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Prometheus Group vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 8, 2025

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

Prometheus Group
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (11th), Active Directory Management (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Prometheus Group is 3.0%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.5%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

MuhammadAzhar Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Free to use and provides valuable monitoring capabilities
Prometheus is a scalable and flexible tool that I can deploy on any cloud platform. It is free to use and provides valuable monitoring capabilities. It allows me to save money by avoiding costs associated with AWS native services like CloudWatch or Amazon Prometheus. The ability to deploy on any cloud platform or environment, including Kubernetes, is a major advantage.
Carlos Camargo - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides user-friendly API features and has straightforward deployment process
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 adding new modules or additional pollers. Additionally, the granularity of polling times for specific components could be enhanced to better meet individual customers' needs without impacting the entire polling pool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The solution is useful to collect huge metrics."
"The solution offers an easy way to install and scratch values."
"It is highly valuable as it serves as the foundation for our infrastructure monitoring tools."
"Prometheus gives us high availability automatically."
"The solution helps us to scale our products and services, and it helps me by gathering those metrics."
"The most valuable features of Prometheus for metrics collection and monitoring are its stability, robustness, and rich set of features."
"The sky is the limit because the solution is a flexible open box that can be used vastly to do anything you need to monitor applications."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"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."
"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."
"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."
"The graphical interfaces, GUI customizations, and alert configurations are impressive."
"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."
"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements. The threshold gets configured automatically, so it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."
 

Cons

"Prometheus requires improvement on the query side."
"The product must improve its documentation."
"The simplicity of the query language could be improved. The current query language is not easy to work with."
"Prometheus can be initially difficult for users since it has its query language, PromQL. The minimalistic interface is complicated to understand. They need to improve their interface so that users who don't know PromQL can also use it. You can only leverage the tool when you know PromQL."
"Setting up the rules in Prometheus can be confusing, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The scalability must be improved."
"The primary area where Prometheus could be improved is in terms of pricing, particularly when used with managed services."
"Prometheus' UI color can improve. Using the Prometheus UI for configuration or analyzing queries is a horrible experience."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"One area that could benefit from improvement is its performance"
"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."
"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."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."
"The technical support was better in previous years. With the launch of the premium support service, the normal support has declined."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Prometheus is an open-source solution."
"We have the open-source version, so we don't pay for it."
"We use the solution's open-source version."
"My company uses the open-source version of the product."
"The solution is free of cost."
"The solution is not expensive."
"The product is free."
"The price of Prometheus is good, it is affordable because it is open source and there is no cost to it. You put it on your own server and the costs incurred completely depend on how you set it up."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"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."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"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."
"The price is too high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Prometheus?
The most valuable feature of Prometheus is its ability to collect metrics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Prometheus?
Prometheus is cost-effective for me as it is free. Using cloud-native alternatives like Amazon Prometheus would incur charges.
What is your primary use case for Prometheus?
I use Prometheus for monitoring purposes in IT infrastructure. It is particularly useful for environments using Kubernetes, as it monitors ports, containers, instances, and applications effectively.
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 Application Monitor at this time. I have not encountered any missing features or fu...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Prometheus Group vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.