SolarWinds AppOptics vs Spiceworks comparison

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SolarWinds AppOptics

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Spiceworks and SolarWinds AppOptics compete in the IT management and monitoring category. Spiceworks holds an advantage for SMBs due to its free pricing and user-friendly installation, while AppOptics is superior in offering comprehensive features for enterprise-level monitoring.

Features: Spiceworks is ideal for SMBs with features such as remote monitoring, basic ticketing, and active IT community support. It provides an easy setup that is appealing to companies without an established infrastructure management system. SolarWinds AppOptics offers extensive performance monitoring, topology discovery, and detailed network insights, making it valuable for larger enterprises.

Room for Improvement: Spiceworks faces challenges in scalability and performance, with limited ticketing impacting its use for larger organizations. Its reporting tools need better filtering and analysis capabilities. SolarWinds AppOptics could enhance its implementation process, pricing structures, and integration with other IT tools. Both could improve user interface and usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Spiceworks offers straightforward on-premises deployment and relies on community-driven support. SolarWinds AppOptics provides both on-premises and cloud deployment options, with formal customer service channels for support.

Pricing and ROI: Spiceworks is entirely free, offering remarkable ROI for SMBs with budget constraints. Its no-cost pricing is a significant advantage. SolarWinds AppOptics, with licensing fees based on elements, provides advanced features that justify its cost for enterprises demanding thorough monitoring solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed SolarWinds AppOptics vs. Spiceworks Report (Updated: April 2025).

SolarWinds AppOptics vs. Spiceworks

April 2025

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Helped 848,253 peers since 2012

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 IT Infrastructure Monitoring

50th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (48th), Cloud Monitoring Software (34th)

Spiceworks

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

45th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Help Desk Software (17th), IT Asset Management (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.3%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spiceworks is 0.4%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

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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Jeetendar Kumar

Information Technology Analyst at The Aga Khan University Hospital (Pakistan)

Customizable, easy to use, easy to manage, and provides multiple features

I have used many software, but Spiceworks is the best. The tool provides multiple features. It is a valuable product for inventory. It is also useful as a ticketing system. The solution is easy to use and easy to manage. Many people can use it very easily. The features are not complicated. It is very easy to run, install, and understand. That is why my organization decided to use it. The solution’s asset management capabilities have benefitted us in many ways. We are able to manage all the inventory. We have a complete database. We have a record of everything. It is very valuable. I rate the usability of the user interface and dashboard a nine out of ten. The tool is easy to learn compared to other software.

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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 reporting of the solution is very good."

"The product has a great dashboard."

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

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

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

"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."

"It lets us know whether devices are getting out of date and tracked warranties. Spiceworks also gave me visibility in terms of what software was installed on each device and its status."

"It shows the users that are currently logged in, which is not something that Active Directory by default will ever let you know up front."

"The solution can find all asset details automatically, whether it's a Mac address, computer name, IP address, models, etc. It's very helpful."

"The software is cloud-based, so I do not need to store any data locally."

"The solution is easy to use and easy to manage."

"The nice thing about Spiceworks is always it's free. Monitoring of printers for low toner. Finding machines that have low memory or low hard disk space."

"The solution is very stable. It's reliable and efficient."

"If you're in the market for a low-cost service desk system, Spiceworks is a good software solution to start out with, especially when it comes to startups and those organizations that don't currently have any existing service desk software in place."

More Spiceworks pros

Cons

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

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

"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."

"The solution should be more user-friendly."

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

"Since Spiceworks is a free tool, it's not very scriptable or customizable."

"I would like to see more information when drilling down into access permissions, assignments management, or tagging. When I click a note or a device, I should be able to see more details about the router and modem. For example, I want to see the version, downtime, availability, latency, etc. I should have easy access to everything about our assets at a glance."

"I would like the solution to allow for more direct interaction with computers. I can open tickets and I can see their status, but I can't interact directly with the computers themselves."

"They've also tried to integrate it with social logins, like Twitter and LinkedIn, and that type of login authentication has no place in a corporate application."

"Once a device was recognized on the network, Spiceworks never got rid of it even after you took it off the network. You had to go in and manually remove it."

"One of the biggest ways in which Spiceworks could improve is by developing better and more automated workflows. For example, in another solution called ServiceDesk by ManageEngine, you can have levels of approval in the event that there is a request for new software, or when someone requests a VPN or WiFi connection. This kind of multi-stage approval feature provided by ServiceDesk does not appear to exist in Spiceworks, and it is one of their main shortcomings for me."

"The GUI must be improved."

"The customer service is okay, however, I would appreciate much more clarity on what I want to know exactly."

More Spiceworks cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."

"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."

"Seeing that it is a low-cost solution, I would advise you to go ahead with Spiceworks and experiment with it to see if you can get things working properly, especially if you currently don't have any existing service desk software in place."

"It might be about $300 annually for a bigger company. If you pay annually, it's better and cheaper."

"The product is free! Get it now."

"It's free."

"The tool is cheap."

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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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

57%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

University

Real Estate/Law Firm

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.

What needs improvement with SolarWinds AppOptics?

The solution should be more user-friendly.

What is your primary use case for SolarWinds AppOptics?

I used the solution for monitoring servers and network equipment.

What do you like most about Spiceworks?

The solution is easy to use and easy to manage.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Spiceworks?

The tool is cheap.

What needs improvement with Spiceworks?

I am unable to provide suggestions for improvement at this moment, however, I can provide feedback later. Currently, there do not seem to be any issues.

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Compared 13% of the time

Zenoss Cloud vs SolarWinds AppOptics

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Lansweeper vs Spiceworks

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Freshdesk vs Spiceworks

Compared 8% of the time

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs Spiceworks

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

April 2025

Download SolarWinds AppOptics product report

Download Spiceworks product report

March 2025

Also Known As

AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato

No data available

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

From network inventory and network monitoring to help desk software, and mobile device management (MDM) to cloud services detection, Spiceworks helps you manage everything about your IT workday from one easy place.

Sample Customers

TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista

Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Symantec, Webroot, EMC, Pertino