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Netwrix Auditor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

Netwrix Auditor
Ranking in Active Directory Management
2nd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
GRC (13th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (32nd), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (18th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Active Directory Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (22nd), Server Monitoring (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of Netwrix Auditor is 10.1%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 3.6%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Netwrix Auditor10.1%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor3.6%
Other86.3%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

RishiPandit - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead - Technical Services at Impetus
Optimizing time and effort through comprehensive auditing features
Netwrix Auditor doesn't have many competitors at the level in which it is placed. All other companies provide auditing solutions but not up to the feature list; it is very broad and robust. The best features include flexibility to interact directly with MS-SQL. Real-time alerts help identify potential security threats. The ability to streamline audits with insights into configuration states is helpful, as the access reviews and audit reports are really insightful. This is a good tool. The search functionality is available, but comparative to other vendors, this is a bit slower. Reports are effective; the compliance reports and all the reports are very insightful. That is good.
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

"The most valuable features of Netwrix Auditor are its affordability compared to similar products and its comprehensive monitoring of admin activities."
"Netwrix Auditor was the easiest to use, most straightforward, and it had competitive pricing."
"Without Netwrix, it's impossible to take control of things."
"I have found user behavior analysis and the ability to run risk assessments important features, and additionally the interface and online documentation are very good."
"Netwrix provides features that no other solution on the market does."
"What I find the most valuable about Netwrix Auditor is the way it shows risk. The reports are very clear."
"Netwrix Auditor doesn't have many competitors at the level in which it is placed; all other companies provide auditing solutions but not up to the feature list—it is very broad and robust."
"I am impressed with the tool's reporting feature and notifications."
"SAM has altered the way monitoring is being looked at - from just being able to monitor CPU, Mem, Disk and network utilization levels we have moved to the next levels of finding out process related issues, service related issues and specific application related issues to identify root cause of performance issues."
"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"
"The product integrates with Remedy."
"The solution is end-to-end from the network and the application to the processes. Everything about the enterprise infrastructure is being covered by the solution. It's easy to use and easy to navigate and one of the leaders among monitoring solutions."
"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."
"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvements when it comes to the licensing."
"In the UI, we have to adjust and resize our console many times, and sometimes it appears, sometimes you have to close and open it, and sometimes it does not give a scroll bar to navigate."
"The solution lacks self-service on password reset. It also needs to improve its scalability."
"If you buy direct, there is a minimum of 150 licenses that must be procured. The price point and barrier of entry is a little bit higher than it would be if you purchased the solution from an authorized reseller partner, rather than buying it and managing yourself."
"When there are issues I would like remediation to be in one place."
"The Linux compatibility of this solution could be improved."
"There is room for improvement with the introduction of AI functionality."
"I expect usability features to become more refined over time. I'm interested to see how it evolves and continues to improve."
"As per my view, Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."
"One area that could benefit from improvement is its performance"
"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."
"From an integration point of view, if you want to have a manager of manager kind of layer, that is currently lacking in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor."
"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."
"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"
"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license for this solution and we are on an annual license. The price is reasonable."
"The tool's price is fair."
"This solution is reasonably priced. I would rate it a nine out of ten."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"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 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."
"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."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Educational Organization
13%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Netwrix Auditor?
I don't know about the pricing of this, but it is good at this price point because our organization has purchased it, which means it was in budget. We usually do not buy expensive solutions, so the...
What needs improvement with Netwrix Auditor?
The areas of improvement include the front end, as the UI should be more intuitive and there should be fewer bugs. In the UI, we have to adjust and resize our console many times, and sometimes it a...
What is your primary use case for Netwrix Auditor?
We use Netwrix Auditor for auditing, log centralizing, centralizing the logs, log management, and for permission access management, giving permission on shared folders and Active Directory groups.
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 ...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
I am doing research as we currently have both solutions, and I am looking to see if we need both or can manage with one. Currently, the outcome indicates that we need both. The focus point is diffe...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AT&T, SanDisk, Siemens, Verizon, Electrolux, Allianz, Societe Generale
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Netwrix Auditor vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,043 professionals have used our research since 2012.