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Broadcom DX Application Performance 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

Broadcom DX Application Per...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
32nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
Container Monitoring (8th)
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 Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is 0.5%, down from 0.5% 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

aush.111 - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides efficiency in migration and DAW but requires a high level of administrator knowledge for configuration
This solution still relies on inbuilt configuration. For example, I'm pretty much impressed with Dynatrace POC, where we deploy the agent with a simple click, click, click, and then that's it. And we did not build any alerts or anything. We just started getting the alerts, warnings, and everything on its own system, understood what the benchmark is and what is the threshold, and it started giving you the warnings and the caution alerts, the danger alerts. So we expect something like that should be there in Broadcom at the level. But, instead, it expects us to configure. So that is what is missing there. Even if the server CPU usage is 95%t, it doesn't harm you. It doesn't send you any alerts. We think the system is normal. So it's not normal. So this is what they should think and send you AI/ML-related alarms on their own. In future releases, I would like to see more AI and ML capabilities, which are kind of missing. Another area of improvement is its infrastructure monitoring perspective. For example, they are still using UIM, which is a good tool. But for APM, they have come to DXP. However, in terms of UIM, the unified infrastructure management, there is no DXP version or AIML version of it. So they should try to find an updated version of it so that it is not competing with the rest of the solution.
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

"This application pulls data in 15 seconds. You can imagine the enormous amount of data which streams through."
"Cross-platform business transaction tracing supports the ability to monitor end-to-end performance across the stack, providing granular insight into customer experience KPIs, which are a critical success factor for organizations."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...there is a very easy way to deal with it by adding more servers to the application."
"Gives us the ability to know how our application is performing in real-time."
"The way these tools show the information is very useful. this is a tool that records information from Java and .NET applications, and obtain information about how many times an method has been call in a period of time (usually 30 sec), how many times respond in this span of time or is delayed or stall."
"The triage can find the root cause for pent up issues."
"We understand for APM, it has the ability to drill down and do the end-to-end monitoring that we are looking for."
"JVM memory monitoring and connection pool monitoring are valuable features."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."
"Monitoring of processes and services is the most valuable feature. It is not necessarily just the server alone in terms of the CPU or the memory. We can go in-depth into services and processes."
"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."
"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."
 

Cons

"The front-end representation should match other competitors such as AppDynamics."
"User interface - CA is moving towards HTML5, but still a lot is Java, old fashioned, non-customizable and not user friendly. It’s look and feel is still too technical."
"Its profiling. The uniqueness instead of me looking at sampling data, I need to know the m-1 event that actually triggered my scenario where that m event caused a catastrophic event, like a ripple effect; I need to know that m-1. What triggered my major event means I need to understand the event that triggered it and before the cause of that event itself."
"Dashboards need to be improved in order to make them self-explanatory."
"They can make it easier to configure."
"The integration with CA Spectrum is quite difficult to create, and it is also only one way, only being used to view alarms coming from CA APM."
"They need to add support for new frameworks, or at least provide a broader guide/perspectives to add them to monitoring specific agents to retrieve metrics with thresholds as a reference to guide the customer as to where they must go to achieve this."
"I would like them provide more guidance on specific tuning of monitoring options to avoid unacceptable overhead."
"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."
"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."
"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."
"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."
"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."
"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve the server monitoring and the web application monitoring features are not good. Microsoft SCOM has better server monitoring."
"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On pricing, CA is very competitive. I think that's going to help in the long run."
"There is some research needed to determine licensing costs, based on the number of DataPower instances for the Nastel agent, for example."
"Depends on the size of the product you need."
"The license for Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is annual. The licensing model could improve because there is not any limit to deploying the agent, there should be some limits on it."
"All discounts are case by case to accommodate the client's budgets."
"The pricing structure should be based on memory or CPU usage rather than the number of agents, as it makes the solution more expensive for us."
"Negotiate a lot, but do not forget to buy the product because it is worth it."
"Althougth it is a bit expensive, it is really worth it"
"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."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"The product is expensive."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
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 Broadcom DX Application Performance Management?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...there is a very easy way to deal with it by adding more servers to the application.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Broadcom DX Application Performance Management?
The pricing structure should be based on memory or CPU usage rather than the number of agents, as it makes the solution more expensive for us. The pricing structure is too high and becomes increasi...
What needs improvement with Broadcom DX Application Performance Management?
The area of improvement is related to the areas of application onboarding and instrumentation, where the product has certain shortcomings. Broadcom needs to work on application instrumentation and ...
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

DX APM, CA APM, CA NetQoS Performance Center, Wily Introscope, CA Wily APM, CA App Experience Analytics, CA AXA
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lexmark, Intermountain Healthcare, National Australia Bank, BBVA Compass Bank, Innovapost, Dansk Supermarked Group, U.S. Cellular, Orange, Cetip
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom DX Application Performance Management vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.