See What 5-Minute Monitoring Misses

For most organizations, yes - Netdata provides comprehensive monitoring for servers, applications, containers, and cloud infrastructure. However, if you heavily rely on SolarWinds’ traditional network device monitoring (NPM/NCM for SNMP topology mapping, flow analysis, or configuration management), you may want to keep a network-specific tool or use an open-source alternative like LibreNMS. Most customers use Netdata for 80% of infrastructure (cloud, containers, apps) and specialized tools for the 20% (network core), still achieving significant cost savings vs all-SolarWinds.

The difference is fundamental: SolarWinds collects data every 5 minutes (300 seconds), while Netdata collects every second - making Netdata 300× more granular. Most operational issues last 2-10 seconds, meaning SolarWinds’ 5-minute polling misses most brief problems completely. For example, a database query using 100% CPU for 5 seconds every 20 seconds appears as harmless 25% average in SolarWinds, but Netdata shows the actual 100% spikes. This isn’t just faster - it’s the difference between seeing problems and being blind to them.

SolarWinds customers report dramatic renewal increases following the August 2025 subscription mandate and 3-year commitment requirements. Documented examples include perpetual licenses becoming expensive subscriptions, and significant pricing jumps. Netdata’s transparent per-node pricing eliminates surprise renewals - costs scale linearly and predictably as you grow, with no charges for metrics volume, logs, or users.

Netdata installs in 60 seconds with a single command, auto-discovers your infrastructure, generates dashboards algorithmically, and activates ML anomaly detection in 15 minutes - achieving full visibility in under 1 hour. SolarWinds requires weeks of deployment: Windows Server setup, SQL Server configuration, SNMP/WMI tuning, manual dashboard building, and threshold configuration. Organizations report 6-12 weeks from purchase to production with SolarWinds vs same-day deployment with Netdata.

Yes, Netdata runs natively on Windows Server 2016-2025 with comprehensive system monitoring, including CPU, memory, disk, network, processes, services, and Windows Event Logs (WEL/ETW/TraceLogging). However, SolarWinds has 20+ years of Windows-specific integrations (deep Active Directory, Exchange, IIS monitoring) that Netdata doesn’t match. For most Windows environments, Netdata provides excellent coverage; for specialized Windows-centric needs, evaluate specific requirements.

We recommend parallel running - deploy Netdata alongside SolarWinds with zero risk. This lets you validate coverage, compare dashboards side-by-side, and identify gaps before making decisions. Most customers run both for 30-90 days, document what Netdata catches that SolarWinds missed (sub-5-minute events), then reduce or eliminate SolarWinds gracefully. Your SolarWinds expertise isn’t wasted - it helps you validate the migration and ensures nothing is missed.

SolarWinds requires manual threshold tuning for every metric, creating alert fatigue from false positives and coverage gaps. Netdata reduces alert fatigue through component-level alerts that are more accurate and actionable than generic thresholds, plus intelligent alert configuration with hysteresis protection and configurable delays. The Anomaly Advisor helps by correlating related issues, surfacing root causes in the top 30-50 metrics instead of generating hundreds of disconnected alerts. Note: ML anomaly detection is a separate visibility signal - it doesn’t filter or suppress traditional alerts.

The 2020 Sunburst supply chain breach creates ongoing audit friction for SolarWinds customers - banks are blacklisting the product, and compliance teams scrutinize every deployment. Netdata has a clean security record, SOC 2 Type 2 certification, and open-source transparency (inspect all code). Our edge-native architecture keeps all observability data on-premise with no central attack surface, eliminating the audit challenges SolarWinds customers face. Customers report faster compliance approvals and reduced security questionnaire burden.

Netdata supports SNMP monitoring for network devices but doesn’t match SolarWinds NPM’s depth in traditional network topology mapping, NetFlow analysis, or configuration management. If network device monitoring is your primary requirement, SolarWinds NPM remains strong. However, for modern infrastructure (servers, containers, Kubernetes, cloud), Netdata excels where SolarWinds struggles. Many customers use Netdata for infrastructure and keep a network-specific tool (or use open-source alternatives like LibreNMS) for traditional network devices.

SolarWinds offers limited ML capabilities (primarily in DPA for database wait-time prediction) requiring manual configuration. Netdata runs unsupervised ML on every metric automatically - 18 k-means models per metric trained locally at the edge, achieving 99% false positive reduction in anomaly detection through multi-model consensus. No setup, no tuning, no cloud dependency. The ML trains continuously as data arrives, adapts to infrastructure changes automatically, and provides real-time anomaly detection with sub-2-second latency. This is ML as a first-class citizen, not an add-on feature.

Netdata isn’t a Service Desk replacement - it’s monitoring and observability. We integrate with your existing ITSM via webhooks (ServiceNow, Jira, FreshService, etc.). Most customers keep their ITSM and replace only the monitoring layer, which still delivers significant cost reduction because SolarWinds’ module-based pricing makes monitoring the expensive part. If you primarily need ticketing/CMDB and monitoring is secondary, SolarWinds Service Desk may be a better fit. If you need best-in-class monitoring with ITSM integration, Netdata excels.

Both provide strong database monitoring, but with different approaches. SolarWinds DPA offers deep SQL Server/Oracle query plan analysis and wait-time breakdown - excellent for DBAs doing detailed tuning. Netdata provides real-time database monitoring with ML anomaly detection across all database types (SQL and NoSQL), capturing per-second performance metrics and query analysis. For most database monitoring needs, Netdata’s real-time visibility and automatic anomaly detection are superior. For specialized SQL Server tuning, DPA’s depth may be preferred.

Perfect timing for parallel running validation. Deploy Netdata alongside SolarWinds now (60 seconds), validate over 12 months that it meets your needs, and make a confident decision before renewal. This approach also helps with budget planning - your CFO needs accurate numbers, and our migration program helps you budget the replacement cost vs surprise renewal increases. Plus, documenting gaps SolarWinds missed strengthens your negotiation position at renewal time.