We compared Amazon CloudWatch and SolarWinds NPM based on our users' reviews in five categories. We reviewed all of the data and you can find the conclusion below.
Features: Amazon CloudWatch users liked the solution’s simplicity, intuitive interface, and ability to handle large workloads. Users also praised CloudWatch’s comprehensive monitoring and alerts. SolarWinds NPM is commended for its adaptability and extensive network surveillance functionalities.
Room for improvement: Some reviews mentioned that Amazon CloudWatch could improve performance and dashboard visualization. Others noted that the solution lacked compatibility with some databases. SolarWinds NPM needs improvement in edge computing capabilities and data reporting. Users also said the performance could be better and that they would like to see expanded IPAM functionality.
Service and Support: Customers generally have positive opinions about Amazon's customer service. They commended the support team for its availability and timely issue resolution. While some customers described SolarWinds support as helpful and responsive, others reported delayed responses.
Ease of Deployment: Amazon CloudWatch is generally described as easy to set up. Some users said SolarWinds NPM was straightforward to set up, while others perceived it as complex.
Pricing: Amazon CloudWatch offers a flexible pricing structure based on usage and processing without any separate licensing cost. Some users said that scaling up can be costly due to the need for additional storage space. The cost of SolarWinds NPM varies depending on the customer’s size and requirements. Some users find it costly.
ROI: Amazon CloudWatch offers a return on investment by minimizing the need for manual monitoring. Some users reported immediate benefits from using SolarWinds NPM in terms of security and business outcomes, while others have not.
Comparison Results: Reviewers say that Amazon CloudWatch is a simple, intuitive solution that can handle large workloads, but some mentioned dashboard visualization and customizability as areas for improvement. SolarWinds NPM is a customizable solution that’s easy to deploy and features comprehensive network monitoring capabilities. However, some users consider it costly and voiced concerns about technical support and user experience.
"The solution effectively monitors golden signals like CPU, page requests, and queues."
"The most valuable features of Amazon CloudWatch are metrics, dashboards, alarms, logs, events, logs insight, and application insights."
"What my company likes best about Amazon CloudWatch is that it's on AWS. My team also likes it for its log feature. As the solution is on AWS, it also has good pricing and resource availability, plus it's what clients choose. My company also chose AWS for Forge ECS, and at the time, there was a need for the log features provided by Amazon CloudWatch, so it's the solution my team went with."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is its ease of use and logs. You do not have to go to each separate system to see the logs, such as Syslog and they are located in one dashboard GUI."
"Setting up this product was easy. I found data analytics as its most valuable feature."
"It is a stable solution...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"The monitoring feature is valuable."
"CloudWatch immediately hooks up and connects to the KPIs and all the metrics."
"All the features are very good. The monitoring of the equipment, the configuration manager, and the IP address monitoring are great."
"Monitoring capabilities are at a high level and it is easy to see utilization, access ports, and CPU memory in real time or through a lens for long-term visualization."
"A product that is well-tested and trusted in demanding situations."
"The solution is extremely stable. We haven't had any issues in that regard. We haven't had issues with bugs, glitches, or crashes."
"The interface is user-friendly, making it easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the monitoring capabilities."
"The alerting and usage tracking notifications on disk space capacity, network and processor utilization."
"The connectivity of the solution is very good."
"For monitoring applications or for APM, CloudWatch has some limitations. You cannot monitor application performance from CloudWatch, and you have to go for a third-party tool."
"CloudWatch doesn’t monitor disk throughput by default."
"Amazon CloudWatch's pricing needs improvement."
"The solution's auto-scaling could be improved."
"It is hard to configure; it is not a straightforward tool."
"I found several areas for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch. First is that it's tough to track issues and find out where it's going wrong. The process takes longer. For example, if I get an exception error, I read the logs, search, go to AWS Cloud, then to the groups to find the keyword to determine what's wrong. Another area for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch is that it's slow in terms of log streaming. It requires an entire twenty-four hours for scanning, rather than just one hour. This issue can be solved with Elasticsearch streaming with Kibana, but it requires a lot of development effort and integration with Kibana or Splunk, and this also means I need a separate developer and software technical stack to do the indexing and streaming to Kibana. It's a manual effort that you need to do properly, so log streaming should be improved in Amazon CloudWatch. The AWS support person should also have a better understanding of the logs in Amazon CloudWatch. What I'd like added to the solution is a more advanced search function, particularly one that can tell you more information or special information. Right now, the search function is difficult to use because it only gives you limited data. For example, I got an error message saying that the policy wasn't created. I only know the amount the customer paid for the policy, the mobile number, and the customer name, but if I use those details, the information won't show up on the logs. I need to enter more details, so that's the type of fuzzy matching Amazon CloudWatch won't provide. If this type of search functionality is provided, it will be very helpful for businesses and companies that provide professional services to customers, like ours."
"The product’s documentation must be improved."
"I would like to monitor inbound and outbound transfer. I would also like to control the traffic for load balancing."
"The price of the solution can be improved."
"Technical support can be slow to respond."
"The solution's network discovery and node addition processes need more work."
"Better offline license management. I’ve had to get in touch with customer support several times simply to remove an expired license from our NPM servers."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"There needs to be more integration of widgets, especially for reporting purposes."
"The integration with video apps could be better."
"This product could improve by adding cloud monitoring. I want SolarWinds NPM to do much more integration, and have more involvement in cloud monitoring, like AWS or Google, or Azure. I feel like it requires lots of improvement for cloud monitoring in NPM."
Amazon CloudWatch is ranked 9th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 40 reviews while SolarWinds NPM is ranked 6th in Cloud Monitoring Software with 147 reviews. Amazon CloudWatch is rated 8.0, while SolarWinds NPM is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Amazon CloudWatch writes "Instantaneous response when monitoring logs and KPIs". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds NPM writes "High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface". Amazon CloudWatch is most compared with Zabbix, Datadog, Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver), Dynatrace and Instana Infrastructure Monitoring, whereas SolarWinds NPM is most compared with Zabbix, PRTG Network Monitor, ManageEngine OpManager, ThousandEyes and Entuity. See our Amazon CloudWatch vs. SolarWinds NPM report.
See our list of best Cloud Monitoring Software vendors.
We monitor all Cloud Monitoring Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.