SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

SolarWinds and Splunk are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. SolarWinds is ranked #16 with an average rating of 7.3, while Splunk is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.4. SolarWinds holds a 1.7% mindshare in APM, compared to Splunk’s 4.8% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 42 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

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2,563 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Splunk AppDynamics

Read 245 Splunk AppDynamics reviews

13,704 Views
8,628 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Splunk AppDynamics

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 6, 2025

AppDynamics and SolarWinds SAM are leading competitors in application performance and server monitoring. AppDynamics has the upper hand in detailed application-level insights, particularly for complex transaction monitoring, while SolarWinds SAM offers broader infrastructure monitoring at a more cost-effective price.

Features: AppDynamics specializes in comprehensive application performance monitoring, focusing on transaction tracking and real-time diagnostics, end-to-end traceability, application flow mapping, and operational dashboards. SolarWinds SAM is known for server and application monitoring with its AppInsight functionality, real-time node monitoring, intuitive interface, and comprehensive alerts. However, it lacks the depth of application-level insights compared to AppDynamics.

Room for Improvement: AppDynamics could benefit from HTML interface updates, improved async call tracking, and better integration with network monitoring systems. Users also desire more robust support for modern technologies like Docker. SolarWinds SAM needs UI navigation improvements, easier system integration, and enhanced robustness in complex environments to address performance issues better.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AppDynamics is flexible in deployment, offering Public, Hybrid, and On-premises options. It is known for responsive, knowledgeable customer service. SolarWinds SAM primarily focuses on On-premises and Hybrid deployments, with prompt customer service that could improve in response times.

Pricing and ROI: AppDynamics may be perceived as high-priced due to its comprehensive features, positioning it as an enterprise-level solution. Despite its complex licensing model, users see its in-depth monitoring capabilities as offering quick ROI. SolarWinds SAM provides competitive pricing and strong value for organizations seeking extensive server monitoring, making it appealing for diverse business sizes with its broader infrastructure monitoring benefits.

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

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk AppDynamics

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 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)

Splunk AppDynamics

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

245

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Mobile APM (2nd), Container Monitoring (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 4.8%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

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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Muhammad Zeeshan Siddiqui

Head of Technology and Services at arwentech

Dynamic mapping enhances workflows that are user-friendly

One aspect that requires improvement is the agent. Without an agent, gathering sufficient information on applications is challenging. Additionally, the agent sometimes creates performance issues in production environments. If AppDynamics could develop a means to monitor without an agent, it could significantly improve application performance and reduce potential problems. Moving to an agentless solution, like what some competitors are doing, would be beneficial.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."

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

"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."

"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."

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

"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 most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."

"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"Application Analytics' most valuable features are the real-user monitoring and the agents installed in the software stack on the application server."

"The solution is very, very stable. We haven't faced any bugs or glitches on the system."

"In my experience, it's easy to use. There's nothing complex to learn or fear. You can quickly adapt to it without the need for extensive training."

"It provides a lot of data, so it helps businesses identify their user base."

"Once you get past installation, AppDynamics is highly stable and we get good results."

"Setting up the monitoring agents was straightforward."

"After a major incident, root cause analysis is conducted and, most of the time, we understand what caused the incident and how it can be prevented from happening again."

"AppDynamics Database Monitoring's most valuable feature is the ability of the out-of-the-box to update the information, provide various metrics, and possibly include custom metrics."

More Splunk AppDynamics pros

Cons

"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."

"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve the server monitoring and the web application monitoring features are not good. Microsoft SCOM has better server monitoring."

"The product needs to reduce its price."

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

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

"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve by having a cloud version. They have an observability platform but it still needs to be maintained by us."

"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."

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

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"The synthetic scripting for end-user monitoring could be a little bit broader. Instead of using just Python, they can include a few other languages so that not everyone has to jump on the bandwagon for Python and do Selenium scripting. They can open up that a bit to make it simpler for people to do the scripting."

"If it can be able to intelligently provide all the things we need to look at, from a data point of view, that would be very useful."

"The downside is that it's a little costly."

"The price of the solution could improve."

"At this time, we don't have much visibility on the virtual environment, monitoring, and all other things. We have visibility only for database monitoring, and we have noticed performance impact when deploying database agents on the database server. We got to know this from AppDynamics support also that we should not deploy database agents from the database server. When agents are deployed on the same server and the database is monitored from there, we are not getting database server metrics. Therefore, we don't have those insights, and sometimes, we struggle because of that. They can improve this functionality so that we do not have a performance impact, and we can deploy anywhere. This would help us a lot. In terms of end-user monitoring, currently, it is not working for us because there are some complexities. It is a little complicated, and it takes a little bit of time to understand where you need to make changes. It would be very helpful if they can provide some template designs for end-user monitoring. When our servers are running on VMs, we don't get many insights from the VM side. I don't know whether it is possible to have visibility beyond the database, server, and application and whether there are some features where we can deploy AppDynamics on VMs as well. Such functionality would give us more control over storage, VM, OS, and database. It will also provide complete visibility of our hardware and software."

"Sometimes, it is hard to navigate through and find if something is wrong or figure out where an error stemmed from."

"I would like them to change their business model for scalability to accommodate growing companies. The business model should be more flexible."

"AppDynamics' modules and hardware resources are very high."

More Splunk AppDynamics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."

"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 product is expensive."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"AppDynamics is one of the most expensive solutions on the market."

"The tool is expensive."

"One of the main downsides to the solution is its cost."

"It's a very expensive product. Each of the licenses after this month for one server is around $9,000 or $10,000."

"Purchasing the product through the AWS Marketplace was good."

"This price of this product is expensive."

"You are required to purchase licenses whether you use it or not. It is not pay-as-you-use."

"AppDynamics Server Monitoring is an expensive solution."

More Splunk AppDynamics pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

43%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Educational Organization

49%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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

Any advice about APM solutions?

There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...

See all answers

APM tools for a Managed Service Provider - Dynatrace vs. AppDynamics vs. Aternity vs. Ruxit

Hi Avi! It's great to see your thorough approach to selecting an APM package for your MSP company. Considering your focus on SMBs and enterprises in Israel, Dynatrace seems like a solid choice with...

See all answers

What do you like most about AppDynamics?

The solution saves time and cost.

See all answers

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Compared 8% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

Nagios XI vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

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Dynatrace vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 15% of the time

Datadog vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 10% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 8% of the time

New Relic vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 7% of the time

OpenTelemetry vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 3% of the time

More Splunk AppDynamics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

March 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk AppDynamics

March 2025

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Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM

No data available

Overview

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

Splunk AppDynamics enhances application performance monitoring with advanced diagnostics and real-time insights, offering seamless end-to-end transaction tracking and infrastructure visibility.

AppDynamics provides critical tools for businesses to analyze application behavior and performance. Through innovative features like transaction snapshot analysis and adaptable dashboards, users can quickly identify and address issues, ensuring high levels of system uptime and efficiency. It is designed to support complex environments including Kubernetes and AWS, enhancing user experience by detecting performance issues early. Despite needing improvements in network monitoring and integration, it remains a robust option for tracking application health.

What are the key features of AppDynamics?

Real-time Performance Monitoring: Offers immediate insights into application behavior.
Business Transaction Tracking: Tracks transactions from start to finish for bottleneck identification.
JVM Memory Monitoring: Provides detailed JVM metrics and memory use information.
Deep-dive Diagnostics: Enables in-depth analysis of code and stack traces.
Adaptable Dashboards: Customizable views for better data interpretation.

How does AppDynamics benefit users?

Improved Incident Resolution: Faster problem detection and solution implementation.
Enhanced Application Performance: Real-time monitoring optimizes system operations.
Comprehensive Visibility: Provides a full view of application infrastructure.
Informed Decision Making: Detailed analytics guide performance improvements.
Customer Satisfaction: Enhances user experience through faster issue resolutions.

In industries like financial services and e-commerce, AppDynamics facilitates performance tracking across distributed systems, optimizing infrastructure to meet consumer demands. It excels in environments needing precise transaction monitoring and is pivotal in delivering high value and satisfaction.

Splunk

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Cisco, Sony, Nasdaq, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Edmunds.com, Puma, Fox News, DirecTV, Pizza Hut, T-Systems, Cornell University, OpenTable, BITMARCK, Green Mountain Power, Care.com, Overstock, Paddy Power, eHarmony, Kraft, The Motley Fool, The Container Store, and more See more customers

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk AppDynamics

April 2025

Free Report: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk AppDynamics

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