ServiceNow Discovery vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

ServiceNow and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Server Monitoring category. ServiceNow is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4, while SolarWinds is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.3. ServiceNow holds a 4.3% mindshare in SM, compared to SolarWinds’s 2.6% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of ServiceNow users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

ServiceNow Discovery

Read 41 ServiceNow Discovery reviews

2,622 Views
1,285 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 42 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

1,122 Views
747 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

ServiceNow Discovery

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and ServiceNow Discovery compete in the IT monitoring and discovery category. SolarWinds holds an edge in monitoring capabilities, whereas ServiceNow excels in comprehensive discovery and integration.

Features: SolarWinds provides advanced monitoring features, deep insights into server performance, and user-friendly design. ServiceNow offers strong discovery features, automatic IT asset detection, and integration across various systems.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest SolarWinds improve its alerting system to reduce false positives, enhance user experience, and refine reporting. ServiceNow could benefit from better documentation, more tutorials for onboarding, and enhancements in its user interface.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds is known for straightforward deployment and responsive customer support. ServiceNow offers powerful automated deployment but has a steeper learning curve. Both receive positive feedback in customer service, with SolarWinds slightly more favorable due to support responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds is viewed as more cost-effective with faster setup and quicker ROI. ServiceNow, while more expensive, is valued for its robust discovery tools and integration capabilities, justifying its higher cost for many users.

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

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery 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 Discovery

Ranking in Server Monitoring

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Asset Management (4th), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Server Monitoring

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (16th), Active Directory Management (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 4.3%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.6%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Kaustubh Partha

Technical Support Analyst at CLSA

Scans servers and network devices through SNMP and reduces manual maintenance for our infrastructure team

I like how ServiceNow Discovery scans servers and network devices through SNMP. Most fields on our forms are auto-filled, reducing manual maintenance for our infrastructure team. Post Discovery implementation there is hardly any maintenance. There are three to four fields that are customized. Otherwise, 90% of the data is auto-filled. Discovery can also run in bulk, which is helpful for organizations that cannot run it during weekdays. With identification rules, if a configuration item (CI) isn't in the CMDB, you can simply add the IP address, and it will be automatically added based on criteria like name or serial number, making CMDB maintenance easier.

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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

"One of the most valuable features of ServiceNow Discovery is the automated discovery that helps identify dependencies and generates reports."

"The biggest advantage of ServiceNow is the value that it brings."

"We can scale the solution."

"The solution finds public cloud infrastructures globally and updates the integration management database, service catalogs, and asset management details."

"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."

"I am impressed with the tool's incident problem change management."

"ServiceNow Discovery is useful for discovering the servers, like the servers of Windows and Linux, from the client network."

"They have a very good network in the infrastructure of Discovery."

More ServiceNow Discovery pros

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

"The application dependency feature identifies issues between applications and servers or within the network where the application is hosted. It highlights related problems, whether related to packet processing or other issues, enabling the creation of alerts and reports accordingly."

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

"Management Console - Managing service to each server enrolled in the Solarwinds is much easier. Using a web base console, you can control your service much convenient way. There is no need to login remotely. It save a lot of time and effort."

"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."

"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."

"The solution has good alerts. Notifications are sent via email to technicians. You can filter the kinds of alerts you want to receive as well. It's excellent."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"Technical support has not been helpful when we have come across problems."

"In terms of improvement, I would like for it to be possible to use without coding. I would like a dropdown so that every customer can do it easily for himself and can understand it."

"The current limitation requires having mid servers or discovery servers in each data center for proper discovery, hindering the ability to discover assets across continents such as Asia Pacific and Europe."

"Whenever you try to discover something with the solution, you get errors that are not descriptive enough."

"I find it valuable to enhance IP address management. I've been in this field since around 2011, and my experience since then has revolved around automation, deployment, distribution, and comprehensive inventory management, all crucial for deploying various components, including patches. When we talk about patch management or vulnerability management, it's more complex than just applying patches; sometimes, you need to undergo significant upgrades or phase out old components for new ones, and this can turn into a substantial project, explaining why vulnerabilities persist. Now, the role of ServiceNow Discovery and security operations, or at one point, looking at vulnerability management in ServiceNow Discovery, is crucial. It allows you to identify vulnerabilities on assets and, with the addition of discovery, service mapping, and event management, you gain a business context for these vulnerabilities. It's not merely about knowing they exist on a server; it's about understanding which services are responsible for critical business processes or transactions, like payroll. This knowledge changes the approach and execution of vulnerability remediation."

"When you switch versions, for example, when you go from Paris to Quebec they will introduce many new things and occasionally things break when they do that."

"On the Software Asset Management part of it, I expect additional reconciliation and Discovery features there."

"I believe there is room for improvement in ServiceNow Discovery, particularly in providing more detailed information about network usage and communication between ServiceNow and the infrastructure."

More ServiceNow Discovery cons

"The technical support team's response time could be improved."

"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."

"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."

"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."

"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."

"There is one feature that is a report writer. And they are currently trying to take it out from being a stand-alone application and integrating to the web. This doesn't give us the flexibility and it doesn't expand what we can get when it comes to reporting. So, putting it on the web is going to make it difficult to get some information. Leaving it where it is now will help us a lot."

"Downside of the tools is the web console are hung or crash. It need to improve the performance."

"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ServiceNow Discovery's licensing is not a very small investment, but it definitely pays off."

"The product pricing is fair and reasonable for the value it provides."

"This is expensive, but it meets our needs."

"It is not recommended for smaller companies because of the price."

"It is an expensive product with a price that depends on the models that you wish to purchase."

"The pricing is determined based on the CIs."

"There is a need to make payments every quarter of a year towards the licensing costs of the solution. ServiceNow Discovery is an expensive tool."

"You need a subscription to ServiceNow Discovery, so you can use its features. You can also use specific plugins with the tool, and some of the plugins are free. I don't have information on how much my company pays for the subscription to ServiceNow Discovery."

More ServiceNow Discovery pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

"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."

"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."

"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."

"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."

"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 price is too high."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

39%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ServiceNow Discovery?

The solution can prioritize the discovery of IP ranges. The product automatically places all Discovery CIs into the correct class within the CMDB.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Discovery?

ServiceNow is considered more expensive compared to other products. If I were to rate the pricing on a scale from one to ten in terms of expense, I would rate it quite high.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?

Improvements could include implementing chatbots to simplify ticket creation. Currently, each new product must be manually created if it is not already available in ServiceNow, which can be cumbers...

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 28% of the time

Lansweeper vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 23% of the time

BMC Helix Discovery vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle Enterprise Manager vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 3% of the time

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Compared 18% of the time

Dynatrace 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 7% of the time

Datadog vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 2% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery

March 2025

Download ServiceNow Discovery 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

No data available

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

ServiceNow Discovery finds applications and devices on your network, and then updates the CMDB with the information it finds. Discovery is available as a separate subscription from the rest of the Now Platform.

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

York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

April 2025

Free Report: ServiceNow Discovery vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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