Microsoft Configuration Manager vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Zabbix comparison

Microsoft Configuration Man...

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95% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Configuration Manager, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, and Zabbix based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, ServiceNow, Oracle and others in Server Monitoring.

To learn more, read our detailed Server Monitoring Report (Updated: March 2025).

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Server Monitoring

March 2025

Helped 849,475 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 6.0%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.6%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 28.2%, up from 23.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

MikeNelson2

IT Infrastructure Coordinator at NSW Government

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.

The component and cable monitoring features are good, but the interface is slow

Subhajit Nag

Senior Process Associate at Tata Consultancy Services

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.

Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes

ASM Naushad Alam

Network Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

We have not yet purchased the commercial version so have a lack of technical ability. We do not yet fully know the key points or key features of the solution. We just use what we use along with WhatsUp Gold. Based on our use only, stability is rated a seven out of ten.

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pros

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Endpoint Manager is valuable to our organization because it allows us to connect to our enterprise from remote locations securely. The most useful feature is its robustness and scalability. It is highly scalable and flexible, allowing us to use it in various environments. Additionally, we can specialize the policies related to each device group. This ensures that each group has access to the applications they need for their work and non-work hours."

"The solution doesn't require any maintenance from our end because it is a cloud-based solution and Microsoft takes care of everything."

"This has made the management of our environment easier."

"The most valuable feature of SCCM is the application distribution."

"The technical support is good."

"Microsoft is being very competitive right now, and they are really investing in a lot of new features to be more competitive in the marketplace."

"The initial setup is straightforward and not too complicated."

"The cloud account management is a valuable 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."

"We use the solution as a central monitoring tool. We use it to monitor every transaction that has a relation to the organization’s infrastructure."

"It is simple to implement and can provide fairly decent Windows-based monitoring, beyond simple SNMP. It is great for monitoring newbies and smaller shops."

"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."

"The product integrates with Remedy."

"The graphical interfaces, GUI customizations, and alert configurations are impressive."

"Identifying the problem statement is easy."

"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"It's a flexible solution."

"Zabbix is quite stable once it is set up. We haven't had any post-setup issues."

"The calculations part is the most valuable."

"Zabbix is both stable and scalable."

"The pricing of the product is reasonable."

"It is a great product. The SNMP protocol tracking feature is good. I really like how it tracks SNMP. The alerts are also great."

"Dashboard and the customization of the items and triggers are the most valuable features."

"There is less computing power needed for scaling."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"It does seem a bit buggy from time to time."

"In spite of us being a premier customer we find the support unsatisfactory."

"The TSM component could be improved."

"I want the system to provide some dependency relations. I would also like to see the relationship between different machines."

"I would like to see more automation."

"It would be better if reporting were more user-friendly. I would like to see an upgrade in the reporting structure in the next release. At the moment, you have to use an SQL query or configure it to pull reports through the graphical user interface. Their updates could be more regular. I think Mircosoft updates it every six months. They are also moving many things to Intune, and Microsoft decided to move the deployment solution there. I think SCCM is getting old, and Intune is new."

"I would like to see some improvements in WSUS and control of other, non-Microsoft, product updates."

"Some of the capabilities aren't fully developed yet. It's an ongoing work in progress. I think they are making some steps in the right direction as far as managing workstations centrally, like Intune."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager cons

"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."

"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."

"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve the server monitoring and the web application monitoring features are not good. Microsoft SCOM has better server monitoring."

"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."

"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."

"The technical support was better in previous years. With the launch of the premium support service, the normal support has declined."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"There is a bit of a learning curve during installation."

"It should be easy to modify the front end."

"I'm using the free version of Zabbix, and I'd like to see more customization options, especially for setting trigger thresholds."

"As far as improvements, sometimes I get a bit frustrated when I move from a previous version to a new one because some configuration has changed—I need to investigate the documentation to deal with some configuration. But it doesn't take much time, so it's okay."

"I would like for this solution to be more cloud-friendly."

"The solution needs to add features for finding loopholes or problems and their root causes."

"The user interface could be a bit better. They could update it a bit."

"The server monitoring could be better."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is good because they have various options, depending on what you are looking for."

"Its licensing is quite complicated because we are getting the license not only for SCCM but for the full Microsoft package. We don't need to pay for a separate license. We need to have one license that includes everything we need, such as Windows, Microsoft 365, SCCM, encryption, and so on. So, we don't have a specific price for it. Perhaps, it is good that it includes the full suite of licensing of Microsoft. It is expensive, but we are getting a lot of features."

"Pricing and licensing are horrible. You have to not look at dollar value to use SCCM. It's super-duper expensive but it works. The acquisition cost is expensive, it's labor-intensive. But it works."

"We have to pay for a license."

"As far as I know, it is an annual operating expense license."

"There is an annual license needed to use the solution."

"I rate the price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager an eight out of ten."

"The price of SCCM depends on the size of the organization. The price is competitive."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing and cost advice

"The price is too high."

"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."

"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."

"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."

"SAM is not per server so the pricing model can be deceiving. If you have an enterprise environment, you will quickly exceed your licensing quickly. You should know this before going in."

"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 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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"We purchased Zabbix for a good price, including support"

"Zabbix and Grafana are both open source products, we only needed to go to their website and download the application and we began to use them. The solutions are free."

"If you have 20,000 hosts, the support costs around €95,000 for a year."

"It is free, which allows us to reduce costs."

"The solution is free. However, many open-sourced tools start out free but eventually start charging."

"We pay the subscription for support by year."

"This solution is completely open-source, so it is quite affordable."

"Zabbix is an open-source tool, and it's free to use."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Server Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

May 31, 2015

Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor

I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…

How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

38%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Educational Organization

34%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that ...

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. Wh...

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 effi...

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?

There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and App...

What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

The cost is minimal. It is literally free.

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

For me, Zabbix is very straightforward. I cannot think of any improvements needed. It's a very mature product. The on...

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

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Product Reports

Microsoft Configuration Manager

April 2025

Download Microsoft Configuration Manager product report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

April 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Download Zabbix product report

April 2025

Also Known As

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

SolarWinds SAM

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Configuration Manager helps IT manage PCs and servers, keeping software up-to-date, setting configuration and security policies, and monitoring system status while giving employees access to corporate applications on the devices that they choose. When Configuration Manager is integrated with Microsoft Intune, you can manage corporate-connected PCs and Macs along with cloud-based mobile devices running Windows, iOS, and Android, all from a single management console.

New features of Configuration Manager, such as the support of Windows 10 in-place upgrade, co-management with Microsoft Intune, Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise Servicing Dashboard, integration with Windows Update for Business, and more make deploying and managing Windows easier than ever before.

Microsoft

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

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.