ManageEngine ADAudit Plus vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

ManageEngine ADAudit Plus vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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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

ManageEngine ADAudit Plus

Ranking in Active Directory Management

4th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Active Directory Management

14th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (18th), Server Monitoring (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of ManageEngine ADAudit Plus is 9.9%, up from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 0.9%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Active Directory Management

Featured Reviews

Abdul Hakim

System Engineer at Corporate Projukti Limited

Advanced monitoring enhances user tracking that's cost-effective

I have been involved with this product for the last three years, participating in service and support within our company. We are currently supporting over 30 companies. This month, we deployed the solution for three companies, including two RMGs and one private bank in Bangladesh. The popularity of this product is due to its active directory monitoring abilities. Engineers can receive reports and log details within one to five seconds, which is essential for monitoring user activity swiftly and effectively. This product is very well-liked in Bangladesh due to user tracking, failed logins, and Jar reports for any Barna activity or execution. This solution's popularity extends through comprehensive auditing capabilities.

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Subhajit Nag

Senior Process Associate at Tata Consultancy Services

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.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."

"This solution's popularity extends through comprehensive auditing capabilities."

"The monitoring and reporting are extensive and we get all the information we need while they continue to enhance the capabilities of the product."

"Some of the most valuable features of ADAudit Plus are the granular parts of the reports fetched from Active Directory."

"It assists in managing the active directory and modifying the reintegrated GPOs."

"We use the product to track events and monitor logs of servers and workstations. I am impressed with the tool's tracking ability. It is intuitive and easy to use."

"The Account Lockout Analyzer and the Inactive Users reports are particularly valuable."

"I rate this ten out of ten."

More ManageEngine ADAudit Plus pros

"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 most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"The solution's managing file server activity could be improved."

"There are so many reports that it sometimes makes it difficult to navigate to what you need."

"ADAudit could have a more sophisticated interface design. They are using a plain UI, which is decent. However, customers have said that it looks a little flat compared to other vendors. It's not fancy."

"Its configuration can be better. There were 44 pages of documented notes of what I had to do to get the product to work during the installation process."

"The interface could be improved, and the log collecting feature should have additional functionalities."

"The return on investment for ManageEngine ADAudit Plus is very hard to measure."

"ADAudit Plus can be very tricky, especially if we need to do some high-availability configuration or distributed environment installation."

"There is room for improvement, especially in the standard professional edition. Some features require more external integration."

More ManageEngine ADAudit Plus cons

"It lacks a user experience for measuring things like the end-to-end time for which a user waits for a specific response in the system. In the application layer, it has some very basic stuff. You have to build your own with manuscripts and things like that."

"One area that could benefit from improvement is its performance"

"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."

"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."

"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."

"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."

"Downside of the tools is the web console are hung or crash. It need to improve the performance."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ADAudit Plus's pricing is affordable and flexible, with very low prices in the market."

"The tool is affordable, and our company is very happy with it. If ten is the most expensive and one is the least expensive, I rate the tool a three or four."

"Adding features and other functionality it costs you more. Also, the first installation costs an additional amount."

"It's a medium-priced solution."

"The solution's pricing is acceptable."

"My guess is that it was around $4,000 or $5,000 a year, and we bought a license, and then we have maintenance fees. I'm not 100% sure how that worked out."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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 price is too high."

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

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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842,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Educational Organization

45%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ManageEngine ADAudit Plus?

The most valuable feature of ManageEngine ADAudit Plus is its reports.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine ADAudit Plus?

I consider the pricing for ADAudit Plus a bit high compared to other software solutions, so I would rate it around two or three on the pricing scale.

What needs improvement with ManageEngine ADAudit Plus?

The interface could be improved, and the log collecting feature should have additional functionalities. For example, I would like to generate reports on users who have not logged into the Active Di...

What do you like most about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

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.

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.

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Product Reports

ManageEngine ADAudit Plus

Download ManageEngine ADAudit Plus product report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

In real-time, ensure critical resources in the network like the Domain Controllers are audited, monitored and reported with the entire information on AD objects - Users, Groups, GPO, Computer, OU, DNS, AD Schema and Configuration changes with 200+ detailed event specific GUI reports and email alerts.

ManageEngine

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

Warsaw City Hall, Acument Global Technologies, Inc., Cosma International, Bank of South Pacific, Life Management Center, Central Bank, UncleBob's Self Storage, Leeds Building Society, California Transplant Donor Network, First Response, Blessing Hospital, Northern Land Council, RMK Marine

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

ManageEngine ADAudit Plus vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor