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Netwrix Auditor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

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
3rd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
GRC (14th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (33rd), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (15th)
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 (18th), Server Monitoring (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of Netwrix Auditor is 10.7%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 3.0%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Netwrix Auditor10.7%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor3.0%
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 feature is the real-time monitoring."
"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."
"Netwrix Auditor was the easiest to use, most straightforward, and it had competitive pricing."
"The most valuable features of Netwrix Auditor are its affordability compared to similar products and its comprehensive monitoring of admin activities."
"I am impressed with the tool's reporting feature and notifications."
"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."
"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"
"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."
"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."
"I am impressed with the tool's AppStack feature which mainly helps us in the identification process. This feature can give an overview of the fault and help us identify the issues for performance degradation. Instead of looking at multiple places, we can look at a single place to identify the issues."
"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."
"SolarWinds allows network administrators to easily monitor the network by customizing the pages to see what exactly is needed, in addition to the deep statistics shown for nodes and interfaces like response time, packet loss, interface CRC, interface errors, as well as the rich graphs for all network elements."
"I have found the visibility into server health with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor very beneficial, which we use on a daily basis."
"Once we got our IT inventory organized and aligned with the business, we were able to leverage our Orion Platform to provide more than just a reactive-based monitoring service to the business."
 

Cons

"An improvement would be if there was an another way to manage the logs besides email because it's not so practical."
"When there are issues I would like remediation to be in one place."
"The solution lacks self-service on password reset. It also needs to improve its scalability."
"The Linux compatibility of this solution could be improved."
"There is room for improvements when it comes to the licensing."
"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."
"I expect usability features to become more refined over time. I'm interested to see how it evolves and continues to improve."
"There is room for improvement with the introduction of AI functionality."
"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."
"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."
"As per my view, Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."
"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"The tool’s report feature created issues for us. We needed to gain skills to use that feature. The tool’s customization is not easy since you have to reconfigure the whole system."
"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."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is reasonably priced. I would rate it a nine out of ten."
"The tool's price is fair."
"There is a license for this solution and we are on an annual license. The price is reasonable."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"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."
"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."
"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 compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
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: June 2026.
906,852 professionals have used our research since 2012.