No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (7th), Active Directory Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Azure Monitor is 2.2%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.1%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Azure Monitor2.2%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.1%
Other96.7%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Andy Rabern - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees
Telemetry insights have improved how I track user behavior and application performance daily
I feel Azure Monitor does a fair job. I do feel it is not a streaming service in my opinion. There are advantages to having stream messaging and logging on that level. But for what it is, I feel it does well. My perspective is more based on an Application Insights agent running on a service or an app service and sending the telemetry via the agent, and also doing the filtering of telemetry at the agent level so you are not having a ton of telemetry. I believe Azure Monitor does pretty much the same thing. I have also used tools such as New Relic, and New Relic is a much more robust tool, but that is a different product and you are going to pay for that. It is a different offering altogether. The subscription that we had at the time allowed for a couple gigabytes of telemetry during the month, and I believe that telemetry only lives for about two months. You have to experiment with it to see how much you want to pay. I was not really involved in the pricing. It was more along the lines of we were running up against our limits in terms of the amount of free telemetry or telemetry that we get with our subscription, and so we either needed to scale back or turn specific telemetry types off or do some more sampling. It is nice that those capabilities are there so that you can reduce the amount of telemetry. I cannot really speak to pricing but I do believe that it is somewhat reasonable for Azure Monitor. New Relic is pretty expensive, I believe.
NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In the last company where I worked about a year ago, it looked very simple."
"We like the monitoring, we can look for the downtimes and look at the log to see whenever there is a crash and all the information around it."
"It's a Microsoft native tool, so it works well with other Microsoft technologies, which is predominantly what our customer end-user base is."
"The ease of access in Azure is significant since it's native to the platform and easy to integrate."
"Technical support is good and helpful...The initial setup is easy."
"In any case, I would definitely recommend the product for Azure users because it is seamlessly integrated into the platform."
"I am impressed by the reporting on the average eight ports that we get from this solution."
"Recently, they have improved their integration with other resources, so we get even more robust data."
"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."
"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."
"The OOTB (Out of the Box) implementation does have very good node specific pages and can provide a wealth of information."
"SolarWinds allows network administrators to easily monitor the network by customizing the pages to see what exactly is needed, in addition to the deep statistics shown for nodes and interfaces like response time, packet loss, interface CRC, interface errors, as well as the rich graphs for all network elements."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"The ROI for SolarWinds products is unmatched in the industry."
"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements, so the threshold gets configured automatically, and it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."
"The product integrates with Remedy."
 

Cons

"The product is not as good as a lot of market-leading products; I wouldn't recommend the solution at all and would direct other companies to go to either ExtraHop, New Relic, or Dynatrace instead."
"Azure Monitor's integration with applications could be improved."
"Azure Monitor could improve the visualization aspect and integrate better with other third-party services."
"Integration with third-party tools from other vendors than Azure is more time-consuming"
"They should include advanced logging on the database level in the Azure pool."
"Azure Monitor is not user-friendly, and the interface is not exciting. Switching between the dashboards is not easy."
"The process of implementation needs to be easier."
"The price could be lower but it is not a must."
"As per my view, Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."
"SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern."
"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"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."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."
"Scalability was an issue in the past."
"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is a pay-as-you-go consumption service and is the least expensive in the market."
"The cost of Azure Monitor application performance should be less expensive."
"Besides standard licensing fees the customer needs to additionally pay based on the ingested data size"
"The tool's pricing is very good. I could say that Microsoft offers different cost models, which are listed on the product's website."
"The licensing is a monthly fee."
"My company is okay with the current pricing of the solution."
"Azure Monitor's price is minimal to the point of being almost negligible."
"Azure Monitor is a competitively priced solution."
"Nagios XI, WhatsUpGold, Uptime Software, PRTG, Manage Engine, and SpiceWorks are the other tools that have lower pricing and licensing costs. However, they can't compete with SolarWinds when it comes to the features and functionality that SolarWinds can provide."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"Pricing is inexpensive, starting at 2440 euros. For that, you get the ability to monitor a couple of nodes and one year of maintenance and support."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.
902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

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...
What needs improvement with Azure Monitor?
I feel Azure Monitor does a fair job. I do feel it is not a streaming service in my opinion. There are advantages to having stream messaging and logging on that level. But for what it is, I feel it...
What is your primary use case for Azure Monitor?
I am a developer who uses Azure Monitor for telemetry of the applications that I work on. Application Insights is one of those tools, and I have also used other non-Azure products before. Currently...
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 ...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
I am doing research as we currently have both solutions, and I am looking to see if we need both or can manage with one. Currently, the outcome indicates that we need both. The focus point is diffe...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rackspace, First Gas, Allscripts, ABB Group
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Monitor vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.