Elastic Observability vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Elastic Observability

Read 22 Elastic Observability reviews

12,488 Views
10,395 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 38 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

5,067 Views
3,318 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Elastic Observability

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 28, 2023

We performed a comparison between Elastic Observability and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor based on real PeerSpot user reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

Ease of Deployment: Elastic Observability and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor's setup can be complex and vary in time depending on the size and environment. Elastic Observability has a distributed nature and multiple cluster configurations, while SolarWinds can take anywhere from a few hours to two months to complete. There are mixed opinions on the ease of setup for both products.

Features: Elastic offers machine learning and custom development, while SolarWinds provides infrastructure dependency mapping and network devices' performance monitor. Despite their differences, both have valuable features.

Pricing: Elastic Observability's pricing depends on license and usage, while SolarWinds' pricing is based on the number of devices and modules. Elastic Observability has open source components, but some features require payment. Some reviewers find SolarWinds expensive compared to competitors, but it has no additional costs.

Service and Support: Elastic Observability's customer service has been praised for its great tech support and helpful online community. On the other hand, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor's support has mixed reviews with some positive experiences, but there is room for improvement in turnaround time and escalation points.

ROI: Elastic Observability is praised for being cost-effective, reducing incidents, and providing complete visibility. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, on the other hand, is noted for improving performance, reducing downtime, and increasing productivity. Both options offer a positive ROI, but they have different features.

Comparison Results: Elastic Observability is the preferred solution as it offers more advanced features, such as machine learning and custom development, as well as better visualization and metrics. Although there is a steep learning curve, customer service and support have been positive. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor has room for improvement in terms of stability, flexibility, ease of use, performance, integration, and pricing. The product is considered expensive, and the report feature is difficult to use.

To learn more, read our detailed Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: May 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

May 2024

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Helped 787,061 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Elastic Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

7th

Average Rating

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (10th), Log Management (14th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

17th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (11th), Active Directory Management (8th)

Market share comparison

As of June 2024, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the market share of Elastic Observability is 6.8% and it increased by 41.6% compared to the previous year. The market share of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.2% and it increased by 8.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Unique Categories:

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

4.0%

Log Management

1.2%

Server Monitoring

3.6%

Active Directory Management

0.8%

Featured Reviews

Jherzon Nava

IT Manager at Software Gurus

Aug 3, 2023

An affordable solution with the text search feature, but its retrieval of logs and metrics from all the instances should be improved

Elastic Observability didn't help our organization because it was simpler for us to configure other tools, including Dynatrace and Grafana The most valuable feature of Elastic Observability is the text search. Elastic Observability needs to improve the retrieval of logs and metrics from all the…

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it_user631218

Subject Matter Expert at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

Apr 27, 2017

We use this product for base and application monitoring.

I always thought we should be able to perform all admin activities using the web portal. Over a period of time, SolarWinds has achieved this. Most of the admin activities can be performed using SolarWinds web portal (such as advanced alerting, web reports, custom attribute editor, report schedulers, etc., which in the past were hosted on the SolarWinds server). I also thought SolarWinds doesn't provide a service navigator map that would drill down from application layer to node level, with PerfStack in place. Most of these things have been addressed. PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The ability to ensure that the data is searchable and maintainable is highly valuable for our purposes."

"The product has connectors to many services."

"Good design and easy to use once implemented."

"The architecture and system's stability are simple."

"We use AppDynamics and Elastic. The reason why we're using Elastic APM is because of the license count. It's very favorable compared to AppDynamics. It's inexpensive; it's economical."

"The most valuable feature of Elastic Observability is the text search."

"Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning over a month from multiple data sources can be completed within seconds."

"It has always been a stable solution."

More Elastic Observability pros

"I am impressed with the tool's AppStack feature which mainly helps us in the identification process. This feature can give an overview of the fault and help us identify the issues for performance degradation. Instead of looking at multiple places, we can look at a single place to identify the issues."

"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements. The threshold gets configured automatically, so it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."

"The initial setup was relatively easy, and we didn't have to install anything. All we had to do was put on the devices we wanted to monitor."

"Manage Groups: The capability to group appropriate devices gives better visibility of sites, categories, or critical regions. The same can be used to represent a dashboard for higher management."

"Management Console - Managing service to each server enrolled in the Solarwinds is much easier. Using a web base console, you can control your service much convenient way. There is no need to login remotely. It save a lot of time and effort."

"The application dependency feature identifies issues between applications and servers or within the network where the application is hosted. It highlights related problems, whether related to packet processing or other issues, enabling the creation of alerts and reports accordingly."

"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"

"The more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"The auto-discovery isn't nearly as good. That's a big portion of it. When you drop the agent onto the JVM and you're trying to figure things out, having to go through and manually do all that is cumbersome."

"They need more skills in the market. There are not enough skills in the market. It is not pervasive enough on the market, in my opinion. In other words, there isn't a big enough user base."

"More web features could be added to the product."

"There could be more low-code features included in the product."

"The price is the only issue in the solution. It can be made better and cheaper."

"In the future, Elastic APM needs a portfolio iTool. They can provide an easy way to develop the custom UI for Kibana."

"Elastic Observability is reactive rather than proactive. It should act as an ITSM tool and be able to create tickets and alerts on Jira."

"The solution would be better if it was capable of more automation, especially in a monitoring capacity or for the response to abnormalities."

More Elastic Observability cons

"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."

"The tool’s report feature created issues for us. We needed to gain skills to use that feature. The tool’s customization is not easy since you have to reconfigure the whole system."

"One area that could benefit from improvement is its performance"

"In terms of the dashboards on offer, they should work to improve them. The types of dashboards that you get in terms of the graphs on offer aren't ideal right now."

"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."

"The product needs to reduce its price."

"The stability, flexibility, and ease of use could be improved."

"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Elastic Observability's pricing could be better for small-scale users."

"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."

"Elastic Observability is cheaper than other similar solutions, such as Dynatrace. Its license calculation is based on various factors like data volume and physical infrastructure, particularly related to RAM capacity."

"The product is not that cheap."

"The product’s pricing needs improvement."

"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."

"There are two types: cloud and SaaS. They charge based on data ingestion, ingest rate, hard retention, and warm retention. I believe it costs around $25,000 annually to ingest 30GB of data daily. That is the SaaS version. There is also a self-managed license where the customer manages their own infrastructure on-prem. In such cases, there are three license tiers that respectively cost $5,000 annually per node, $7,000 per node, and $12,500 per node."

"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."

More Elastic Observability pricing and cost advice

"Pricing is inexpensive, starting at 2440 euros. For that, you get the ability to monitor a couple of nodes and one year of maintenance and support."

"I would advise potential buyers to wait until the end of the quarter, end of year, or other time to place orders. There are actually great deals to be had at those times if your budget cycle can match up."

"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."

"When planning for the number of licenses to purchase, make sure you understand all of the elements within an application required to really understand performance well. In our case, we quickly came to the conclusion that an unlimited license for SAM was the way to go."

"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."

"SAM is not per server so the pricing model can be deceiving. If you have an enterprise environment, you will quickly exceed your licensing quickly. You should know this before going in."

"Price can always be lower. It is neither on the expensive side nor on the cheap side. We have worked with them for a lot of years, so we get a discount due to the size of the installation."

"The price is too high."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

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787,061 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

41%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Elastic Observability?

Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?

I rate the pricing a five out of ten. The product is not that cheap.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?

The tool's scalability involves a more complex implementation process. It requires careful calculations to determine the number of nodes needed, the specifications of each node, and the configurati...

See all answers

What do you like most about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

The price is too high. The tool is overpriced. We don't need all the features. The product must minimize the features and reduce the price. It all comes down to pricing. The customers find it prett...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

The biggest pain point is root cause analysis. It is difficult to analyze, assess, and warn my IT department about what will happen in the next five hours. It is also difficult to use AIOps to redu...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dynatrace vs Elastic Observability

Compared 16% of the time

New Relic vs Elastic Observability

Compared 16% of the time

Azure Monitor vs Elastic Observability

Compared 9% of the time

Sentry vs Elastic Observability

Compared 9% of the time

AppDynamics vs Elastic Observability

Compared 9% of the time

More Elastic Observability Competitors

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 18% of the time

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 17% of the time

AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 14% of the time

Prometheus vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Nagios XI vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 4% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability

June 2024

Download Elastic Observability product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

May 2024

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds SAM

Learn More

Elastic

SolarWinds

Overview

To effectively monitor and gain insights across your distributed systems, you need to have all your observability data in one stack. Break down silos by bringing together application, infrastructure, and user data into a unified solution for end-to-end observability and alerting.
Rely on the most widely deployed observability platform available, built on the proven Elastic Stack (also known as the ELK Stack) to converge silos, delivering unified visibility and actionable insights.

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers powerful application and server monitoring capabilities for IT pros, enabling them to diagnose and troubleshoot performance issues faster. Do not let slow applications and downtime impact your end-users and business services. Pinpoint the root cause of application issues across various layers of the IT stack. SolarWinds SAM is affordable and easy to deploy, use, and customize. You can automatically discover your system's environment and start monitoring in about an hour. No professional services or consultation needed.

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

May 2024

Free Report: Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.

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