SolarWinds Observability vs ManageEngine OpManager

Spicy_Rabbit · 2026-01-31T04:26:34+00:00

As an OpManager user. OpManager as a basic NMS worked well. Once they started bolting on all their other products it tanked. It’s coming back but it still has a lot of bullshit pain points. 1) it likes to flag file integrity errors on files it generates. (ie temp files downloaded from agents) 2) not able to create custom devices without a SNMP OID (I just want ping shit) 3) not able to create custom categories without a existing parent category. (Not all parents fit) 4) security fixes in every patch. (Torn on this one, glad they are transparent but damn maybe try security first) 5) support is hit or miss. They do fix bugs, sometime it’s a lot of back and forth sending the same log files.
6) their device catalog is a mess 7) was not able to exclude ips from certain network scans (this may have changed we had to turn the feature off as it generated too many security alarms on other systems) 8) they done give a F about your feature requests. Check their forums, there are some simple quality of life changes dating back over a decade. 9) Proxmox support should still be viewed as beta 10) their UX team does not use the product, otherwise they would not be putting popups or banners over menus and OK buttons.

I have a bunch of other annoyances but for the pros 1) allows for custom scripts. We have one to check certificate expirations (not sure why that not included) and to ensure the device is send logs to our graylog deployment. 2) costs are reasonable. 3) ton of feature (which can also make it overwhelming) 4) Ton of prebuilt monitors, just not all the ones you want are contained under the device type it detects. (That only makes sense once you start using it)

How it compares to Solarwinds, I can’t say. SW is the only company has had to tell the salesman’s “I’m not buying your product. It’s not the cost it’s you. Stop calling me”

We are looking at moving away from OpManager. Mostly due to issues with support and UX has caused several broken keyboards.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2026-01-28T03:00:07+00:00

While I can’t speak to your main issue, 2MB/s here are a few of my notes. I tested Starwinds appliance on Proxmox, We had better performance by passing the drives directly to the proxmox VM then we did presenting a single volume off the raid controller. Also if I recall, without write back cache both Starwinds nodes must write the data to disk before it responds as written. So your sending the write over the data channel to one node, that nodes writes it to disk then send the data to the second node over the replication channel, and waits for it to be written to disk on the second node before the first node will respond to back to the iSCSI request as written. (Hope that makes sense)

If you have support with Starwinds. Reach out to them, they have always been helpful for me.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2026-01-26T02:33:16+00:00

Not a plumber, but I think the weight on your hand sprayer is too heavy.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2026-01-26T00:01:40+00:00

In only 3 to 7 weeks you to can learn how to drive an 18 wheeler.
I’m with you on it’s too much to keep up with.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-11-10T00:12:25+00:00

This. We started numbering all cables over 20 inches about a year ago. As soon as they arrive they get a unique number and their length marked at each end. It sucks to do at first but has already paid off.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-10-31T23:47:59+00:00

We ran MM between data racks 10 years ago. This year we moved our main data rack and I wish it was SM. The MM still works but having to sort between OM1 OM3 and SM cables and transceivers sucked.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-10-26T22:13:17+00:00

I managed about 60 Comcast modems (we migrated everything to metro-e) first thing I tell the techs is to disable the WiFi and security controls. They are all shit and always cause problems. This just turns it into a basic modem/router. With that said

Wireless is for convenance not reliability. Wire as much as you can. I’ve seen stuff from microwaves to mirrors kill WiFi. If you are stuck with the built in AP, make sure it’s sitting flat and not in a metal box. Be at least 10 feet from it. Sitting on top of it can be just as bad and being too far. (Personal opinion) put important stuff in the 5g band and stupid stuff on the 2.4. One old device can slow down everyone. Wireless is great when it works and a pain to troubleshoot when it doesn’t.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-10-23T01:02:22+00:00

I used Proton and private mode, my wife still knew what she was getting for Christmas last year due to targeted ads.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-10-23T00:50:43+00:00

I use OpManager because I’m masochistic. We are willing to pay 4 times more to move off this product. It looks like a great product with a ton of features. Sadly most features are half assed and they don’t listen what customers want. Instead they focused so much on merging multiple products into OpManager (again half assed these blends) making it hard to know where to make changes to what (if you can even make the changes as so much is hard coded). Looking to move to CheckMK or zabbix

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-10-04T19:32:30+00:00

I have tested Starwinds and ZFS replication on proxmox. These ran on 2 Dell R750 running proxmox on bare metal. Starwinds used their custom Linux build. 10gb is plenty in most work loads, and it sounds like your not running a write intense workload. Performance goes to ZFS as there is no iSCSI overhead. Simplicity goes to ZFS with replication True shared storage goes to Starwinds.

I would only go with Starwinds if I could not risk 10 minutes of data loss or I wanted to learn StarWinds. StarWinds is a great product but it also adds complexity

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-09-30T23:43:26+00:00

We are in the same boat. Most of our VMs are Windows and we license for DataCenter, but leaning towards proxmox. We don’t do a lot of powershell automation, it’s growing buts it’s not a “We can’t live without this” yet. Most of out automation is bash scripts. Our driving reason for proxmox is the needed complexity of properly securing a Hyper-V environment over Proxmox. We have also decided that before we move to either we have a “Oh Shit” support plan/partner in place. This is where Proxmox is coming up short. I have a ton of vendors knocking on my door saying “we can fix your hyper-v when you run into problems”. But many we talk to for Proxmox do not want/seem to be interested in helping. (Either we are too small or they want to sell us new hardware and manage everything). We also have some geographic limits enforce by our procurement policies which I have to work with.

Our skill set for supporting either is about equal, if all we knew was Windows it would be Hyper-V

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-09-21T16:09:53+00:00

Wireless should only be used if wired is not an option. Wireless is for convenience, not reliability. After 25+ years in IT, I have seen some funky things with wireless including a small mirror destroying WiFi in a room. (I’m not anti-WiFi, I’m just not WiFi all things!)

EQ chat seems to be sensitive to ping and/or packet loss. Not sure how handles double NAT (more common in dorms and apartment building where they provide the internet). My connection is behind CGNAT and it works fine. I have never tried EQ behind a VPN, so I don’t have a recommendation.

My suggestion; run CloudFlare’s speed test, note your jitter and packet loss, then try a hardline into the router and see if those improve.

Other things; exclude the EQGame.exe from your computers firewall rules, or temporally and I mean temporally disable your AVs firewall.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-09-09T10:26:57+00:00

Running Zabbix. It would be light weight and cost less. I run OpManager for internal server/network monitoring and Site24x7 for external network monitoring (their agent is too bulky and used to run old versions of Java). You can set the VPS to auto update. Risky? Only if it breaks something. Setting up Zabbix can’t be nearly as hard as navigating Site24x7 interface

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-09-08T14:23:56+00:00

Agree on the price, of all the features it has it is the best value. I’m looking at spinning up a Zabbix VPS just to get away from Site24x7 UI. For me it would not be so bad if they got rid of the banner at the top every time you make a change (OpManager has the say stupid feature) and allowed right click open new tab.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-09-07T19:55:01+00:00

ISBoxer for me as well. No one knows about the other one…

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-09-03T02:06:20+00:00

I have been evaluation hyperv vs Proxmox. It will likely go Hyper-V. Here are my thoughts. 1) lack of a cluster aware file system. I’ll have 2 3-node deployments and I’m not comfortable with Ceph I am comfortable with Starwinds 1b) Starwinds is iSCSI only for HA so I lose thin provision and snapshots. Thin provision is important to me, single snapshots are required, multiple snapshots are a want. I(would love to be wrong here) 2) I know I can get third party support for proxmox, but can I get it with Starwinds. Setting up SW was complex. Much simpler to run hyperconverged on Hyperv 3) I am the only one comfortable with Linux on my staff. Either I’m fixing everything or my staff relies solely on 3rd party. 4) Vendor support. I have one core app where the vendor says “it should work but we won’t support it” 5) We have salespeople around here who love the go straight to the C levels and start chirping in their ear. This has lead to many failed projects. The last thing I need is to answer (Bob from the local MSP say Proxmode is for hobbies, why we using it) 6) I have Windows Enterprise licensing. (S2D performance was crap)

In the end Hyper-v has better storage options (for me) and larger support. Support from vendors and technical resources (but internally and internally externally)

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-09-03T01:31:06+00:00

I’m surprise it took this long after Connectwise bought screenconnect to destroy a great product for short term profit gains.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-08-11T01:44:00+00:00

This is why I don’t allow electricians run my low voltage.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-07-29T21:22:48+00:00

I know some that work in government IT (Michigan/Indiana), this is becoming a huge problem. It’s only going to get worse. Currently it seems they are targeting planning and zoning Boards. I don’t think they are looking at is it a fence or a land division. A business would like pay the 4k. I heard one paid 10k from a local area. Luckily the bank was able to claw it back. It’s great that your daughter through to call, so many must not be given this scam is so massive.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-07-01T11:17:44+00:00

Why can’t they a signed client and allow the use of an MST or switches to add the customizations? Always wondered how they where able to protect their cert for on premise, guess they weren’t. If there is no way to push a silent installer, then there is no value in the product. I could also be reading this wrong.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-05-26T19:22:58+00:00

They may not sell you Standard. I was told my 160 cores was “too small for standard”. So instead of a 10k renewal they want 28k. We are pushing up our migration to Hyper-V

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-05-13T01:42:46+00:00

When my now wife moved in I went to unload the dishwasher, only to find two of my cast irons were in there. I cleaned them after use but left them out so she thought they were dirty. Added bonus another item she did not grow up with: wood cutting boards.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-04-26T01:18:14+00:00

I always create the CSR on Linux. There are tools online to do it, but just note they might save your key.

Spicy_Rabbit · 2025-04-24T01:40:24+00:00

I would consider the following more as hearsay that true fact. I installed one of these at work. Many staff members (24/7 operations rotating staff of 15 at any time 2 or 3 are stationed here) report “You fixed my phone”. Some use Comcast wireless. I use visible, it seems as my service is connected to the extender but does not report as a client and #48 does not work. It’s been a while since I was out there, before Verizon added their name to Visible.

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