities of the product versus the price. The tools also work well with their other products and support is fairly good. We have never had a problem when we needed to make a call.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    From the direction and information I have been given it is very flexible and scalelable
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    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
    SolarWinds
    • SolarWinds allows us to proactively address hardware issues before they impact the business. We recently had a server that was experiencing issues sporadically and we were able to use the data from SolarWinds to track down and correct the issue before it tanked the server.
    • SolarWinds gives our IT department some piece of mind knowing that they'll be alerted of any issues real time.
    • We can use SolarWinds data to justify needed to replace or upgrade certain equipment that is key to our core business.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.

    SolarWinds NPM Screenshots

    Screenshot of Network monitoring software used to reduce network outages and detect, diagnose, and resolve multi-vendor network performance issues.Screenshot of See relationships for routers, switches, interfaces, volumes, and groups, updated automatically without user intervention to maintain the network, not network maps.Screenshot of Reduce visibility gaps into critical network switches, firewalls, and load balancers with Network Insight for Cisco Nexus, Cisco ASA, and F5 BIG-IP.Screenshot of Reduce the flood of unnecessary network alerts. Create alerts based on simple or complex nested trigger conditions, defined parent/child dependencies, and network topology.Screenshot of Identify dead zones and improve wireless coverage. With its network monitoring tool, users can access out-of-the-box wireless reports, including wireless availability and rogue access points.Screenshot of Configure alerts by calculating dynamic baseline threshold data with network performance monitoring software.