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AWS Auto Scaling vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

AWS Auto Scaling
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
15th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (9th), Active Directory Management (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of AWS Auto Scaling is 0.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Mbula Mboma - PeerSpot reviewer
Boosts deployment efficiency with seamless automatic scaling capabilities
My primary use case for Auto Scaling is mainly to deploy applications at scale Auto Scaling has made the deployment of applications more efficient, allowing us to manage traffic and maintain performance as user counts increase. Auto Scaling is a cool feature that works well and its automatic…
Subhajit Nag - PeerSpot reviewer
The component and cable monitoring features are good, but the interface is slow
SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern. Every SolarWinds user complains about the sluggishness. The response is slow. If you browse from one page to another, you have to wait. Our company is a massive user with plenty of licenses, so the performance issues could be due to the load per license. Ten thousand components can be mapped under one license. So SolarWinds needs to take care of the speed problem. It cannot be this slow. That is a huge complaint. Otherwise, the tool is good. It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle. The upgrade time matters because you only install the solution once, but you'll need to upgrade the solution repeatedly over the life of the product. A complex installation isn't an issue, but I mind if the upgrade takes too long because it's already in production.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The health check integration feature ensures that the instances are healthy and capable of absorbing traffic, thus serving their purpose effectively."
"It helps us to reduce the cost."
"It is a stable platform."
"The solution's monitoring effectively monitors our application and CPU utilization."
"AWS Auto Scaling is cost-effective and very useful for businesses."
"AWS Auto Scaling is very good for managing traffic and creating new instances when necessary."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it scales automatically without manual intervention based on the metrics we provide."
"I would highly recommend Auto Scaling to others because it is a fantastic feature that simplifies scaling processes and makes deployment efficient."
"The solution has good alerts. Notifications are sent via email to technicians. You can filter the kinds of alerts you want to receive as well. It's excellent."
"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."
"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."
"The more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature."
"The component and cable monitoring are good. SolarWinds is more intuitive and user-friendly than AppDynamics. The AppDynamics console is more complex because it's a more feature-rich solution, so it's not easy for somebody to pick it up."
"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
 

Cons

"There hasn't been a need for improvements."
"The product’s pricing needs improvement."
"In comparison to other public clouds, the product is costly."
"AWS Auto Scaling's documentation could be better."
"The product could add more features for managing instances."
"The solution's infrastructure scalability and elasticity could be improved."
"It is sometimes very critical to deploy on AWS since some servers are already running in the background. There are challenges for employees on how to deploy at a given time."
"The tool's stability could be improved."
"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."
"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve by having a cloud version. They have an observability platform but it still needs to be maintained by us."
"Nodes in Azure are able to be monitored with the use of agents, but this does not apply to cloud service offerings that are not node based."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"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."
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"AWS Auto Scaling is an expensive solution."
"AWS Auto Scaling is a cheap solution."
"AWS Auto Scaling's price is high."
"The product has moderate pricing."
"AWS Auto Scaling is a pay-per-use and pay-as-you-use service."
"The pricing is good. I have not had any customers that have complained about the price."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"We are on an annual license to use the solution. The price of the solution is expensive. The price is based on a bunch of factors, such as the number of engines and elements."
"I have always said SolarWinds is very “proud” of their products, meaning they are expensive. I cannot afford to purchase all the licenses I need for all the SolarWinds products."
"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 price is too high."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It is just the standard price, but it can vary depending on the current rate of the dollar."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
41%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS Auto Scaling?
The tool's most valuable feature is vertical auto-scaling, which is easy to use. However, most companies now prefer horizontal scaling. I set up the health check integration to monitor CPU usage. W...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Auto Scaling?
The pricing of Auto Scaling is medium range, neither high nor low.
What needs improvement with AWS Auto Scaling?
It is sometimes very critical to deploy on AWS since some servers are already running in the background. There are challenges for employees on how to deploy at a given time. It requires a downtime ...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor at this time. I have not encountered any missing features or fu...
 

Also Known As

AWS Auto-Scaling
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Auto Scaling vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,253 professionals have used our research since 2012.