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Elastic Observability vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Elastic Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Log Management (11th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (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 (11th), Active Directory Management (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 6.4%, up from 5.3% 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

Adelina Craciun - PeerSpot reviewer
Customization enables tailored monitoring and alerting across departments
The possibility to customize it has been quite useful. Whatever the other departments want to dream up, we implement. Whatever they want to monitor, the granularity of it, the changes in the threshold, and the anomalies that they want reported all require some development. So far, every single request has been fulfilled.
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 solution allows us to dig deep into data."
"We can view and connect different sources to the dashboard using it."
"It has always been a stable solution."
"Good design and easy to use once implemented."
"Elastic team communicated well with us, so we decided to give it a try."
"The price is very less expensive compared to the other solutions."
"Elastic APM has plenty of features, such as the Elastic server for Kibana and many additional plugins. It's a comprehensive tool when used as a logging platform."
"The tool's most valuable feature is centralized logging. Elastic Common Search helps us to search for the logs across the organization."
"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."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"The solution is end-to-end from the network and the application to the processes. Everything about the enterprise infrastructure is being covered by the solution. It's easy to use and easy to navigate and one of the leaders among monitoring solutions."
"We use the solution as a central monitoring tool. We use it to monitor every transaction that has a relation to the organization’s infrastructure."
"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."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
"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 most valuable feature is application monitoring."
 

Cons

"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."
"Simplifying the parsing of logs and manual efforts would also be beneficial."
"If we had some pre-defined templates for observability that we could start using right away after deploying it – instead of having to build or to change some of the dashboards – that would be helpful."
"Elastic APM's visualization is not that great compared to other tools. It's number of metrics is very low."
"In the future, Elastic APM needs a portfolio iTool. They can provide an easy way to develop the custom UI for Kibana."
"Improving code insight related to infrastructure and network, particularly focusing on aspects such as firewalls, switches, routers, and testing would be beneficial."
"One example is the inability to monitor very old databases with the newest version."
"The cost must be made more transparent."
"Currently SolarWinds SAM offers AppInsight for modern versions of: IIS, Exchange, SQL Server. They have shown to be powerful and insightful tools. However, AppInsight needs to be offered for more applications: Citrix, SharePoint, AX, etc."
"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."
"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."
"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive. It is not cheap."
"The price of Elastic Observability is expensive."
"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."
"So far, there are just the standard licensing fees. Several of the components are embedded in the license or are even open source. They're even free depending on what you use, which makes it even more appealing to someone that is discussing pricing of the solution."
"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."
"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."
"We have been using the open-source version."
"The product’s pricing needs improvement."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"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 and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"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."
"Nagios XI, WhatsUpGold, Uptime Software, PRTG, Manage Engine, and SpiceWorks are the other tools that have lower pricing and licensing costs. However, they can't compete with SolarWinds when it comes to the features and functionality that SolarWinds can provide."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
45%
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 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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?
Elastic Observability is cost-efficient and provides all features in the enterprise license without asset-based licensing. However, sizing and licensing information could be clearer.
What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?
Elastic Observability could improve asset discovery as the current requirement to push the agent is not ideal. Simplifying the parsing of logs and manual efforts would also be beneficial.
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

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.