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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

"We do not have pricing constraints as an organization, because we do have reservations about ManageEngine being functionally scalable."
"We have a very good and long relationship with ManageEngine support guys, and they provide very good support for us."
"If cost is your consideration and you have a well-rounded system administrator, this is a good product to explore."
"Depending on the size of the environment, this is a solution that I recommend."
"ManageEngine Applications Manager maintains the historical data and it's easy for us to analyze the trends and patterns and fix them accordingly."
"What I like about ManageEngine Applications Manager is the ease of use and ease of deployment."
"For a small organization, I think ManageEngine is pretty nice, I think it's enough."
"Applications Manager helps businesses ensure their revenue-critical applications meet end user expectations."
"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."
"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"
"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."
"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."
"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."
"Having used various other vendors for monitoring over my career, the SolarWinds products give outstanding value for the price."
"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements, so the threshold gets configured automatically, and it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."
"This feature from Solarwinds SAM helped us to monitor and alert whenever the SSL cert is going to expire on the server to avoid any downtime of the services running on the server specially on ADFS platform where we have Video conference, Webex, Office 365 and single sign-on services."
 

Cons

"Lacks an SIEM solution which can be found in other products."
"I would like the solution to improve the ability to track services."
"More modem support for SMS feature."
"The integration process with third party tools poses some challenges; enhancing the robustness of these integrations could greatly improve overall functionality and user experience."
"One area of improvement is the dashboard should be more readable and available."
"Even with the top-notch dashboard, it could be made stronger with an additional plug-in for analytics."
"Even with the top-notch dashboard, it could be made stronger in order to have an additional plug-in for analytics."
"The inventory of assets needs improvement."
"They are complex to operate; users need to know what they want during setup."
"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."
"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."
"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."
"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."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve by having a cloud version. They have an observability platform but it still needs to be maintained by us."
"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."
"Downside of the tools is the web console are hung or crash. It need to improve the performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution is noted for its cost-effectiveness, a crucial consideration for potential users."
"Its price is good."
"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."
"Price-wise, it is a cheap tool...The solution's licensing model is subscription-based, in which yearly payments are to be made."
"The licensing costs for ManageEngine Applications Manager are around $1,200 per year. For additional monitors, you have to pay extra."
"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."
"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 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."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"The price is too high."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"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."
"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
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
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.
886,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.