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BMC TrueSight Operations Management 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

BMC TrueSight Operations Ma...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
20th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (2nd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (16th), Cloud Monitoring Software (18th), AIOps (7th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (10th), Active Directory Management (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of BMC TrueSight Operations Management is 0.7%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.9%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Srri G - PeerSpot reviewer
The product is reasonably priced, but the solution is a little obsolete because it is deployed on-premise
If I want custom monitoring across a very large estate of more than 50,000 units, the on-premise deployment gets quite slow. The on-premise product’s performance must be improved. The solution is a little obsolete. That is why the solution moved to Helix, a SaaS operating system. The SaaS platform has the features I like. There is no point in BMC expanding TrueSight Operations’ console. It's high time that BMC starts a demise path for the product and is associated only with Helix. If we need any additional function, we must switch to Helix. Since TrueSight is deployed on-premise, the scalability and usage of the product are mainly focused on providing basic features and not enhanced features like analytics or cost analysis. People should move to a SaaS platform because on-premise products have limited storage and capacity.
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

"Its event management capabilities are very open and flexible. I haven't seen a use case scenario with a customer that we couldn't actually solve the problem for, so it's really good. There are some interesting things that happen in an enterprise network (things that people don't normally expect), and the event management product is very flexible. You can solve problems as far as your imagination can go with it."
"It has provided us with a single location to host all events to be viewed/monitored by our NOC. This has greatly helped them to streamline their processes."
"The solution has a very good business event manager tool."
"I like the event management part."
"It allows our operations team to have one single application to reference when investigating issues in our environment."
"It is a very stable product."
"I like the deep-dive detail and end-user metrics data. The synthetic monitor is the best one. The best point of the new one is that there's no need for configuration. You can inject the Java script and start to change major developments in the application. This is a good approach, and we received all the data using this."
"The tailoring of the knowledge modules has been particularly useful as I can streamline the agents to only report on critical events."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
"One of the most valuable features are the reports. They're pretty good. Also, the ease of installation and customization for the client is another feature that we value. SolarWinds has a lot of features but these are the ones I like the most. We also like that the KPIs have the ability to be preset."
"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."
"The product integrates with Remedy."
"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"
"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
 

Cons

"The solution is overly complex."
"The solution should improve predicting events and flaws in service. It also needs to improve integration with other systems."
"I would like them to improve the deep-dive details, tracing, and data agents in this product. We have EUEM, an end-user experience monitoring appliance. This one's quicker than the current one, and reporting side and filtration side are very bad. There are many details we look at and explain what we receive information in the current one, but we cannot have historical data like we do with EUEM. We cannot have a powerful point to look for specific traffic from a specific application and a specific browser. We don't have it in the new one. The current BMC also needs to add the thing that control versions."
"Reporting would be an area for improvement in TrueSight... We have almost 800 customers today on TrueSight and just under 10,000 assets. We need to be able to give a customer some information. If the customer's product fails, they'll ask us, "Did it have a problem beforehand?" We have all those events and we know all the problems it had beforehand. We have to be able to give them access to that kind of reporting. That's an enhancement that we need."
"The graphs are extremely limited. We don't have a lot of dashboard options. To make reports and dashboards more useful, we usually need to integrate some dashboard solutions."
"The solution is a little obsolete."
"I definitely would like to see more improvement in the self-diagnostics. I need to know when anything is not working or collecting, long before our customer finds it."
"BMC TrueSight Operations Management could use some enhancements in the application visibility tools."
"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."
"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."
"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."
"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."
"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."
"Mapping interactions between systems."
"The templates could use improvement. Currently, they are quite complex. They should have drag-and-drop functionality instead. It would make it easier to use."
"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We're end-of-lifeing it now. Overall, the licensing costs of BMC are a challenge for us in that they're hard costs, whereas open-source monitoring has soft costs, where it's harder to line-item."
"It is a large, complex product. So, there is a commitment of manpower to deploy it, as it is not a cheap product."
"Other products are more expensive than BMC TrueSight."
"There is a big upfront cost when you buy the license, then there is annual maintenance. We look at, if I bought a license and paid for maintenance for five years, then average it out, what would be my monthly cost. We have had some of the competing tools come in around four dollars. This is coming in as a premium, which is why I don't have it deployed as I would like it. Therefore, we're in negotiations right now. If I can get it down to the four dollar range, I will triple my deployment in a year and a half."
"Pricing is all volume-driven. I think we were paying between $80 and $85 per license. That's per unit, for a perpetual license. You pay it one time and then, every year, you pay 20 percent of that for annual maintenance and support. But now that we've grown, we've purchased tens of thousands of licenses and the cost per license has gone down to something like less than $30..."
"Pricing is very high."
"The only possible additional cost that I can mention, that you might not be aware of, is that it uses Oracle partitioning, if you use Oracle. There are Oracle partitioning fees that go with that."
"The solutions are not the cheapest but are robust and stable. License model is rather complex and BMC do often change the model."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"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."
"Understanding the counts of objects to monitor will determine the licensing need. In terms of pricing, it’s not cheap but it’s not expensive as larger vendors whose products don’t have all the features or integrations."
"The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"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 licenses start from USD 3000.00 and go up to USD 20,000.00 for the year. It's a perpetual license. Nothing is free in SolarWinds, anything that you need is an additional cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
46%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC TrueSight Operations Management?
The solution provides visibility to our infrastructure, how it is, the resources we are monitoring, and quick updates when it has any problems. We have integrated it with ServiceNow to open instances.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC TrueSight Operations Management?
Though I have no clue about the tool's actual price, I know that it is astronomical.
What needs improvement with BMC TrueSight Operations Management?
Cost is an issue with BMC TrueSight Operations Management. Though I am not responsible for the budget, I know that it is an expensive tool set when used only for event management. The tool's issue ...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules. The misalignment of licensing terms can present commercial challenges when...
 

Also Known As

ProactiveNet, TrueSight Operations Management
SolarWinds SAM
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ensono, Transamerica, Boston Scientific, Park Place Technologies, inContact, TD Ameritrade, PNC Bank
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC TrueSight Operations Management vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.