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ITRS Geneos 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

ITRS Geneos
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
28th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (46th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (31st)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (9th), Active Directory Management (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of ITRS Geneos is 1.4%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Sanket - PeerSpot reviewer
With the help of the solution, we can predict and prevent failures
Currently, the most valuable thing for an individual is a mobile device. Since that is where people are currently tracking everything, we have multiple applications or apps that are for various products. I would like ITRS Geneos to develop an app, where instead of going to specific login terminals or logging into laptops or desktops to check alerts, we can have visibility in the app itself. Using the ITRS Geneos app, we could see the error message during our travels or wherever we are. I would like to see the capacity of messages for forecasting increased. Since the NSE is the number one derivative stock exchange in the work for three consecutive years, the number of messages is important. We use the capacity planner in ITRS to forecast our data needs for the next two months. The planner is important because the volume of data we produce is becoming more and more volatile compared to when we first started using ITRS Geneos in 2014.
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 tool allows one to analyse, integrate and customize as per the systems and allows you to set your own rules."
"The Netprobe is so lightweight compared to the agents that most monitoring tools use. It's really superior to the competition. The agent that is used by almost every competitive tool takes a lot more system resources. It's slower and it requires a greater effort and more compromises in terms of security to install on the monitored servers. With Geneos, because it lives outside the code, it is far easier and far less taxing on the monitored systems."
"ITRS can define rules to alert when certain parameters that you monitor breach a threshold. Rules can be configured to fire recovery actions automatically to clear the alert"
"Geneos automatically sends email notifications when any batch job fails, the database is down or the website is down. It is automatically monitoring everything and reduces manual effort."
"This solution has helped provide relief to existing Level 2 teams, allowing them to focus efforts on in-depth problem analysis."
"One thing we're utilizing in Geneos is the Gateway-SQL. That's really helpful for us. Using Gateway-SQL, we are able to merge two different views into one. Suppose we have to check something in the log and that we have to check something in the database and do a comparison before publishing a result. We can achieve that using Gateway-SQL."
"The NetProbe carries over 100 samplers which are capable of monitoring hardware, OS, and the application layer."
"I would say that it is an easy-to-use monitoring tool. Amongst the available monitoring tools, it is a really good option."
"It is simple to implement and can provide fairly decent Windows-based monitoring, beyond simple SNMP. It is great for monitoring newbies and smaller shops."
"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."
"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."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."
"SolarWinds SAM has significantly improved our workflow by allowing us to develop a comprehensive knowledge base of known errors and automate responses to specific alerts."
"The graphical interfaces, GUI customizations, and alert configurations are impressive."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
 

Cons

"One area where there is room for improvement is the log file. I would like to be able to do a pre-run on the log files. When you are testing log files for regular expressions, it would be good to be able to do a quick check up front on that side of things before you release that into production."
"Much of the reporting outside of the user interface is very basic and requires much customization to be useful."
"Geneos' application monitoring could be improved a lot. Products like AppDynamics and Dynatrace provide the process thread-level monitoring, but Geneos lacks these capabilities."
"Data visualization – real time and historical – is a weakness."
"t needs to have better middleware integration for things such as application and Microsft SQL servers."
"Their cloud monitoring solution needs to be improved. I have already given them the feedback that it's not capable of meeting the latest technology needs."
"ITRS have started to make some major changes that we haven't taken on board yet, in the creation of dashboards and more visibility of the metrics that we collect. At the moment, that's something that's lacking, but I know they have addressed it. Still, it’s not that easy to create stuff to help with visibility and dashboarding in Geneos."
"Backward compatibility with deprecated features and in system documentation on what configuration areas are needed to be updated."
"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."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."
"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."
"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The organization is not just purchasing a license for the product, but also managing services and professional services from ITRS. Another factor is if the implementation is going to be in production, non-production, or both."
"When I first came in, their pricing was very high. ITRS had a high expectation of what their price should be based on perceived value. I think they have been realizing, more recently, that there are other competitors, so their pricing is a lot better. Licensing for on-premise is okay, however I feel there is quite some work to be done for cloud and containers. We're still working with them to try and work out what that pricing should look like."
"The market tools are on par with this solution, but if the solution included more features, then it would be well within the range for the cost."
"The pricing seems reasonable. We're happy enough with it."
"I can say it's not that cheap because the licensing is a little bit costly"
"The pricing is fairly market-related. They have been very lenient because we have been working with them for so long. An example is that we're currently migrating some of our services to AWS, and they've given us a grace period for some of the things to help with the migration and not to grow additional costs while we are migrating, but it's still on par with the market."
"Its price is reasonable. It isn't too expensive, and it isn't too cheap, but it also depends on a company's volume and negotiation."
"You will get the best price if you get a single global deal."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"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 and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"The price is too high."
"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."
"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
77%
Computer Software Company
6%
University
4%
Construction Company
1%
Educational Organization
45%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ITRS Geneos?
I would say that it is an easy-to-use monitoring tool. Amongst the available monitoring tools, it is a really good option.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ITRS Geneos?
The pricing is high. Licensing fees might be around 500$ per server monthly.
What needs improvement with ITRS Geneos?
ITRS Geneos is a legacy system. It predicts or provides proactive measures once an issue is resolved. It doesn't offer any predictive capabilities or root cause analysis. They throw a lot of data i...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement. Monitoring these services is more complex compared to others.
 

Also Known As

Geneos
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ITRS Geneos is used by over 170 financial institutions, including JPMorgan, HSBC, RBS, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Clients range from investment banks to exchanges and brokers.
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about ITRS Geneos vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.