Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds AppOptics comparison

Microsoft and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Microsoft is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.7, while SolarWinds is ranked #56. Microsoft holds a 4.9% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Azure Monitor

Read 55 Azure Monitor reviews

11,124 Views
9,900 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

SolarWinds AppOptics

Read 9 SolarWinds AppOptics reviews

1,069 Views
641 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Azure Monitor

SolarWinds AppOptics

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

SolarWinds AppOptics and Azure Monitor are tools competing in the application monitoring space. SolarWinds AppOptics has an edge in cost and deployment simplicity, while Azure Monitor leads in functionality and ROI.

Features: SolarWinds AppOptics offers real-time visibility, detailed application monitoring, and essential monitoring tools. Azure Monitor provides seamless integration with Azure services, comprehensive analytics capabilities, and is feature-rich.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds AppOptics needs more customizable alerts, faster data processing, and enhanced user interface. Azure Monitor requires better documentation, a more intuitive setup process, and clearer pricing models.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds AppOptics is favored for its straightforward deployment and helpful support team. Azure Monitor, though complex to deploy due to its extensive features, is noted for its responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds AppOptics is cost-effective, with reasonable setup costs and good ROI. Azure Monitor, while more expensive, offers strong ROI due to its extensive features and integrations.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Monitor vs. SolarWinds AppOptics Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Monitor vs. SolarWinds AppOptics

September 2025

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Helped 868,787 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

Azure Monitor

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

6th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

3rd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SolarWinds AppOptics

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

56th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

44th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (58th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Azure Monitor is 4.9%, down from 8.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Azure Monitor	4.9%
SolarWinds AppOptics	0.4%
Other	94.7%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Usman Khawar

Software Engineer (DevOps/ SRE) at Sensys LLC

Native integration simplifies monitoring but documentation and cost improvements are needed

The ease of access in Azure is significant since it's native to the platform and easy to integrate. It has no maintenance overhead, and users don't have to navigate to another portal to get their desired result. It's the handiness that it has, rather than the features. The interpretation from the logs and injection requires custom runbooks. While it's complex, many services provide native insights and workbooks. It does the basic job quite efficiently. They added new kinds of metrics with more integrations to send out metrics. They have even added support for third-party tools that can be integrated. Azure Monitor is working on improvements and becoming more mature. Azure Monitor is stable and scalable. Azure Monitor is evolving with new workbooks and dashboards.

Read full review

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.

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 solution's most valuable features are its ease of use and support for multiple environments"

"It's a service from Microsoft, so it will scale."

"Recently, they have improved their integration with other resources, so we get even more robust data."

"Azure Monitor is really just a source for Dynatrace. It's just collecting data and monitoring the environment and the infrastructure. It is fairly good at that."

"It is a robust, stable product."

"The most valuable feature is that it's stable. It hasn't crossed any thresholds."

"Azure Monitor is useful because of the useful application insights and telemetry, such as metrics and logs."

"It allows you to set thresholds on the metrics and receive alerts."

More Azure Monitor pros

"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."

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

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

"The product has a great dashboard."

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

"The reporting of the solution is very good."

Cons

"The default interface should be improved."

"They need to work with other cloud providers - not just Azure."

"The solution's monitoring feature has limitations for analyzing multiple metrics."

"In terms of pricing, Azure Monitor's billing based on data size can sometimes lead to increased costs, especially when developers need to purge data frequently. While there are mechanisms in place to track and manage this, there is room for improvement in terms of optimizing data pausing and related processes. Enhancements in this area could help mitigate potential billing concerns and provide a more seamless experience for users."

"We cannot use AI services with the solution."

"The query builder could be better. In comparison to other monitoring tools, in order to use Azure Monitor, your engineers need to have KQL experience. If they don't, it's not intuitive as a system."

"Integration with third-party tools from other vendors than Azure is more time-consuming"

"There is room for improvement in stability."

More Azure Monitor cons

"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."

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

"The solution should be more user-friendly."

"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."

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

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is expensive."

"Azure Monitor is a low-priced solution, which is why it would work best on small-scale projects."

"It is a pay-as-you-go model. I find it very cost-effective."

"Customers of Azure Monitor must pay an amount that depends largely on how many services they need to integrate and the storage space required in terms of logs, etc. If they only have a few small services to monitor, the price won't be too high, but on the opposite side of the spectrum, it can certainly get pricey."

"The solution is a pay-as-you-go consumption service and is the least expensive in the market."

"My company is okay with the current pricing of the solution."

"The Azure Insight is a little bit expensive."

"The licensing is a monthly fee."

More Azure Monitor 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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	29

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

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...

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What do you like most about Azure Monitor?

Azure Monitor is a very easy-to-use product in the cloud environment.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Monitor?

The challenges with Azure Monitor are that it's initially complex to set up because you need multiple components. Azure Monitor is one thing, but within Azure Monitor, you need to bring Log Analyti...

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Comparisons

Datadog vs Azure Monitor

Compared 19% of the time

Sentry vs Azure Monitor

Compared 14% of the time

Dynatrace vs Azure Monitor

Compared 13% of the time

Grafana vs Azure Monitor

Compared 9% of the time

New Relic vs Azure Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

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Dynatrace vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 25% of the time

New Relic vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 22% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 11% of the time

DX Performance Management vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 8% of the time

Zenoss Cloud vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 8% of the time

More SolarWinds AppOptics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Monitor

October 2025

Download Azure Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

September 2025

Download SolarWinds AppOptics product report

Also Known As

No data available

AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato

Overview

Azure Monitor is a comprehensive monitoring solution offered by Microsoft Azure. It provides a centralized platform for monitoring the performance and health of various Azure resources, applications, and infrastructure.

With Azure Monitor, users can gain insights into the availability, performance, and usage of their applications and infrastructure. The key features of Azure Monitor include metrics, logs, alerts, and dashboards. Metrics allow users to collect and analyze performance data from various Azure resources, such as virtual machines, databases, and storage accounts.

Logs enable users to collect and analyze log data from different sources, including Azure resources, applications, and operating systems. Azure Monitor also provides a robust alerting mechanism that allows users to set up alerts based on specific conditions or thresholds. These alerts can be configured to notify users via email, SMS, or other notification channels. Additionally, Azure Monitor offers customizable dashboards that allow users to visualize and analyze their monitoring data in a personalized and intuitive manner.

Azure Monitor integrates seamlessly with other Azure services, such as Azure Automation and Azure Logic Apps, enabling users to automate actions based on monitoring data. It also supports integration with third-party monitoring tools and services, providing flexibility and extensibility.

Overall, Azure Monitor is a powerful and versatile monitoring solution that helps users gain deep insights into the performance and health of their Azure resources and applications. It offers a wide range of features and integrations, making it a comprehensive solution for monitoring and managing Azure environments.

Microsoft

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

Sample Customers

Rackspace, First Gas, Allscripts, ABB Group

TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista

Buyer's Guide

Azure Monitor vs. SolarWinds AppOptics

September 2025

Free Report: Azure Monitor vs. SolarWinds AppOptics

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