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

Microsoft Configuration Man...

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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, Broadcom, Tanium and others in Server Monitoring.

To learn more, read our detailed Server Monitoring Report (Updated: February 2026).

Download the complete report

Server Monitoring

February 2026

Helped 881,821 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 February 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 4.2%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 3.2%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 15.2%, down from 26.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Zabbix	15.2%
Microsoft Configuration Manager	4.2%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	3.2%
Other	77.4%

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

JunedBedrekar

Expert at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Have effectively deployed patches and applications while integrating with cloud solutions

The features I find most valuable in Microsoft Configuration Manager are replication and scripting. If I want to get a fetch report for anything, such as hardware-related issues or group policy-related issues, I need to fetch the report by using SCCM's scripting language and remediation part. The inventory collection features of Microsoft Configuration Manager are good because we always prefer the inventory. We do it by using the script language. We use remote management capabilities in Microsoft Configuration Manager. Remote management capabilities are useful if the user is not providing access; we can use the backend users to update the group policy and sync the devices. These are the main features we require.

Monitoring over a thousand systems has improved decision making and operational visibility

NikhilKalwint

Technical Specialist at ServiceIO

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.

Helps reduce response time but has room to improve customization complexity

KamranBhatti

Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

We are not working on simple standalone solutions like Kaspersky DDoS Protection or Hybrid Cloud Security. Once you understand Zabbix, then it is easy to customize those web pages and graphs for our customer use. It is fully automated to your requirements. Zabbix is working fine with no issues, and I am satisfied with it. We have combined Zabbix and SolarWinds. The integration works fine, and it is easy to integrate Zabbix with the IT environment. We were trying to purchase MDR (Managed Detection and Response), but we are not working on that. I don't have real experience with MDR. We are using Falcon software for that. We are working with Falcon Complete, not with Sandbox. We are not using Kaspersky for business or cloud protection. For that, we are using Zabbix CrowdStrike Falcon Complete solution. I have given this review an overall rating of 8.

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

"The solution is highly scalable."

"The solution is stable."

"We're a Microsoft-centric organization, so we are happy with the integration between products."

"Overall, I believe Microsoft Configuration Manager is definitely a good product."

"SCCM is a stable solution."

"Microsoft Configuration Manager gives different tools in one solution."

"It's helped us solve problems surrounding patching, installing, and reporting different patches, etc., on the virtual machines."

"The scalability to deploy the package."

"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."

"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."

"I adore the NTA module that provides deep details on ingress/egress traffic for any interface. With a few clicks, you can correlate who is accessing what and when, beside the bandwidth consuming applications/users."

"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."

"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"

"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."

"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."

"Identifying the problem statement is easy."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"Zabbix has high scalability. I would rate it a nine out of ten."

"Our customers also like that they don't have to use multiple modules. Micro Focus and major vendors typically require you to buy several modules and plugins. Our customers do not like that. We offer them a single product for all their monitoring needs."

"Zabbix is scalable."

"Every new asset placed in the environment can be automatically detected, predicting human failures."

"They've already added extra features, such as noise-canceling and facial recognition, which is great."

"Zabbix can use old data to current data to set the threshold. We can use previous data to set the threshold."

"SNMP monitoring, source discovery, and alert triggering are most valuable."

"Setup was straightforward. Initial deployment took two or three months."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"There is a reboot issue with the patching. Sometimes, if patching runs into any issue whatsoever, it doesn't reboot but it doesn't tell you it errored out. It just sits there and we don't find out until the next day whether it patched or not. That was a big issue for us. We're working through that. They added some stuff in there now where you can actually tell reboot is pending. But we still need some kind of notification that if something fails or is pending, we know. We shouldn't have to go in and look. They don't have anything for that right now."

"In terms of the monitoring, the timeframe it takes to actually report back on the compliance of a device after it has been patched is a bit too long."

"Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager could improve the integration."

"The main thing is that SCCM has to become an appliance instead of a server. When I say appliance, it has to come preconfigured so that it is drop-shipped into the enterprise and then you activate the feature sets that you want. It should pull down all the latest binaries. Once that is all there, it should have a discovery tool which goes out and discovers the assets within an enterprise. If the server, workstation, and applications are all coming from the same vendor, why not have the vendor do this work for us and automate it as much as it possibly can?"

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

"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."

"There should probably be better remote support. They should also continue to improve on patch management, patching, and creating or turning products in software into deployable apps."

"With Microsoft Premier Support, you get what you pay for. There's Third Tier Support that you pay for. If you pay for that, you get excellent support, and if you don't pay for that, then you get the less experienced staff."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager cons

"The stability, flexibility, and ease of use could be improved."

"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."

"Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."

"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."

"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."

"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."

"The product needs to reduce its price."

"It lacks a user experience for measuring things like the end-to-end time for which a user waits for a specific response in the system. In the application layer, it has some very basic stuff. You have to build your own with manuscripts and things like that."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"In the next release, I'm hoping for features targeted towards larger users with more customizable options. Despite this, I think pre-canned reports that can be used straight out of the box would be beneficial rather than having to configure each report individually. Additionally, a deeper dive into software configurations on the machines would be useful, although I understand there may be challenges in implementing this due to scripting requirements. More documentation would also be appreciated."

"I had problems using Zabbix when working with SUSE Enterprise; many companies use SUSE."

"Zabbix isn't very good at automation just yet."

"To improve Zabbix, adding more features to support the monitoring of modern workloads like containers would be beneficial."

"Zabbix can use better documentation and support for troubleshooting."

"The APM monitoring has room for improvement, although I hear that the new 5.2 version has some improvements in that area, and I'd like to give that a go. I would like to see a few more templates out there for different styles of monitoring. I use the Grafana interface for reporting. I would also like it to have an out-of-the-box ability to email reports. You can create reports, but to be able to email those reports would be really helpful. I've got users who are not interested in logging in and generating a report. They want it all pre-canned and sent to an email address. It would also be really handy if we could pin certain reports up onto platforms such as Teams or SharePoint. A GUI for the proxy server would be cool to have for debugging purposes and for the support teams to have a look at, but I don't know whether that's really feasible to do. I get enough from the log files themselves."

"Having a more customizable interface and dashboard would be an improvement."

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

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive. Microsoft Configuration Manager would likely be considered high-priced for small businesses because they may not fully utilize all of its features and capabilities."

"Its price is okay because it is part of our licensing."

"The price could be better."

"The price model is different for every client."

"When you compare this solution with other tools in the market you might actually find a lot of variation in the pricing and that's why people opt for the other tools rather than Microsoft tools."

"Microsoft provides a steep price for their enterprise products, but they offer very competitive pricing for their legacy customers."

"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."

"We have to pay for a license."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing and cost advice

"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."

"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."

"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."

"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."

"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 think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."

"The tool's licensing is good."

"We were searching for an open source solution and Zabbix fit the bill because it is free and open source under the GPL license."

"This is an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"It is open source. If you want to have a subscription or official support, you can pay for it. They have different plans, which are not that expensive. The plans are based on per monitoring server, not per monitored equipment. So, it is not at all expensive, and you can also live without the support if you want a cheaper option."

"There are no licenses."

"We pay the subscription for support by year."

"I use the tool's free version."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

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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

11%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	64

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	56
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	34

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 is definitely room for improvement besides simplifying its setup. As a non-technical person, I believe the dash...

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?

I think Zabbix is economical, whereas SolarWinds is expensive. SolarWinds has a lot of secure features, but Zabbix is...

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

The potential and customization is a little difficult because you have to learn scripts. I think Zabbix needs to impr...

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Comparisons

Compared 7% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 6% of the time

Tanium vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 4% of the time

PDQ Deploy vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 4% of the time

BigFix vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Configuration Manager Competitors

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 9% of the time

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 9% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

ManageEngine Applications Manager vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 3% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Checkmk vs Zabbix

Compared 8% of the time

LibreNMS vs Zabbix

Compared 6% of the time

Icinga vs Zabbix

Compared 5% of the time

Nagios XI vs Zabbix

Compared 4% of the time

Centreon vs Zabbix

Compared 4% of the time

More Zabbix Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Configuration Manager

January 2026

Download Microsoft Configuration Manager product report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

January 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Download Zabbix product report

January 2026

Also Known As

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

SolarWinds SAM

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Configuration Manager streamlines IT management with features such as software deployment, patch management, and automation, centralizing operations for Windows environments. Integration with Microsoft products allows efficient oversight of workstations and servers.

Microsoft Configuration Manager provides comprehensive IT management, offering software deployment, patch management, and application pushing. Automation reduces manual tasks, ensuring consistency across systems. Centralized management enables standardized OS deployments, application updates, and configuration integrity. Integration with Microsoft products facilitates seamless operations, while hardware and software inventory, compliance reporting, and remote control functions enhance IT management. Users seek improvements in application deployment for those without deep scripting knowledge and desire better WSUS control, PowerShell and Intune integration, Linux compatibility, and user interface enhancements. Performance improvements are requested for remote user management and third-party application support.

What features enhance Microsoft Configuration Manager?

Software Deployment: Efficiently distribute software across large networks.
Patch Management: Automate and streamline update processes for security and functionality.
Automation Capabilities: Reduce manual effort and enhance consistency in IT tasks.
Centralized Management: Standardize OS deployments and application updates.
Integration with Microsoft Products: Seamless operation with existing Microsoft infrastructure.
Hardware and Software Inventory: Comprehensive tracking for assets and resources.
Compliance Reporting: Ensure compliance with internal and external standards.
Remote Control Functions: Enhance support and troubleshooting capabilities.

What benefits should users expect when evaluating Microsoft Configuration Manager?

Decreased Manual Work: Automation reduces time spent on repetitive tasks.
Enhanced Security: Automated patch management keeps systems secure.
Consistent Configurations: Centralized updates ensure uniformity across systems.
Improved Integration: Seamless operation within Microsoft ecosystems boosts productivity.
Comprehensive Oversight: Detailed inventory and reporting tools aid in strategic planning.
Streamlined Support: Remote capabilities improve IT support and user satisfaction.

Microsoft Configuration Manager is widely implemented in organizations to manage Windows workstations and servers. It is essential for deploying operating systems and applications, managing software updates, and conducting hardware and software inventories. The tool is crucial for endpoint and configuration management, ensuring compliance, and automating processes like patching and vulnerability management. Industries such as finance, healthcare, and education rely on Microsoft Configuration Manager to keep systems secure and operational, adapting it to address their specific needs and challenges in maintaining diversified IT environments.

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.