SolarWinds ipMonitor alternative: an ipMonitor replacement after end of life, with pricing and competitors compared
Short answer: SolarWinds' own documentation now marks ipMonitor "End of Life", and the old ipMonitor product URL redirects to a different product. Your install keeps running, but it gets no fixes and no support. If most of your monitors are ping, HTTP, port and certificate checks on things customers reach, AlertPing replaces them from three outside regions: 20 monitors for $19 a month, or 100 monitors with 30-second checks for $59. If your monitors are SNMP, WMI, Windows services or disk space, look at PRTG, Zabbix or OpManager instead, because we do not do that work.
Lifecycle status read from documentation.solarwinds.com and solarwinds.com
alertping ▸ check preview
simulated
▸ type a domain to watch a check and an alert play out
▸ simulation of 3 regions · FRA · IAD · SIN
▸ waiting…▌
queued
probing▌
If ever goes down, you get:
Alert fired ▸ 2 channels · 6.2 s after first failure
AlertPing app
● DOWN : HTTP timeout confirmed from 3/3 regions (FRA, IAD, SIN). Incident opened.
sms · on-call
AlertPing: DOWN. Confirmed 3/3 regions . First fail: Frankfurt.
Simulation, not a measurement of your site: this preview runs entirely in your browser and the latencies are generated from the domain you typed. Real checks on your monitors run from our Frankfurt, Virginia and Singapore regions.
where ipmonitor stands
Is SolarWinds ipMonitor end of life?
Yes. The ipMonitor section of SolarWinds' documentation site now shows a single line, "This product has reached End of Life", and forwards visitors to the company's end-of-life notice. The ipMonitor page on solarwinds.com no longer exists: the old address now lands on IP Address Manager, which manages IP address space and does not replace an up/down monitor. Users on SolarWinds' own THWACK forum put the end-of-life date at the end of 2024, and the last release they could find was version 11.2 from April 2022.
It still runs. That is the trap.
A perpetual license does not switch off, so plenty of ipMonitor servers are still polling today. Nothing forces the decision, which is exactly why the box ends up forgotten on an unpatched Windows server until the day an alert should have fired and did not.
No fixes, no support, no renewals
Under SolarWinds' published end-of-life policy, technical support runs until the end-of-life date and not after it. There will be no new version to test against Windows Server updates, browser changes or TLS changes on the endpoints you watch.
It holds your credentials
ipMonitor pulled performance counters and service states, which means it stores accounts that can log in to your servers. An unmaintained application holding domain credentials is a security finding in any audit, and it is usually the argument that gets the replacement budget approved.
the honest frame
ipMonitor did two jobs. Decide which one you are replacing.
SolarWinds sold ipMonitor as "essential up/down and performance monitoring for networks, servers, and applications". In practice every install is a mix of two kinds of monitor, and no single product replaces both well. Open the monitor list and sort it by type before you shortlist anything, because the split decides the answer.
job 1 · outside in
Can people reach it?
Ping monitors on public hosts, HTTP and HTTPS checks on websites and APIs, TCP port checks on mail, FTP or custom services, and content checks that look for a word on a page. These do not need to live on your network, and they are more honest when they do not, because a monitor inside the building cannot see a DNS failure or a broken upstream route the way a customer does.
AlertPing replaces this job completely.
job 2 · inside out
Is the infrastructure healthy?
SNMP polling of switches and routers, WMI performance counters, CPU, memory and disk thresholds, Windows service and event log monitors, and recovery actions such as restarting a stopped service. All of it needs credentials and a vantage point inside your network.
AlertPing does not do this job. Use PRTG, Zabbix, Checkmk or ManageEngine OpManager.
side by side
AlertPing vs SolarWinds ipMonitor, row by row
ipMonitor wins every internal row. AlertPing wins on vantage point, confirmation, status pages and the simple fact that it is maintained.
| Capability | AlertPing | SolarWinds ipMonitor |
|---|---|---|
| Product status | Sold and developed | End of life, no longer sold or supported |
| Where it runs | Hosted, nothing to install | Self-contained install on your own Windows server |
| Where checks come from | 3 regions: Frankfurt, Ashburn, Singapore | The server it is installed on |
| Outage confirmation | Failure re-run from the other two regions before anyone is paged | Decided by the one server doing the checking |
| Ping (ICMP) | Yes | Yes |
| HTTP, HTTPS and API checks | Yes, with status, keyword, JSON and response-time assertions | Yes, including content matching |
| TCP and UDP port checks | Yes | Yes |
| Cron and scheduled job heartbeats | Yes | No |
| SNMP, WMI, Windows services, event logs | No | Yes, this is where it earned its keep |
| CPU, memory and disk thresholds | No | Yes |
| Recovery actions (restart a service, run a script) | No, a webhook can trigger your own automation | Yes |
| Public status page | Yes, 1 to 20 pages by plan, custom domain from Business | No, an internal console and NOC view |
| SMS alerts | Included on every plan, no credit packs | Through a gateway you configure |
| Price model | $19, $59 or $189 a month, or 20% off yearly | One-time perpetual license tiered by monitor count, no longer on sale |
the shortlist
ipMonitor alternatives, sorted by the job they replace
Prices are US dollars from each vendor's own pricing page where it publishes one. Where a vendor only quotes, the table says so rather than guessing.
| Tool | Replaces | Runs | Entry price | Fastest check | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AlertPing | Job 1 | Hosted, 3 regions | $19/mo, 20 monitors | 30 s from $59, 15 s on Enterprise | Public sites, APIs, ports, certificates, status pages |
| Paessler PRTG | Both jobs | Your Windows server, or hosted | Free to 100 sensors, then $200/mo billed annually for 500 | 30 s default | A like-for-like on-premises swap with SNMP and WMI |
| Zabbix | Job 2, some of job 1 | Self-hosted | Open source, you run and patch it | Configurable | Teams with Linux skills and time to maintain it |
| Checkmk | Job 2, some of job 1 | Self-hosted or cloud | Free Raw edition, paid editions quoted | Configurable | Large server estates that want auto-discovery |
| ManageEngine OpManager | Job 2 | Your Windows or Linux server | Quoted by device count | Configurable | Network teams moving off a SolarWinds stack |
| UptimeRobot | Job 1 | Hosted | About $9/mo billed annually, 10 monitors | 30 s on Team, 15 s on Scale | The cheapest outside-in checks |
| StatusCake | Job 1 | Hosted | $20.41/mo billed annually, 100 monitors | 30 s on Business ($66.66/mo annual) | Many monitors at a 1-minute interval |
The closest like-for-like is PRTG
Same shape as ipMonitor: an on-premises Windows install that does SNMP, WMI and HTTP from one console. The catch is the price list, which jumps from the free 100 sensors straight to $2,400 a year. Our PRTG alternative page works through when that is worth paying.
SolarWinds will offer you the big suite
The in-house path is SolarWinds' larger platform, where Network Performance Monitor and Server & Application Monitor now sit inside Hybrid Cloud Observability, priced by quote. It does far more than ipMonitor did. Whether a team that bought ipMonitor for its simplicity wants that is a fair question to ask before the sales call.
Splitting the jobs is often cheapest
Move the public checks to a hosted monitor and the internal checks to a free or open source tool. The internal tool no longer has to be reachable from outside, and the hosted one keeps paging when the office connection is the thing that failed.
what we do not replace
Six things your ipMonitor did that AlertPing will not
If any of these carries real weight in your monitor list, that part needs an internal tool, and you should budget for one alongside or instead of us.
SNMP polling
Interface status, bandwidth and hardware health on switches, routers, printers and UPS units. No outside service can read these.
WMI and performance counters
CPU, memory, disk and any Windows counter you pointed it at. That needs a logged-in poller on your network.
Windows services and event logs
Alerting when the print spooler stops or an event ID appears. If the service answers on a port, we can check the port. We cannot read the service manager.
Recovery actions
Restarting a service or rebooting a box on failure. Our webhook alerts can start your own automation, but we do not log in and fix things.
Hosts with no public address
File servers, domain controllers, databases on a private subnet. We can only check what the internet can reach.
A free tier
ipMonitor had a free edition capped at 50 monitors. We have no free plan. If free is the requirement, PRTG Freeware or Zabbix is the honest answer.
the money
What replacing the outside-in monitors costs per year
ipMonitor was bought once, so there is no ipMonitor column to beat. The useful comparison is against the like-for-like replacement you would otherwise buy, which for most ipMonitor estates is PRTG. One PRTG sensor and one AlertPing monitor both mean one checked thing.
| Public endpoints | AlertPing plan | AlertPing per year | Per monitor per year | PRTG per year | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 20, 60-second checks | Starter | $180 | $9.00 | $2,400 (PRTG 500) | $2,220 less, 92.5% |
| Up to 100, 30-second checks | Team | $564 | $5.64 | $2,400 (PRTG 500) | $1,836 less, 76.5% |
| Up to 500, 30-second checks | Business | $1,812 | $3.62 | $2,400 (PRTG 500) | $588 less, 24.5% |
Against the license you already paid for
Directory listings put ipMonitor's entry license at about $1,495 one time. That is 2.65 years of our Team plan or 8.3 years of Starter. The license is a sunk cost either way. What you are really deciding is what the next five years of monitoring cost, and on an end-of-life product that includes the risk nobody is pricing.
The Windows server is a line item too
ipMonitor needed a Windows host, its license, its patching and its backups. A hosted monitor removes that machine from the job. For the outside-in half, that server was also the single vantage point, so retiring it improves the measurement as well as the bill.
The gap closes at scale
At 20 endpoints PRTG costs 13 times what we do, because you pay for 480 sensors you never use. At 500 the gap is 24.5% and PRTG also covers the internal half. Read the table from left to right before assuming either answer.
who buys which
Four common ipMonitor estates, and what to replace them with
Mostly websites, APIs and mail ports
Thirty HTTP monitors, a few ping checks on public hosts, SMTP and IMAP ports, and nothing that needs a login. Take the hosted monitor and retire the Windows box.
Mostly servers and services on a LAN
Disk space, CPU, stopped services, event log alerts on twenty Windows servers. Take PRTG, Zabbix or OpManager. An outside checker cannot see any of it, and we would be the wrong purchase.
An MSP watching client sites
Client websites and portals you do not host, each client wanting its own view of uptime. Take the hosted monitor with a status page per client, and see uptime monitoring for agencies.
A real mix of both
Half public endpoints, half internal servers. Split it. The free PRTG edition covers 100 internal sensors and the public checks move outside, where they keep working when your own network is the outage.
moving off ipmonitor
How to replace ipMonitor in four steps
step 1
Export the monitor list
Pull every monitor with its type, target and alert recipients. Mark each one outside-in or inside-out. The ratio tells you which products to trial.
step 2
Recreate the public checks
One monitor per target. Carry over the expected status code and the content match, and add a certificate expiry monitor for every HTTPS host while you are there.
step 3
Run both for two weeks
Keep ipMonitor polling and compare. Expect the outside checks to catch DNS and routing failures the internal server never saw, and to stay quiet during blips it paged you for.
step 4
Retire the server properly
Once the internal half has a new home, rotate every credential ipMonitor stored, then decommission the host. Skipping the rotation leaves live accounts behind.
questions people ask
SolarWinds ipMonitor replacement questions
Is SolarWinds ipMonitor discontinued?
Yes. SolarWinds' documentation site labels ipMonitor "This product has reached End of Life", and the ipMonitor page on solarwinds.com now redirects to IP Address Manager. Community reports on SolarWinds' THWACK forum place the end-of-life date at the end of 2024, with no release since version 11.2 in April 2022.
What is the best SolarWinds ipMonitor alternative?
It depends on what your monitors watch. For public websites, APIs, ports and certificates, a hosted monitor such as AlertPing replaces them from $19 a month and adds status pages. For SNMP, WMI and Windows services, PRTG is the closest on-premises match, with Zabbix, Checkmk and ManageEngine OpManager as the other serious options.
Can I keep using ipMonitor after end of life?
Technically yes, because a perpetual license keeps working. Practically it gets no bug fixes, no security patches and no support, it depends on a Windows server you must keep patched around it, and it stores credentials for the machines it watches. Treat it as a migration deadline, not a stable state.
What was SolarWinds ipMonitor used for?
Up/down and basic performance monitoring for small networks from one Windows install: ping and port checks, HTTP content checks, Windows service monitors, performance counters and recovery actions. SolarWinds positioned it as the simple, agentless option below its larger Orion products.
How much did ipMonitor cost?
It was a one-time perpetual license tiered by monitor count, with reseller listings for tiers such as 500 and 2,500 monitors and directory listings quoting an entry price of about $1,495. A free edition covered up to 50 monitors. None of it can be bought new now.
Can a hosted monitor replace ipMonitor?
For the outside-in half, yes, and it does that half better: checks come from several regions rather than from one server inside your network, and a failure is confirmed elsewhere before anyone is paged. For SNMP, WMI and private hosts, no hosted monitor can replace it.
Does SolarWinds have a replacement for ipMonitor?
SolarWinds' remaining monitoring products are its larger platforms, where Network Performance Monitor and Server & Application Monitor are sold within Hybrid Cloud Observability on quoted pricing. They cover everything ipMonitor did and much more, at a different price and complexity level from the tool you are replacing.
How long does it take to move off ipMonitor?
The public checks take an afternoon: one monitor per target, carried over with its status code and content match. Run both systems in parallel for two weeks, then rotate the credentials ipMonitor held and retire the server. The internal half takes as long as the tool you choose for it.
keep reading
Related comparisons and pricing breakdowns
how we page you
Three regions have to agree
A single failed probe never wakes anybody. Frankfurt, Virginia and Singapore all re-check first, so a hiccup on one route is not a 3am phone call.
what a plan covers
SMS is in the price, not in credits
SMS, email, Slack and webhook alerts are unlimited on every plan, and each plan hosts status pages. No credit packs, no per-message fee, no per-monitor math.
how setup works
One URL, no agent to install
Paste the address, choose where alerts go, and the first check runs from all three regions. No agent, no config file, nothing to deploy on your side.
Replace ipMonitor's public checks without another Windows server
Websites, APIs, ICMP hosts, TCP and UDP ports, SSL certificates and cron heartbeats, confirmed from three regions before anyone is paged. Flat from $19 a month, with 30-second checks from $59.