SolarWinds AppOptics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

SolarWinds AppOptics and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. SolarWinds AppOptics is ranked #48 with an average rating of 8.0, while SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is ranked #16 with an average rating of 7.3. SolarWinds AppOptics holds a 0.3% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of SolarWinds AppOptics users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor users who would recommend it.

SolarWinds AppOptics

Read 9 SolarWinds AppOptics reviews

767 Views
525 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 42 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

3,793 Views
2,566 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

SolarWinds AppOptics

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor SAM and SolarWinds AppOptics compete in the monitoring tools market. SAM offers comprehensive monitoring features, but AppOptics has the upper hand with ease of use and advanced analytics.

Features: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provides extensive server and application monitoring capabilities, including real-time alerts, detailed performance metrics, and comprehensive monitoring. SolarWinds AppOptics stands out with advanced analytics, broader integration options, and an intuitive feature set.

Room for Improvement: SAM users suggest enhancements in scalability, a more modern experience, and improved user-friendliness. AppOptics users recommend expanding support for legacy systems, improving customization options, and broader support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAM users report a complex deployment process and a need for better support documentation, while AppOptics users highlight an easier deployment experience and more responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: SAM has a higher setup cost but offers good ROI with thorough monitoring features. AppOptics presents a lower setup cost and significant ROI due to its efficiency and comprehensive analytics, making it more cost-effective and valuable.

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

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds AppOptics 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

SolarWinds AppOptics

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

48th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (50th), Cloud Monitoring Software (34th)

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 SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.3%, down 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

John Yuko

Assistant Manager ICT - Projects at I&M Bank Ltd

Unique features allow consolidating and combing metrics into a single dashboard, but don't monitor mobile solutions

I would like to see more granular information provided on Unix applications. Also, the integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward in terms having an agent to retrieve your credentials rather than having to enter or save them for SSH on SolarWinds. From the outset, we had to set some commands to log into the search console, and they are saved on the solution, which presents a challenge in terms of exposure. The solution is unable to monitor APK solutions completely because we'd then be forced to break down the APK and provide the APIs or go through the source code. They don't have a module that can analyze an application that is maybe under-used.

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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

"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."

"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."

"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."

"The reporting of the solution is very good."

"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."

"The product has a great dashboard."

"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."

"The solution can be deployed quickly."

"The graphical interfaces, GUI customizations, and alert configurations are impressive."

"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."

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

"Identifying the problem statement is easy."

"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."

"The solution should be more user-friendly."

"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."

"In terms of the technology, I think they need to put some more advanced troubleshooting into SolarWinds, in terms of AI capabilities. That's the next generation, especially in the cases of APIs which have already adopted AI capabilities into their products."

"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."

"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."

"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."

"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."

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

"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."

"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."

"Nodes in Azure are able to be monitored with the use of agents, but this does not apply to cloud service offerings that are not node based."

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

"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Mostly, it's a perpetual license. We don't have any customers using the subscription right now—it's mostly a perpetual license that the customers purchase. The licensing is based on the number of elements, whereas other solutions are node-based."

"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."

"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The price is too high."

"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."

"The product is expensive."

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

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

56%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

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 SolarWinds AppOptics?

The product has a great dashboard.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolarWinds AppOptics?

The solution should be more user-friendly.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SolarWinds AppOptics?

I used the solution for monitoring servers and network equipment.

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

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Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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Prometheus Group vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

April 2025

Download SolarWinds AppOptics 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

AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

AppOptics is a SaaS-based simple, powerful and affordable Infrastructure & Application monitoring for custom on-premises, cloud, and hybrid systems.

Your business runs on applications, and when they go down or run slowly, it can impact the business in lost productivity, customers, or revenue. To add to the complexity, your IT environment is changing, and workloads can be spread across data centers, and cloud resources. You need to monitor the availability and performance of applications and infrastructure, regardless of where they are, so you can identify potential issues early and address them before they impact users

SolarWinds

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

TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds AppOptics vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

April 2025

Free Report: SolarWinds AppOptics vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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