SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Zabbix comparison

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

Zabbix and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor are robust monitoring tools used by businesses to oversee their IT infrastructure. SolarWinds often garners higher marks for feature-richness and ease of deployment, though Zabbix still has strong user support for its pricing and customization options.

Features: Zabbix is known for its deep customizations, scalability, and the ability to monitor a diverse range of devices. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor stands out for its comprehensive out-of-the-box capabilities, detailed insights, and advanced alerting options.

Room for Improvement: Zabbix users often mention that the initial setup can be challenging, and the learning curve is steep. Enhancements in documentation and more intuitive initial configurations are frequently suggested. SolarWinds users commonly point out the need for better licensing models, more cost-effective pricing tiers, and optimized system resource utilization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is frequently highlighted for its straightforward deployment process, which includes detailed guides and responsive customer support. Zabbix is generally reported to have a more complex setup process. Customer service experiences vary, with SolarWinds receiving more positive feedback for support responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: Zabbix, being open-source, offers substantial cost savings, which is a significant advantage for budget-conscious users. Despite this, the return on investment is perceived to be slower due to the time needed for configuration and optimization. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor users often view the higher price point as justified by the robust features and efficient performance, leading to quicker ROI for enterprises willing to invest in its comprehensive capabilities.

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

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Zabbix

February 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

18th

Ranking in Server Monitoring

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Active Directory Management (14th)

Zabbix

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

8th

Ranking in Server Monitoring

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

105

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.6%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 3.3%, up from 2.2% 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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ASM Naushad Alam

Network Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes

We have not yet purchased the commercial version so have a lack of technical ability. We do not yet fully know the key points or key features of the solution. We just use what we use along with WhatsUp Gold. Based on our use only, stability is rated a seven out of ten.

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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

"SolarWinds SAM has significantly improved our workflow by allowing us to develop a comprehensive knowledge base of known errors and automate responses to specific alerts."

"I am impressed with the tool's AppStack feature which mainly helps us in the identification process. This feature can give an overview of the fault and help us identify the issues for performance degradation. Instead of looking at multiple places, we can look at a single place to identify the issues."

"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."

"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."

"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."

"The application dependency feature identifies issues between applications and servers or within the network where the application is hosted. It highlights related problems, whether related to packet processing or other issues, enabling the creation of alerts and reports accordingly."

"The component and cable monitoring are good. SolarWinds is more intuitive and user-friendly than AppDynamics. The AppDynamics console is more complex because it's a more feature-rich solution, so it's not easy for somebody to pick it up."

"Identifying the problem statement is easy."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"We detect problems before the customer does and before it actually happens using the predictive functions in Zabbix."

"The most valuable feature is network traffic monitoring."

"It has improved our server performance monitoring overall. We know right away when there are problems. It has built-in statistics, so we can go back and see if there's spiking. We can check what's happening every day around the same time and check the configuration to see if there's something that's running and needs to be fixed."

"The most valuable feature is service assurance."

"Templates are good. We download them from the official Zabbix site or the community. If the information we need isn't available, we create custom templates based on client requirements."

"The best feature is that Zabbix can report everything, and everything in Zabbix is free."

"The integration with third-party tools and the alerts are most valuable."

"It not only provides the preconfigured item monitoring feature, but it is also easy to configure custom items."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"

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

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

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

"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."

"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."

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

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"Documentation terminology could be improved."

"There is a bit of a learning curve during installation."

"Zabbix technical support is sold separately."

"We would like to see the addition of automatic push functionality to this product. This would save time when monitoring our servers and networks as, at present, we have to manually install the Zabbix agent on any hardware to be monitored."

"Its UI needs to be improved a little bit more so that an end-user is also able to handle it. I can handle it, but others should also be able to handle it in a better way. It becomes complex when we are growing and need to add proxies. We need more scalability features and documentation for different use cases. A lot of articles are available, but they need to be in proper documentation. For example, when you have thousands of servers that have to be monitored in different regions of the world, there should be some kind of documentation to describe how you can create proxies and add them. Sometimes, when you are using the database, it can get overloaded. When the network is growing, the number of transactions becomes very high, and the database gets overloaded. There should be information about how to reduce the load on the MySQL database, which is what Zabbix is using. The market is growing a lot, and it should be enhanced for a lot more things. We are currently bringing enhancements at our end for different use cases. For example, when dockerization is going on, how can we check the logs inside the Dockers. We should also be able to monitor and check the number of logins and add features such as SSO login and two-factor authentication as a protocol. These are the security features and concerns that we have to deal with. Currently, we are developing modules to add features to Zabbix, but they should also work on these features."

"Sometimes, the documentation is a little bit written in Estonia – a country in Europe. The language barrier and translation to English can sometimes make it difficult to understand what they're trying to get at. It's just a language thing."

"Zabbix could improve when it comes to large-scale use cases. Additionally, the inventory could be better when connecting to other solutions, such as ServiceNow. There show to be better integration with other platforms and storage."

"Look and feel."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."

"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."

"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."

"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."

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

"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."

"The price is too high."

"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"I use the tool's free version."

"For pricing, it's free. We don't pay anything for it. They open-source the code, and people pay for support."

"There is a license required for this solution and we pay annually for our license."

"Its licensing is fair. It seems to be much cheaper than others."

"It is a true open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."

"It is free, which allows us to reduce costs."

"We use the open-source version of Zabbix."

"It's free software released under the GNU/GPL license."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

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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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

45%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Educational Organization

37%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

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.

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.

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement. Monitoring these services is more complex compared to others.

What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

The cost is minimal. It is literally free.

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

For me, Zabbix is very straightforward. I cannot think of any improvements needed. It's a very mature product. The only issue I can note is that it's Linux-based, and Linux documentation is not the...

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Product Reports

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

March 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

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March 2025

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

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba