ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

ServiceNow and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. ServiceNow is ranked #41 with an average rating of 7.5, while SolarWinds is ranked #16 with an average rating of 7.3. ServiceNow holds a 0.4% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ServiceNow users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Read 4 ServiceNow Cloud Observability reviews

771 Views
593 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 42 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

3,793 Views
2,563 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and ServiceNow Cloud Observability compete in the IT management tools category. User reviews indicate SolarWinds has the upper hand with its pricing model and customer support, while ServiceNow stands out for its robust features.

Features: SolarWinds offers comprehensive monitoring, alerting capabilities, and detailed performance insights. ServiceNow has strong IT workflow integration, advanced analytics, and extensive integrations.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds could improve scalability, dashboard customization, and user interface. ServiceNow needs to address setup complexity, notification noise, and initial training requirements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds provides a straightforward deployment process with high-quality support. ServiceNow, while more complex to deploy, also offers robust customer service.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds is noted for cost-effective pricing and good ROI. ServiceNow, though higher in cost, offers satisfactory ROI due to its advanced features.

To learn more, read our detailed ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

April 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

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

41st

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

16th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (9th), Active Directory Management (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is 0.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.7%, up 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

VinayKumar16

Senior DeliveryManager at ITC Infotech

Provides ease of use in areas like analytics and reporting

The feature of the tool that is more impactful for cloud performance stems from the area revolving around analytics and reporting. It is an easy-to-use tool. There is something known as performance analytics within ServiceNow that offers complete analytics, which offers end-to-end analytics along with the KPI metrics with what we have in place and so on. With the aforementioned aspects of the tool, I think we should be able to create a dashboard according to the operations view called the operation dashboard view, specifically for C-level executives.

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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

"To a certain extent, it is possible to save on the costs of the product."

"The solution Lightstep/ServiceNow has a couple of pretty advanced functionalities to help us investigate a deviation and help the development teams have better observability in the environment using distributed and complex services."

"The UI is very intuitive."

"The ability to create a stream based on different parameters, operation name, service name, URL, tags, and URI part, is one valuable feature."

"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."

"SolarWinds SAM has significantly improved our workflow by allowing us to develop a comprehensive knowledge base of known errors and automate responses to specific alerts."

"The solution can be deployed quickly."

"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."

"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."

"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."

"The product integrates with Remedy."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"The design of this solution is not very intuitive and probably could come with more friendly tips for beginners."

"The dashboard and graphics must be improved."

"The support team could be better. Because of the different versions of different tactics of integrating reactive code base, the documentation is not very clear if someone has to be onboard. I would rate the documentation of Lightstep a five out of ten. It could need improvement."

"In terms of licensing, users would want the product to offer them the ability to tailor the tasks offered in the solution to suit their needs."

"The product needs to reduce its price."

"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."

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

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

"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."

"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."

"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."

"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive. I rate the tool's pricing model an eight out of ten."

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

"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."

"The product is expensive."

"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."

"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

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848,253 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Retailer

11%

Educational Organization

41%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about LightStep?

The UI is very intuitive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with LightStep?

There are a lot of workflows and connectors. In terms of licensing, users would want the product to offer them the ability to tailor the tasks offered in the solution to suit their needs.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for LightStep?

I use the solution in my company since it has multiple tenants available. Basically, what happens in business is that you have a hybrid setup model, and for that, you extensively use a cloud platfo...

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 initial cost is quite high, but the renewal cost is reasonable.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 34% of the time

Helios vs ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Compared 19% of the time

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Compared 19% of the time

Dynatrace vs ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Compared 18% of the time

New Relic vs ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Compared 10% of the time

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Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 18% of the time

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 18% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 12% of the time

Prometheus Group vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 8% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

March 2025

Download ServiceNow Cloud Observability product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

March 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

LightStep

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

ServiceNow Cloud Observability is a comprehensive platform designed to enhance visibility, control, and performance monitoring of your IT infrastructure and applications. It seamlessly integrates log management, trace management, metrics monitoring, and infrastructure monitoring in real-time, leveraging AI and machine learning for automated tasks and actionable insights. With benefits including improved visibility, faster incident resolution, enhanced application performance, simplified IT operations, and reduced costs, this cloud-native solution is ideal for businesses of all sizes with complex IT infrastructures. It integrates seamlessly with ServiceNow IT Operations Management (ITOM), supports OpenTelemetry standards, and provides AI-powered insights along with pre-built dashboards and reports.

ServiceNow

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

Sample Customers

InVision, Twilio, Lyft, Yext, DigitalOcean,

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

April 2025

Free Report: ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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