Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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 3.3% mindshare in the category. Splunk is ranked #1 in SIEM , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 7.2% 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
  • 4,708 Views
  • 1,271 Comparison Views
89% willing to recommend
Splunk Enterprise Security
Read 381 Splunk Enterprise Security reviews
  • 27,630 Views
  • 14,920 Comparison Views
94% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report
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.

DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE REPORT
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
Helped 884,873 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 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 (22nd), Server Monitoring (8th), Active Directory Management (9th)
Splunk Enterprise Security
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
381
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 3.3%, up 2.5% compared to last year.
Splunk Enterprise Security, on the other hand, focuses on Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), holds 7.2% mindshare, down 9.8% since last year.
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor3.3%
Zabbix13.4%
Checkmk6.6%
Other76.7%
Server Monitoring
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Splunk Enterprise Security7.2%
Wazuh5.8%
IBM Security QRadar5.3%
Other81.7%
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

"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"
"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
"The solution can be deployed quickly."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros
"The feature that we use the most is the correlation search engine within ES."
"Splunk Enterprise Security has helped speed up our security investigations."
"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."
"Splunk's advantage is its search capability. Its search is notably faster. With Splunk, I can search easily on keywords. That is great."
"Splunk UBA is useful for fraud detection and for detection of APTs, advanced persistent threats."
"The consolidated overview of all the events that come in through our environment and an easy-to-access interface for all our end users are valuable."
"The best feature I've seen is the ability to easily change the query based on the dashboard or based on the chart we have to create, allowing any value or metric we want to add to that particular chart while keeping the rest of the dashboard settings intact."
"Splunk is a user-friendly solution."
More Splunk Enterprise Security pros
 

Cons

"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."
"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."
"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."
"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."
"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."
More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons
"Having analysts put their notes directly within the investigation feature in the incident review would be beneficial."
"Our two main complaints are about the difficulty of the initial setup and the licensing model."
"While Splunk Enterprise Security is powerful, it presents significant complexity for users, as it's not particularly user-friendly for beginners."
"In the next releases, I would like to see more pricing flexibility."
"Free-floating panels in the dashboards are like a glass table."
"The product is relatively expensive."
"The analytics of Splunk could be improved."
"Technical support needs to be more responsive."
More Splunk Enterprise Security cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"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 like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"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."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"The product is expensive."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice
"It is expensive. I used to buy it early on, but then they combined it into a higher-up organization. They buy it for multiple systems now. Last time, I paid around 60K for it. There is just the licensing fee. That's all."
"The tool's licensing is good and we haven't received any complaints from the team handling it."
"Splunk differs from other SIEM solutions by using a gigabyte-based pricing model, rather than the agent-based licenses common with its competitors."
"The pricing model is based on the number of gigabytes that you ingest into the Splunk system. So it can be an expensive solution."
"The tool's pricing model is great. You can choose between workloads or volume."
"In addition to the licensing fee, there is also a support and maintenance charge."
"Splunk is not a cheap solution and the license is billed annually."
"It is quite expensive."
More Splunk Enterprise Security pricing and cost advice
report
See which vendors are best for you
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Server Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
See recommendations
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
13%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

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 Business112
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 5% of the time
Wazuh vs Splunk Enterprise Security Logo
Wazuh vs Splunk Enterprise Security
Compared 4% of the time
Dynatrace vs Splunk Enterprise Security Logo
Dynatrace vs Splunk Enterprise Security
Compared 3% of the time
Elastic Security vs Splunk Enterprise Security Logo
Elastic Security vs Splunk Enterprise Security
Compared 3% of the time
More Splunk Enterprise Security Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
February 2026
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reportDownload SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report
Buyer's Guide
Splunk Enterprise Security
February 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.
DOWNLOAD NOW
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
See our SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Enterprise Security report.

We monitor all Server Monitoring reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.