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SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Splunk Enterprise Security comparison

The compared SolarWinds and Splunk solutions aren't in the same category. SolarWinds is ranked #8 in SM , with an average rating of 7.6, and holds a 3.2% mindshare in the category. Splunk is ranked #1 in SIEM , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 7.0% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Splunk users who would recommend it.
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews
  • 5,501 Views
  • 1,540 Comparison Views
89% willing to recommend
Splunk Enterprise Security
Read 382 Splunk Enterprise Security reviews
  • 31,493 Views
  • 17,321 Comparison Views
94% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary
We performed a comparison between SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and Splunk Enterprise Security based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Server Monitoring solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

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To learn more, read our detailed SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Enterprise Security Report (Updated: May 2023).
Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Enterprise Security
May 2023
Download the complete report
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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...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Server Monitoring (8th), Active Directory Management (8th)
Splunk Enterprise Security
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
382
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (2nd), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (1st), IT Operations Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Lifecycle Management solutions, they serve different purposes. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is designed for Server Monitoring and holds a mindshare of 3.2%, up 2.6% compared to last year.
Splunk Enterprise Security, on the other hand, focuses on Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), holds 7.0% mindshare, down 9.2% since last year.
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor3.2%
Zabbix11.5%
Nagios XI6.0%
Other79.3%
Server Monitoring
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Splunk Enterprise Security7.0%
IBM Security QRadar5.2%
Wazuh5.1%
Other82.7%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
NikhilKalwint
Technical Specialist at ServiceIO
Monitoring over a thousand systems has improved decision making and operational visibility
From an advantage perspective, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is comparatively cheaper from a commercial point of view. It is easy to install and configure, very user-friendly, and quick to get up and running, allowing you to see the early value adds in your organization. It is compatible with most technologies for monitoring with very few chances of incompatibility. Configuration also allows us to monitor all the technical parameters we are looking for, making it a very good experience for us. The alerting feature in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is a main advantage, as it alerts based on threshold breaches and can raise tickets to the ticketing system, send SMS, and email notifications, allowing engineers to work on those tickets to resolve issues and avoid further impact. The visibility into server health is a beneficial feature that I am utilizing. We widely use various application performance metrics in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor such as database monitoring and server monitoring, which are quite good enough for any monitoring solution. We utilize the customizable dashboards in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor.
Read full review
Sathis-Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Sathis-Kumar
Senior Manager at Bank of America
Helps us detect cyber threats quickly and integrate multiple feeds effectively
Overall, the product is good, but when it comes to some infrastructure issues, we have to dig into more logs. There is no straightforward indication of an issue. Health check kind of dashboards are not available. More AI would help us, and more optimization, since security products run more queries. The AI module could suggest solutions, optimizing queries or workload balancing. If the product itself advises on running queries during peak times, it would be similar to what ChatGPT currently offers. We see quite a few issues on stability. Even last week, we faced something, and identifying bottlenecks is not easy. We need more SMEs, and there is no mechanism to tell us about indexer or search head issues. Self-monitoring dashboards could be beneficial. The technical support still requires more improvement. Often, primary support takes a lot of time and forwards most solutions to the engineering side. The primary support team has very limited knowledge to provide.
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

"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."
"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."
"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."
"The ROI for SolarWinds products is unmatched in the industry."
"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."
"The recommendations are a life saver."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros
"The performance is very good; it's something that customers are always looking for, and the product offers good stability with no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze, making it reliable."
"The site is constantly up, and it's been really easy to adjust the data."
"We've seen quite extensive ROI, however, it's more of a qualitative assessment and I don't have numbers to share."
"The correlation capabilities are the first value that our clients say they like with Splunk."
"Splunk is one of the top SIEM solutions to work with."
"One of the most valuable features is threat hunting. We can do threat hunting and identify if there is any malicious activity happening within our environment, which is a key feature for us."
"The most valuable feature is the log aggregation, being able to scan through all of the logs."
"Regarding scalability, Splunk Enterprise Security is way ahead compared to other products, and I would score it at the maximum."
More Splunk Enterprise Security pros
 

Cons

"It lacks a user experience for measuring things like the end-to-end time for which a user waits for a specific response in the system."
"Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."
"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."
"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."
"In terms of the dashboards on offer, they should work to improve them."
"MS Azure Service and user experience monitoring is an area in which the SolarWinds tools are lacking; without a doubt, this is the Achilles heel of the Orion monitoring tools, and I am currently reviewing other vendors for Azure service monitoring tools."
"Mapping interactions between systems."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons
"The biggest problem is data compression. Splunk is an outstanding product, but it is a resource hog."
"I would like to see ability to master management. In terms of clustering, how it manages clustering needs improvement."
"The Web Application Firewall will send you too much information because it's more dedicated to security than a normal firewall."
"It is a good product, but the Achilles heel for a lot of organizations is the cost model for it because it gets expensive. That's because the model is based on how much data it processes a day, which can be prohibitive, especially if you have a lot of data. A lot of customers may not be ready for the sticker shock on how to fully leverage the product. I realized that the reason for that is that when it was originally designed, it was kind of like a big data modeling application. If they want to have a bigger customer base, they can come out with subsets of their product that are focused on specific things and have different pricing models. It may help with the cost."
"The solution has a high learning curve for users. It's a little complicated when you're trying to figure out all the features and what they do."
"Its reporting can be improved. That's the only complaint I have heard. I don't need the reporting part, but I know that other people in the organization need it."
"It needs a better way to export dynamic views without requiring a ton of code and user/pw."
"Certain sections of the developer documentation could use some updating and clarification."
More Splunk Enterprise Security cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"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."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"The licenses start from USD 3000.00 and go up to USD 20,000.00 for the year. It's a perpetual license. Nothing is free in SolarWinds, anything that you need is an additional cost."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice
"The licensing is good, but the pricing absolutely needs some work. It is very high."
"Be upfront about your needs and expectations. Splunk is great to work with."
"Personnel costs are saved by not having to involve the domain developers from multiple teams when tracing a problem that spans multiple platforms."
"Although Splunk is an expensive product, it is designed to be utilized across your organization in order to maximize your ROI and lower your TCO."
"It is possible to use a developer's license, which is up to 10GB per day of volume traffic, which is usually enough for most use cases."
"Regarding the product's pricing, I think it has always been difficult to have a conversation with Splunk."
"Splunk can be expensive, as its licensing is based on the daily data ingestion volume."
"The tool's pricing model is great. You can choose between workloads or volume."
More Splunk Enterprise Security pricing and cost advice
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Comparison Review

VS
Vinod Shankar
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Feb 26, 2015
HP ArcSight vs. IBM QRadar vs. ​McAfee Nitro vs. Splunk vs. RSA Security vs. LogRhythm
We at Infosecnirvana.com have done several posts on SIEM. After the Dummies Guide on SIEM, we are following it up with a SIEM Product Comparison – 101 deck. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think by posting your comments below. The key products compared here are…
Read full review
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business113
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise267
 

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 is definitely room for improvement besides simplifying its setup. As a non-technical person, I believe the dashboards could be improved. Everything we use appears on video walls, and we need ...
See all answers
What SOC product do you recommend?
For tools I’d recommend: -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is asking to miss details that are critical, and ending up a statistic. Also, rememb...
See all answers
What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingestion of anything, but the charge per GB/Day Indexed and it gets expensive as log ...
See all answers
How does Splunk compare with Azure Monitor?
Splunk handles a high amount of data very well. We use Splunk to capture information and as an aggregator for monitoring information from different sources. Splunk is very good at alerting us if we...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Logo
Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
Compared 8% of the time
Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Logo
Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
Compared 7% of the time
Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Logo
Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
Compared 6% of the time
Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Logo
Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
Compared 5% of the time
Opsview vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Logo
Opsview vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
Compared 4% of the time
More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors
IBM Security QRadar vs Splunk Enterprise Security Logo
IBM Security QRadar vs Splunk Enterprise Security
Compared 9% of the time
Sentinel vs Splunk Enterprise Security Logo
Sentinel vs Splunk Enterprise Security
Compared 4% of the time
Wazuh vs Splunk Enterprise Security Logo
Wazuh vs Splunk Enterprise Security
Compared 4% of the time
Elastic Security vs Splunk Enterprise Security Logo
Elastic Security vs Splunk Enterprise Security
Compared 3% of the time
Dynatrace vs Splunk Enterprise Security Logo
Dynatrace vs Splunk Enterprise Security
Compared 3% of the time
More Splunk Enterprise Security Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
March 2026
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reportDownload SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report
Buyer's Guide
Splunk Enterprise Security
March 2026
Splunk Enterprise Security reportDownload Splunk Enterprise Security product report
 

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 Enterprise Security delivers powerful log management, rapid searches, and intuitive dashboards, enhancing real-time analytics and security measures. Its advanced machine learning and wide system compatibility streamline threat detection and incident response across diverse IT environments.

Splunk Enterprise Security stands out in security operations with robust features like comprehensive threat intelligence and seamless data integration. Its real-time analytics and customizable queries enable proactive threat analysis and efficient incident response. Integration with multiple third-party feeds allows detailed threat correlation and streamlined data visualization. Users find the intuitive UI and broad compatibility support efficient threat detection while reducing false positives. Despite its strengths, areas such as visualization capabilities and integration processes with cloud environments need enhancement. Users face a high learning curve, and improvements in automation, AI, documentation, and training are desired to maximize its potential.

What Are the Key Features of Splunk Enterprise Security?
  • Log Management: Efficiently manages and organizes a vast amount of logs for better data handling.
  • Rapid Data Search: Quickly retrieves relevant data for fast decision-making.
  • Flexible Dashboards: Customizable dashboards provide clear data visualization.
  • Comprehensive Threat Intelligence: Offers detailed insights to preemptively defend against threats.
  • Real-Time Analytics: Analyzes data in real-time to enhance response times.
  • Integration with Third-Party Feeds: Streamlines information flow from multiple sources.
What Benefits Should Users Investigate in Reviews?
  • Efficient Incident Response: Enhances the ability to respond promptly to threats.
  • False Positive Reduction: Minimizes incorrect threat alarms, making monitoring more efficient.
  • Threat Detection Speed: Accelerates the identification and evaluation of security threats.
  • Cost-Effectiveness: Potential savings through better licensing options and operational efficiency.
  • User Adaptability: Enhancements in documentation and training resources aid in overcoming the learning curve.

In specific industries like finance and healthcare, Splunk Enterprise Security is instrumental for log aggregation, SIEM functionalities, and compliance monitoring. Companies leverage its capabilities for proactive threat analysis and response, ensuring comprehensive security monitoring and integration with various tools for heightened operational intelligence.

Splunk
 

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Splunk has more than 7,000 customers spread across over 90 countries. These customers include Telenor, UniCredit, ideeli, McKenney's, Tesco, and SurveyMonkey.
Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Enterprise Security
May 2023
Free Report: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Enterprise Security
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Enterprise Security and other solutions. Updated: May 2023.
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See our SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Enterprise Security report.

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