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ManageEngine Applications Manager 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

ManageEngine Applications M...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
41st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (34th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (8th), Active Directory Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of ManageEngine Applications Manager is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.2%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.2%
ManageEngine Applications Manager0.9%
Other97.9%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

SN
Senior System Engineer at Qatar Petroleum
Managing application health has become simpler but new monitoring features still need faster delivery
I use application discovery and dependency mapping. It helps with managing application health What I like about ManageEngine Applications Manager is the ease of use and ease of deployment. I cannot remember anything specific for future updates of the product. The new features take a lot of time…
NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Specialist at ServiceIO
Monitoring over a thousand systems has improved decision making and operational visibility
From an advantage perspective, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is comparatively cheaper from a commercial point of view. It is easy to install and configure, very user-friendly, and quick to get up and running, allowing you to see the early value adds in your organization. It is compatible with most technologies for monitoring with very few chances of incompatibility. Configuration also allows us to monitor all the technical parameters we are looking for, making it a very good experience for us. The alerting feature in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is a main advantage, as it alerts based on threshold breaches and can raise tickets to the ticketing system, send SMS, and email notifications, allowing engineers to work on those tickets to resolve issues and avoid further impact. The visibility into server health is a beneficial feature that I am utilizing. We widely use various application performance metrics in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor such as database monitoring and server monitoring, which are quite good enough for any monitoring solution. We utilize the customizable dashboards in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For a small organization, I think ManageEngine is pretty nice, I think it's enough."
"I am impressed with the tool's reporting feature which is simple."
"ManageEngine Applications Manager's installation is pretty easy."
"The anomaly detection feature helps with maintaining the system's health. It is regarding our IT incident center."
"If cost is your consideration and you have a well-rounded system administrator, this is a good product to explore."
"The initial setup was straightforward, without complexity."
"ManageEngine Applications Manager maintains the historical data and it's easy for us to analyze the trends and patterns and fix them accordingly."
"Its price and the flexibility to deploy are the most valuable. Flexibility is very important, and you can scale from very basic to more complex. This solution is a part of a complete suite of management tools. So, it can be integrated with other solutions for monitoring networks, which is very important. You can expand it or interconnect it with many other tools, which is a powerful feature. We have a very good and long relationship with ManageEngine support guys. They provide very good support for us."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"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 product integrates with Remedy."
"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."
"Once we got our IT inventory organized and aligned with the business, we were able to leverage our Orion Platform to provide more than just a reactive-based monitoring service to the business."
"The OOTB (Out of the Box) implementation does have very good node specific pages and can provide a wealth of information."
"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."
"The solution has good alerts; notifications are sent via email to technicians, and you can filter the kinds of alerts you want to receive as well, which is excellent."
 

Cons

"More modem support for SMS feature."
"One area of improvement is the dashboard should be more readable and available."
"It can’t be configured to store APM Insight data for more than one month."
"One area of improvement is the dashboard should be more readable and available."
"The inventory of assets needs improvement."
"The information provided by ManageEngine is not deep-dive like IBM and CA provide."
"I would like the solution to improve the ability to track services."
"They can improve the post-processing of the data."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"They are complex to operate; users need to know what they want during setup."
"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."
"I believe that SolarWinds should spend more effort in reporting."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"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."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is noted for its cost-effectiveness, a crucial consideration for potential users."
"The solution's licensing costs are yearly."
"The cost of this solution is not too bad, although it could be cheaper considering what you're getting for the price."
"The licensing costs for ManageEngine Applications Manager are around $1,200 per year. For additional monitors, you have to pay extra."
"Price-wise, it is a cheap tool...The solution's licensing model is subscription-based, in which yearly payments are to be made."
"It is a cost-effective solution."
"The annual licensing depends on the number of monitors you have connected. Once you get to two hundred monitors you can see the price reflect."
"ManageEngine Applications Manager has reasonable pricing. It's more affordable than other solutions in the market. My company has an instance-based license for ManageEngine Applications Manager. You can purchase a yearly subscription or a perpetual license. The standard license covers most features, but you can still have some paid add-ons."
"I would advise potential buyers to wait until the end of the quarter, end of year, or other time to place orders. There are actually great deals to be had at those times if your budget cycle can match up."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"When planning for the number of licenses to purchase, make sure you understand all of the elements within an application required to really understand performance well. In our case, we quickly came to the conclusion that an unlimited license for SAM was the way to go."
"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."
"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."
"Pricing is inexpensive, starting at 2440 euros. For that, you get the ability to monitor a couple of nodes and one year of maintenance and support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine Applications Manager?
I am satisfied with the licensing cost for ManageEngine Applications Manager.
What needs improvement with ManageEngine Applications Manager?
The new features take a lot of time to be implemented, and that could be improved about ManageEngine Applications Manager. If I were requesting a new feature that is not existing, making it availab...
What is your primary use case for ManageEngine Applications Manager?
I use application discovery and dependency mapping. It helps with managing application health.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
There is definitely room for improvement besides simplifying its setup. As a non-technical person, I believe the dashboards could be improved. Everything we use appears on video walls, and we need ...
 

Also Known As

Applications Manager
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Certis Europe, Financial Domain, SaaS Office Suite, On Demand TV, Parliament's IT Systems, Sastra Technologies, UniServity
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about ManageEngine Applications Manager vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,174 professionals have used our research since 2012.