Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 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

Microsoft Configuration Man...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (3rd), Patch Management (1st)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (22nd), Active Directory Management (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 9.8%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 4.7%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

MikeNelson2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Deployment recovery works well but requires configuration improvements
While I do not use the product frequently, many issues were due to configuration rather than the product itself. I cannot give an exact recommendation as it is not my area of responsibility. The team that uses it finds it adequate. It is presently good enough for us not to investigate other options. Overall, I rate the product a six out of ten.
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

"It saves a lot of money when you can install things automatically and they are installed the exact same way on every computer."
"With the right administrator, application deployment can do wonders."
"It is a very good solution. It has a good interface and is easy to use. On top of that, it is very reliable in terms of distribution as well as getting the report."
"The technical support is good."
"The main, clear valuable feature is updating the latest, patches and updates from Windows. This is the main feature we really utilize a lot."
"The dashboards have information about our assets."
"There is a faster time to rollout. If we get a new PC, it can be ready for productivity right away."
"We have found the scalability to be quite good."
"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
"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."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
 

Cons

"The tool's deployment is complex and depends on the architecture you want to implement."
"It does seem a bit buggy from time to time."
"They need to improve the support for the Mac operating system."
"The solution is a bit heavy on the sources such as RAM or CPU and the software needs to be a bit lighter."
"Microsoft should extend support for additional platforms."
"The solution is on-premises. The cloud version of the product, if a person needs to be on the cloud, would be InTune, which already exists as an option. SCCM doesn't need to offer cloud features for this reason."
"The analysis is something that can be integrated. Their report analysis can be improved a little bit due to the fact that most of the time complaints policies are saved by the admins. It's something that we need to look into and search for."
"Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager can improve by allowing us to schedule the scripts, we don't have a script scheduling option and have to do it manually."
"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."
"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."
"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."
"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."
"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."
"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license price could be reduced for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager They should make the price more affordable for smaller companies, most companies would be able to use the solution if it was priced better. There are more people on this cloud because you don't have to have either a server room or an on-premise server. You can have one IT person handle this without any local infrastructure."
"As far as I know, it is an annual operating expense license."
"There is an annual license needed to use the solution."
"We use the tool's free license. It is expensive."
"We have to pay for a license."
"The price of SCCM depends on the size of the organization. The price is competitive."
"For enterprises, there is an annual license required to use this solution. The price of the solution could be cheaper. However, this is mostly because of the exchange rate from the dollar to the Nigerian currency."
"The price is competitive and reasonable."
"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."
"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 product is expensive."
"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."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"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 would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Server Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
46%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...
How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. What I like most about ManageEngine is that I can log on to every PC very easily a...
What do you like most about SCCM?
One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages efficiently and deploy them to specific groups within our network. This streamlined ...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules. The misalignment of licensing terms can present commercial challenges when...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.