BMC TrueSight vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

BMC Helix and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. BMC Helix is ranked #28 with an average rating of 9.0, while SolarWinds is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.6. BMC Helix holds a 1.0% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of BMC Helix users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

BMC TrueSight

Read 51 BMC TrueSight reviews

3,620 Views
1,810 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

4,008 Views
2,605 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

BMC TrueSight

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 7, 2025

BMC TrueSight and SolarWinds SAM compete in the infrastructure and application monitoring category. BMC TrueSight holds the upper hand with its comprehensive integration capabilities and holistic views.

Features: BMC TrueSight provides comprehensive infrastructure and application health monitoring, offering a holistic view and broad integration with various technologies, including advanced event management for centralized alert handling. SolarWinds SAM distinguishes itself with ease of installation and immediate insights into server and application performance, focusing on user-friendly monitoring of services and applications.

Room for Improvement: BMC TrueSight could enhance its deployment processes, cloud monitoring capabilities, and intuitive reporting tools, as its complex architecture requires significant resources for management. SolarWinds should improve the integration of its modules and enhance scalability and dashboard flexibility to offer a seamless experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: TrueSight's deployment is complex, requiring significant resources and customization, while SolarWinds offers a more straightforward deployment. TrueSight's technical support is generally responsive but variable, and SolarWinds can improve its support response times and resource handling to better assist users.

Pricing and ROI: TrueSight's pricing is relatively high due to its extensive features and integrations, necessitating careful planning to manage licensing costs. SolarWinds offers competitive pricing for mid-sized organizations, making it more accessible. Both solutions provide substantial ROI through operational efficiencies, but SolarWinds is noted for better accessibility due to its pricing structure.

To learn more, read our detailed BMC TrueSight vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BMC TrueSight vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 879,899 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

28th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Event Monitoring (8th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (31st), Cloud Monitoring Software (25th), AIOps (5th)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

20th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (9th), Active Directory Management (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of BMC TrueSight is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.2%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.2%
BMC TrueSight	1.0%
Other	97.8%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

NikhilKalwint

Technical Specialist at ServiceIO

Has improved monitoring efficiency and supports fast issue resolution through responsive support and reliable automation

I work with BMC TrueSight and have been using it for eight-plus years BMC TrueSight brought a positive impact and benefits to our organization. The customization part is one of the advantages of the product, along with the monitoring capabilities. Automated root cause analysis and predictive…

Read full review

NikhilKalwint

Technical Specialist at ServiceIO

Monitoring over a thousand systems has improved decision making and operational visibility

From an advantage perspective, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is comparatively cheaper from a commercial point of view. It is easy to install and configure, very user-friendly, and quick to get up and running, allowing you to see the early value adds in your organization. It is compatible with most technologies for monitoring with very few chances of incompatibility. Configuration also allows us to monitor all the technical parameters we are looking for, making it a very good experience for us. The alerting feature in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is a main advantage, as it alerts based on threshold breaches and can raise tickets to the ticketing system, send SMS, and email notifications, allowing engineers to work on those tickets to resolve issues and avoid further impact. The visibility into server health is a beneficial feature that I am utilizing. We widely use various application performance metrics in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor such as database monitoring and server monitoring, which are quite good enough for any monitoring solution. We utilize the customizable dashboards in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor.

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 most valuable features are the rich reports, high performance, and the look and feel of the WebEx webpage are very good."

"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."

"The solution's event management capabilities are fantastic. We do a best of breed. If, on the network side, they use a different tool, we pull all that data in so that we have a single console. It's kind of like the monitor of monitors. We're able to aggregate all the different types of data sets, whether it's log data, app data, OS data, infrastructure data, or network data. We're able to aggregate all those events and then correlate and be able to say we're having an event."

"I like the event management part."

"It is a scalable solution."

"The most valuable feature of BMC TrueSight Operations Management is the dashboard presentation server."

"It is breadth. It covers so many different technologies which can roll up into a single console."

"I like everything about this tool. I recommend this solution to anyone looking for a standalone solution with high availability meaning that can be used depending on the customers requirements."

More BMC TrueSight pros

"The solution can be deployed quickly."

"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."

"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."

"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."

"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"

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

"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."

"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"BMC's online documentation is often incorrect or incomplete."

"The dashboards are not good. We have a limited dashboard, and if we want better dashboards, we need to use other solutions like Grafana because the TrueSight dashboards are not good."

"The knowledge modules could be more lightweight in size. At present, the installation packages can be quite large."

"The solution's support service could be better."

"One of the things that the TrueSight environment is missing is some of the HA abilities. The data collection server called the ISM doesn't really have the HA functionality or workload balancing. It was missing from the previous product as well. It's missing redundancy."

"In our company, we faced some issues with the solution’s application endpoint, IP, and the physical location of the transactions."

"Deployment requires lots of resources (servers). It has too many consoles."

"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."

More BMC TrueSight cons

"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."

"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."

"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."

"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."

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

"Mapping interactions between systems."

"There is one feature that is a report writer. And they are currently trying to take it out from being a stand-alone application and integrating to the web. This doesn't give us the flexibility and it doesn't expand what we can get when it comes to reporting. So, putting it on the web is going to make it difficult to get some information. Leaving it where it is now will help us a lot."

"The tool's AppStack needs to improve in the storage monitoring part. It should also include an analytics and recommendation approach. If I have found a fault in a server or application, I would like to know what caused it and how do I recover from it."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is very high."

"We pay license fees of between $150 and $200 per asset. There is an enterprise software license fee, and then you pay a percentage for your maintenance, and then Premier Support. For example, if you buy a two-year license for the product, then the maintenance fee is added to that for two years at X percent a year. Then there's a small fee on top of that for Premier Support..."

"Consider scalability very carefully: how much you want to monitor and what components are very important. Then, depending on these two things, filter out unwanted metrics or attributes. If you do a good job at filtering the data, then your licensing costs will be manageable."

"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 solution is based on endpoints and knowledge models which can be costly."

"The solutions are not the cheapest but are robust and stable. License model is rather complex and BMC do often change the model."

"Use conservative figures. In terms of hardware, monitored servers and also effort. The product is not cheap. But as with other products, you get what you pay for."

"The tool is moderately expensive."

More BMC TrueSight pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."

"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."

"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."

"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."

"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."

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.

See recommendations

879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

10%

Outsourcing Company

Retailer

Educational Organization

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	24

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC TrueSight Operations Management?

BMC TrueSight licensing costs are on the more expensive side.

See all answers

What needs improvement with BMC TrueSight Operations Management?

There are some complexities with deployment that could be improved in BMC TrueSight.

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 initial cost is quite high, but the renewal cost is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

There is definitely room for improvement besides simplifying its setup. As a non-technical person, I believe the dashboards could be improved. Everything we use appears on video walls, and we need ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dynatrace vs BMC TrueSight

Compared 9% of the time

BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps vs BMC TrueSight

Compared 5% of the time

Zabbix vs BMC TrueSight

Compared 5% of the time

Centreon vs BMC TrueSight

Compared 4% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs BMC TrueSight

Compared 4% of the time

More BMC TrueSight Competitors

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 12% of the time

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 11% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 4% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BMC TrueSight

January 2026

Download BMC TrueSight product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

December 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

ProactiveNet, TrueSight Operations Management

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

BMC TrueSight offers extensive event management and seamless integration, providing comprehensive monitoring across varied infrastructures through its centralized console and Knowledge Modules.

BMC TrueSight delivers robust event management capabilities with seamless integration and comprehensive monitoring of diverse infrastructures. Its single console simplifies management, offering automated triage for standardized alerts, enhancing efficiency. Knowledge Modules support services from hardware to cloud, while proactive monitoring and capacity optimization enhance customization. It efficiently supports mixed environments by providing detailed insights and intelligently routing alerts to reduce noise. While improvements are needed in deployment, integration, AI, automation, reporting, and complexity reduction, it still meets diverse operational needs effectively.

What are BMC TrueSight's key features?

Robust Event Management: Offers efficient handling of events.
Seamless Integration: Integrates easily with existing systems.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Supports hardware to cloud infrastructure.
Centralized Console: Simplifies management processes.
Automated Triage: Standardizes alerts for better efficiency.
Proactive Monitoring: Improves forecasting and issue prevention.
Capacity Optimization: Efficiently manages resources.
Customizability: Tailors to specific service needs.

What benefits and ROI should users seek in BMC TrueSight?

Enhanced Proactive Management: Reduces downtime through efficient monitoring.
Improved Troubleshooting: Provides visibility into systems for quick issue resolution.
Effective Integration: Blends well with other tools and platforms.
Resource Efficiency: Optimizes use of infrastructure and servers.
Global Support: Facilitates operations across sectors worldwide.

BMC TrueSight is widely used in performance and availability monitoring for infrastructure and applications, supporting the monitoring of servers, databases, networks, and IT environments. It is implemented to improve management and reduce downtime, serving needs in data centers and cloud services. Organizations leverage it for event management, comprehensive data center monitoring, and cloud services, using its capabilities for alerting, ticket creation, troubleshooting, and compliance, enhancing operational efficiency globally.

BMC Helix

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.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Ensono, Transamerica, Boston Scientific, Park Place Technologies, inContact, TD Ameritrade, PNC Bank

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

BMC TrueSight vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

December 2025

Free Report: BMC TrueSight vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Find out what your peers are saying about BMC TrueSight vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our BMC TrueSight vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report.

See our list of best Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability vendors.

We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.