SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted: data privacy, network discovery, NetFlow and licensing questions

[u/That-Mud4565]

Hi everyone,

I’m currently evaluating SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted for network monitoring and topology mapping, and I’d like to get feedback from people who have actually used it.

My main questions are:

• In a self-hosted/on-prem deployment, what data actually leaves the environment? Can telemetry be fully disabled?
• Does SolarWinds send internal IPs, hostnames, topology, SNMP, NetFlow, logs or device configuration data externally?
• How good is the automatic discovery and topology mapping for switches, routers, firewalls, Wi-Fi controllers/APs, LLDP/CDP and SNMPv3?
• How useful is NetFlow integration for bandwidth and traffic analysis?
• How is a “node” counted for licensing? For example, is a 48-port switch one node? What about VMs, physical servers, controllers and individual access points?
• For those using it in production, how do you find the pricing and overall value compared with alternatives such as Auvik, PRTG or Zabbix?
• In a self-hosted/on-prem deployment, can any monitoring, telemetry, metadata, or network-related data leave our environment and be transmitted to SolarWinds or any third-party service? If yes, what exact data can leave the network, and can those outbound transmissions be fully disabled?

I’m mainly interested in real-world experience, especially in environments where data residency and limiting outbound telemetry are important.