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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
43rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (35th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (10th), Active Directory Management (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of ManageEngine Applications Manager is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.6%, 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

Ossama Arab - PeerSpot reviewer
Anomaly detection maintains the system's health and good for monitoring
The primary use case is for services and incident management.   The anomaly detection feature helps with maintaining the system's health. It is regarding our IT incident center.  ManageEngine is for incident management and monitoring.  The inventory of assets needs improvement. The asset…
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 feature that I have found most valuable in ManageEngine Applications Manager is its dashboard."
"What I like most about ManageEngine Applications Manager is its price point, apart from its technicalities. The solution is cheaper than its competitors. ManageEngine Applications Manager has helpful documentation that makes setting it up straightforward."
"We do not have pricing constraints as an organization, because we do have reservations about ManageEngine being functionally scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to be able to monitor Kubernetes."
"The initial setup was straightforward, without complexity."
"ManageEngine Applications Manager's installation is pretty easy."
"ManageEngine Applications Manager maintains the historical data and it's easy for us to analyze the trends and patterns and fix them accordingly."
"ITSM is a valuable feature, it complies with the requirements in Pakistan."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
"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 component and cable monitoring are good. SolarWinds is more intuitive and user-friendly than AppDynamics. The AppDynamics console is more complex because it's a more feature-rich solution, so it's not easy for somebody to pick it up."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
"The solution has good alerts. Notifications are sent via email to technicians. You can filter the kinds of alerts you want to receive as well. It's excellent."
"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."
"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."
 

Cons

"One area of improvement is the dashboard should be more readable and available."
"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."
"The dashboards in the interface need a lot of work."
"They can improve the post-processing of the data. AppDynamics has more powerful tools for post-processing or analytics. It has some limitations in more complex environments, but because we are free to use different solutions, we try to find what is best for the customers or the problem we are trying to solve."
"The agent often crashes when there is too much load on the application side. If a sudden storm of data comes in, the agent crashes down most of the time."
"An area for improvement in ManageEngine Applications Manager is artificial intelligence. If AI is integrated into the solution, it'll be a piece of cake. Currently, it's all configured manually."
"The integration process with third party tools poses some challenges; enhancing the robustness of these integrations could greatly improve overall functionality and user experience."
"The tool’s report feature created issues for us. We needed to gain skills to use that feature. The tool’s customization is not easy since you have to reconfigure the whole system."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"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."
"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."
"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."
"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."
"Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's licensing costs are yearly."
"Price-wise, it is a cheap tool...The solution's licensing model is subscription-based, in which yearly payments are to be made."
"Its price is good."
"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."
"The cost of this solution is not too bad, although it could be cheaper considering what you're getting for the price."
"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."
"The licensing costs for ManageEngine Applications Manager are around $1,200 per year. For additional monitors, you have to pay extra."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"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."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
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 ManageEngine Applications Manager?
ManageEngine Applications Manager's installation is pretty easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine Applications Manager?
The solution is noted for its cost-effectiveness, a crucial consideration for potential users.
What needs improvement with ManageEngine Applications Manager?
The integration process with third party tools poses some challenges; enhancing the robustness of these integrations could greatly improve overall functionality and user experience.
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

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: March 2025.
842,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.