Simplify network management with ManageEngine OpManager - a better SolarWinds NPM alternative*. ManageEngine OpManager is a comprehensive, agentless, proactive network monitoring tool that helps SMBs and enterprises manage their data centers and IT infrastructure efficiently and cost effectively. As an alternative to SolarWinds NPM, it offers automated workflows, intelligent alerting engines, configurable discovery rules, and extendable templates to enable IT teams to set up a 24/7 monitoring system within hours of installation. Do-it-yourself add-ons extend the scope of management to include network change and configuration management, IP address management, as well as monitoring of networks, applications, databases, and virtualization.
How does OpManager stack up against SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor? Take a look at this review by InfoTech to see for yourself. InfoTech's research is based entirely on real user ratings. This attests to OpManager's capabilities as an effective SolarWinds alternative.
Check out the full Info-Tech report.
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor follows an element-based licensing model. An element is a node, interface or disk volume. You need to purchase a license for the highest of the three. In reality, every node will have more interfaces or disks to be monitored. As a SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor alternative, OpManager follows a transparent device-based license model, where you have to just pay for the nodes and monitor any number of interfaces or disks. Isn't OpManager a better SolarWinds replacement already?
The following table shows a comparison between SolarWinds and OpManager's pricing:
50 network devices - 4 interfaces each
50 servers - 2 volumes each.
Total devices - 100
Total interfaces - 200
Volumes - 100
50 network devices - 4 interfaces each
50 servers - 2 volumes each. Total devices - 100
Total interfaces - 200
Volumes - 100
From the above table, it can be inferred that OpManager's device-based licensing covers all the elements within the 100 device plan whereas, element-based licensing vendor needs a 200 element license to monitor the same number of devices.
The following table shows a list of all the metrics which are not available in SolarWinds and those which require a separate tool for monitoring, unlike ManageEngine OpManager which is one of the best SolarWinds alternative available today:
VMWare monitoring
OpManager’s VMware Monitor provides in depth, agent less monitoring of VMware-virtualized servers to give IT administrators a single fault and performance management console for entire server infrastructure - both physical and virtual.
Separate purchase of an additional product is required in SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
XenServer monitoring
OpManager monitors Host, VMs and Storage Repositories of Citrix XenSever and provides the required visibility into their performance.
Not available in SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Custom WMI Monitoring
OpManager monitors the system resources using SNMP by default. Even the non-SNMP windows devices can be monitored using WMI. All the Windows device templates have the resource monitors preconfigured
Not available in SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
CLI Monitoring
OpManager monitors the system resources using SNMP by default. Even the non-SNMP windows devices can be monitored using WMI. All the Windows device templates have the resource monitors preconfigured.
Not Available
Datacenter Visualization
OpManager helps in creating a virtual replication of Datacenter floors and racks and floors to enable 24x7 monitoring.
Not available in SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
AD Monitoring
OpManager automatically associates the Active Directory monitors to the server and starts monitoring for performance and availability. Every monitored parameter is mapped with industry best-practiced thresholds by default.
Installation of a separate product is required in SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Exchange Monitoring
Exchange Monitor includes more than 60 critical parameters that need to be monitored out-of-the-box. Also several monitors come with pre-configured thresholds set according to best practices recommended by Microsoft.
Installation of a separate product is required in SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
MSSQL Monitoring
MSSQL Services and Parameters can be monitored using WMI. OpManager detects the SQL servers by itself and MSSQL related resource metrics are added automatically.
Installation of a separate product is required in SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Process / NTServices / Service Monitoring
OpManager provides out-of-the-box support for monitoring the availability of all the processes/NTServices/Service running on a Windows or Unix system.
Installation of a separate product is required in SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Script Monitoring
OpManager’s script monitoring supports Powershell, Linux shell script, VBscript, Perl & Python scripts out-of-the-box.
Installation of a separate product is required in SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
URL Monitoring
OpManager provides 24 X 7 monitoring of your website for availability and performance to identify website problems proactively.
Installation of a separate product is required in SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
File/Folder Monitoring
OpManager provides file and folder monitoring functionality that lets you instantly detect storage subsystem problems, unexpected steep increase in disk utilization and proliferating files and folders in storage servers.
Installation of a separate product is required in SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
IPSLA & VoIP monitoring
IP SLA actively monitors traffic to measure the performance of the network by measuring critical parameters for traffic passing Cisco IOS software devices and other network application servers.
A VoIP analytics & monitoring software helps in monitoring voice calls in a VoIP system for call usage tracking and performance analysis.
VNQM add-on needed
IT Workflow Automation
OpManager provides over 70 workflow checks and actions grouped under 9 different categories, including VMware ESX actions to construct a powerful workflow rule to suit your IT management needs. Just create workflows using the out-of-the-box checks and actions to the workflow builder and you are good to go.
SolarWinds Network Performance monitor (NPM) does not provide work-flow automation to compile processes and execute them based on schedules or other triggers.
Support for LINUX OS
OpManager runs on both Linux and Windows operating systems. Refer this page to see the list in detail.
Not available in SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
Server Monitoring
OpManager provides all the metrics to monitor servers. Some of the key metrics being Windows services monitoring, Server process monitoring, Windows event log monitoring, URL and website monitoring.
Only basic functionalities like CPU, memory disk, and ports can be managed is available in SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM).
DB server
OpManager comes with a free inbuilt PostGres DB. This helps to scale more devices than the SQL express DB.
SolarWinds needs Microsoft SQL server express as the DB server.
The drawback is it comes with a 1GB RAM/10GB DB limitation.
Integration with network configuration management tool
OpManager integrates data from various modules such as bandwidth monitoring, network configuration management, firewall management, IP address management, and switch port management and presents it in a single screen for greater visibility and quick troubleshooting.
SolarWinds NCM is not a part of its NPM and comes as a stand-alone tool only.
OpManager provides tons of value for your networking environment with a simple licensing model and a more affordable pricing. This is why ManageEngine OpManager is considered one of the best SolarWinds alternatives*.
*As per the independent research based on real user ratings, OpManager is considered as one of the best alternatives to SolarWinds NPM.
Recognized as a May 2019 Gartner Peer Insights Customers' Choice for Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics Software Recognised as an April 2019 Gartner Peer Insights Customers' Choice for IT Infrastructure Monitoring Tools. 
Network Management and Monitor Vendor of the Year 2018, 2019 
Entered the 2018 Gartner NPMD Magic Quadrant. 
Ranked #2 in the Infotech Research Software Reviews Data Quadrant 2018.
Independent Research
Licensing Comparison
Feature Comparison
