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Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Icinga
Ranking in Server Monitoring
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (18th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (16th), Cloud Monitoring Software (17th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (24th), Active Directory Management (14th)
 

Featured Reviews

Harrison Bulley - PeerSpot reviewer
May 25, 2023
A stable, scalable and cost-effective solution that helps with inbuilt scripts for easy modification
Our company used the tool to monitor the solutions and infrastructure in our environment which included it for our monitoring solutions, to monitor the infrastructure in all our environments such as networking, storage, and all the physical and virtual servers. We used it daily to check for both…
Subhajit Nag - PeerSpot reviewer
May 19, 2022
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

"Icinga has multiple automation and integration features. There is an API for everything and a web UI for configurations. The APIs enable you to automate tasks in Icinga. We can also use plugins to talk to the API. The Icinga Director talks to a database in the background, and you can import settings from the CMDB to all systems in Icinga."
"This solution has a self-healing handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted."
"Icinga does the job and is fairly stable."
"There's a module called Icinga Director, which helps us configure the product using an intuitive interface through clicks instead of creating a text configuration. It's very helpful for us."
"The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."
"The drafts are easy but what I like about Icinga is that there are many add-ons that you can download."
"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."
"The apply rules feature saves a lot of time."
"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
"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."
"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."
"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"
"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."
"The solution can be deployed quickly."
"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."
 

Cons

"In general, the product does not look good. However, it does what it is supposed to do. So, the improvements should focus on usability and UI."
"I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built."
"The user interface should be improved."
"The solution lacks many features important to higher-level IT management and network support."
"Icinga’s automation could be improved."
"One thing that Icinga lacks is the capability to create advanced and customized dashboards within the tool itself."
"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."
"It needs Trap SNMP. I saw the documentation for Zabbix, that it has its own built-in product which handles SNMP traps, and there's nothing similar in Icinga or Nagios. I think this feature is most important for me."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"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."
"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."
"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."
"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."
"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"The solution is free to use."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"It's an open-source solution."
"The solution is cheap."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"The product is expensive."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"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."
"SAM is not per server so the pricing model can be deceiving. If you have an enterprise environment, you will quickly exceed your licensing quickly. You should know this before going in."
"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."
"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."
"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
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
44%
Computer Software Company
9%
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 Icinga?
The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Icinga?
It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low. If you want to include this product in the services you offer to your customers, the return on i...
What needs improvement with Icinga?
There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved. For instance, multi-tenancy for monitoring the virtual infrastructur...
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

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
SolarWinds SAM
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.