PRTG Network Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

The compared Paessler GmbH and SolarWinds solutions aren't in the same category. Paessler GmbH is ranked #5 in NMS , with an average rating of 7.6, and holds a 4.2% mindshare in the category. SolarWinds is ranked #10 in SM , with an average rating of 7.1, and holds a 4.7% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Paessler GmbH users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

PRTG Network Monitor

Read 101 PRTG Network Monitor reviews

8,114 Views
5,456 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 40 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

1,256 Views
846 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

PRTG Network Monitor

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between PRTG Network Monitor and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software.

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Network Monitoring Software

January 2025

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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

PRTG Network Monitor

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

101

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (5th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (22nd), Server Monitoring (10th), Active Directory Management (14th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Systems Management solutions, they serve different purposes. PRTG Network Monitor is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 4.2%, down 5.4% compared to last year.
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, on the other hand, focuses on Server Monitoring, holds 4.7% mindshare, up 4.5% since last year.

Network Monitoring Software

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Tochukwu Uzomba

Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited

Efficiently monitor networks across regions with seamless setup and robust feature set

PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational. It is an all-in-one monitoring solution without extra costs. For example, we set it up for an insurance company with branches across Africa. We are able to monitor from Lagos without installing anything in the branches, using the agentless feature. We just put in the IP address and the parameter, and we monitor from those ends. Additionally, all the sensors are very useful. Most people are interested in the bandwidth monitoring sensor to see what bandwidth the users are consuming. The pricing is affordable compared to SolarWinds.

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Subhajit Nag

Senior Process Associate at Tata Consultancy Services

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

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature whereby it shows when my hard drives are moving towards thresholds that would be considered outages, before they reach that point - that is valuable."

"It is a central solution in terms of how to actually use it. It has a very easy dashboard. Everything is concise. We are able to create custom sensors. For different parts of the business, we have many products across many environments, and it works for everything."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"The alerting system is very stable, and it's helpful whenever any sensor is down."

"There is a simplicity to setting up the extra sensors. It's really easy for us to build infrastructure and start monitoring very quickly."

"It has made our infrastructure more reliable."

"What I've found most valuable is the custom sensor, which allows you to write scripts or code to monitor a specific metric in your environment."

"The most valuable features of PRTG Network Monitor are bandwidth utilization, user-friendliness, all past report simple retrievals, and timeout features. Additionally, if the solution does go down it is simple to bring it back."

More PRTG Network Monitor pros

"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."

"The solution can be deployed quickly."

"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."

"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."

"One of the most valuable features are the reports. They're pretty good. Also, the ease of installation and customization for the client is another feature that we value. SolarWinds has a lot of features but these are the ones I like the most. We also like that the KPIs have the ability to be preset."

"The more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature."

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"The technical support could respond a little bit quicker."

"I would like to see more updates available in this solution."

"PRTG could use reporting tools and mobile alert tools. It should be easier to diagnose and respond to problems from a mobile device on the go."

"I wouldn't mind better categories for the sensors. When I go to add a new sensor for a new device, there are some categories in there already, and they can be filtered out, but there's quite a large pool of sensors... When I want to go in and find something quite specific, I have got to scroll down and scroll down to find what I'm actually looking for,"

"PRTG Network Monitor should provide syslog monitoring since it is not available at this time."

"Needs ability to monitor standard notification time (notify after X time)."

"I would like the ability to monitor Cisco IRS devices."

"I would like a more straightforward ability to create dashboards and maps. The network maps should be a bit more flexibility in the GUI to do what we need to do."

More PRTG Network Monitor cons

"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."

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

"The technical support team's response time 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."

"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."

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

"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."

"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay nothing for it. Its 100 sensors have allowed us to put a magnifying glass on some systems, providing an extra layer of detail. Therefore, our outgoing is nothing and our incoming is a lot of useful data that we can react to proactively."

"It is expensive."

"We have unlimited devices and sensors, and it is a bit pricey, but we do have unlimited sensors. With all things considered the price is fine, related to the solution itself. PRTG Network Monitor is good value for money."

"We pay for PRTG Network Monitor annually. The price is approximately 10,000 rupees annually."

"I'm paying something like €1000 per year for the maintenance. I've got unlimited sensors."

"We looked at PRTG and SolarWinds. From a cost side perspective, compared to PRTG, and from what you get back from it, PRTG was sort of a hands down the winner."

"We've got the unlimited package... I believe it was around the £15,000 per year mark."

"On a yearly basis, I believe it's between £1,200 and £1,500."

More PRTG Network Monitor pricing and cost advice

"We are on an annual license to use the solution. The price of the solution is expensive. The price is based on a bunch of factors, such as the number of engines and elements."

"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."

"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."

"The product is expensive."

"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor 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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

54%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

46%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...

See all answers

What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?

The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?

PRTG comes in different bands: there are options with 500, 1500, 2500, and so on. Pricing is by the number of devices, not by sensor.

See all answers

What do you like most about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

The product is expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 6% of the time

WhatsUp Gold vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 2% of the time

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Compared 19% of the time

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AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 13% of the time

Prometheus vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 3% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

PRTG Network Monitor

December 2024

Download PRTG Network Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

December 2024

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds SAM

Learn More

Paessler GmbH

SolarWinds

Overview

PRTG Network Monitor runs on a Windows machine within your network, collecting various statistics from the machines, software, and devices which you designate. PRTG comes with an easy-to-use web interface with point-and-click configuration. You can easily share data from it with non-technical colleagues and customers, including via live graphs and custom reports. This will let you plan for network expansion, see what applications are using most of your connection, and make sure that no one is hogging the entire network just to torrent videos.

To monitor a large IT environment, it's important to be able to scale PRTG up. Paessler PRTG Enterprise Monitor includes all the proven capabilities of PRTG Network Monitor, which are enhanced by exclusive ITOps Board for a service-oriented, central overview of multiple PRTG servers.

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.

Sample Customers

Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

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January 2025

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