HOMER vs SolarWinds VoIP & Network Quality Manager
HOMER
sipcapture.orgSolarWinds VoIP & Network Quality Manager
solarwinds.comSide by side
| Figure | HOMER | SolarWinds VoIP & Network Quality Manager |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $8/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · VoIP Monitoring Software | 8.3 (#5) | 7.8 (#9) |
| Deployment | The project supports Docker, and the current HOMER repository documents release packages and Docker builds. | VNQM runs on the SolarWinds Platform as a self-hosted product. |
| Founded | 2011 | 1999 |
| Purpose | HOMER is a VoIP and RTC capture framework for analysis and monitoring. | VNQM monitors VoIP call quality and WAN performance using metrics including jitter, latency, packet loss, round-trip time, and mean opinion score. |
| Security | The site lists payload encryption and TLS support for capture agents. | SolarWinds recommends installing the SolarWinds Platform on a server that is neither public nor internet-facing and recommends HTTPS on port 443 for web-related connections. |
| Support | Commercial support options listed include development support, 24/7 SLA production support, and advanced training; requests are quote-based. | The VNQM support page offers self-led onboarding, product documentation, troubleshooting articles, training resources, and ticket submission. |
Plans
SolarWinds VoIP & Network Quality Manager
- SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted (includes VoIP & Network Quality Manager)$8 a month
In their own words
HOMER
HOMER is a free framework for capturing VoIP and real-time communications traffic for analysis and monitoring. Its listed tools include search, end-to-end analysis, and packet drill-down, together with call-flow and PCAP capture, statistics, analytics, a REST API, and widgets. Capture agents support HEP3 encapsulation, payload encryption and compression, and TLS. The listed core covers SIP, RTCP, RTCP-XR, WebRTC signaling, and log collection. HEP/EEP integrations include Kamailio, OpenSIPS, Captagent, Asterisk, FreeSWITCH, RTPEngine, sipgrep, sngrep, and hepipe. HOMER 11 is described as an all-in-one HEP capture and API server for the 11.x data lake, with ingest, DuckLake storage, a Node using FlightSQL, and a Coordinator with a REST API. Docker is supported, and the project uses the AGPL-3.0 License. The maker presents HOMER for ITSPs, VoIP providers, and trunk suppliers. Commercial development support, 24/7 SLA production support, and advanced training are available by quote.
SolarWinds VoIP & Network Quality Manager
SolarWinds VoIP & Network Quality Manager (VNQM) is a self-hosted tool for monitoring VoIP calls and WAN performance. It tracks jitter, latency, packet loss, round-trip time, and mean opinion score, with synthetic call tests and SIP trunk monitoring. Call detail and management records help locate affected calls, inspect paths, review quality metrics, and identify common error codes. Real-time alerts trigger when user-defined quality or network thresholds are exceeded. VNQM monitors Cisco IP SLA and Juniper RPM operations between source and target devices with current and historical QoS metrics. Supported call managers include Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Cisco CallManager Express, and Avaya Communication and Media Server. It runs on the SolarWinds Platform with web and Windows access. The listed plan including VNQM costs $8 per month; VNQM does not support over six million calls monthly.