Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Azure Monitor vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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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

Azure Monitor

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

4th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Monitoring Software (5th)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

16th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (9th), Active Directory Management (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Azure Monitor is 7.5%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Syed Abid

Snr. Infrastructure Architect at LogicEra

Monthly and weekly resource monitoring has improved efficiency

Azure Monitor can improve by adding some kind of storage for logs. I can get the runtime logs alone, yet if Azure Monitor can independently add one gigabyte, two gigabytes, or five gigabytes at least to log storage, I can fix the logs without syncing with Log Analytics Workspace and Sentinel. If they do that, and if they can integrate a little pricing adjustment, it will be profitable for the Microsoft tool.

Read full review

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.

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

"For me, the best feature is the log analysis with Azure Monitor's Log Analytics. Without being able to analyze the logs of all the activities that affect the performance of a machine, your monitoring effectiveness will be severely limited."

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

"We like this searchability and availability of the data."

"You can scale the product."

"The solution very easily integrates with Azure services and in one click you can monitor your resource."

"The most valuable feature is that it ensures our servers are up."

"Good load and metrics gathering and very good analysis."

"It is a robust, stable product."

More Azure Monitor pros

"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"

"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."

"One of the most valuable features are the reports. They're pretty good. Also, the ease of installation and customization for the client is another feature that we value. SolarWinds has a lot of features but these are the ones I like the most. We also like that the KPIs have the ability to be preset."

"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."

"It is simple to implement and can provide fairly decent Windows-based monitoring, beyond simple SNMP. It is great for monitoring newbies and smaller shops."

"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."

"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."

"The product integrates with Remedy."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"Although it's not always the case, the price can sometimes get expensive. This depends on a number of factors, such as how many services you are trying to integrate with Azure Monitor and how much storage they're consuming each month (for example, how large are the log files?)."

"If it is configured incorrectly, you can end up with a huge bill."

"I'd like the solution to do more around vulnerability assessment. It's lacking in the product right now."

"There is room for improvement in stability."

"Automation related to gathering metrics from more applications could be improved."

"Azure Monitor can improve by adding some kind of storage for logs."

"The default interface should be improved."

"I need connectivity with cost management."

More Azure Monitor cons

"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."

"Downside of the tools is the web console are hung or crash. It need to improve the performance."

"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."

"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."

"The stability, flexibility, and ease of use could be improved."

"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."

"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a costly solution"

"Azure Monitor is cheaper compared to other third-party monitoring tools."

"The licensing is a monthly fee."

"Besides standard licensing fees the customer needs to additionally pay based on the ingested data size"

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

"I would rate Azure Monitor a two out of five for affordability."

"The cost of Azure Monitor application performance should be less expensive."

"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."

More Azure Monitor pricing and cost advice

"Price can always be lower. It is neither on the expensive side nor on the cheap side. We have worked with them for a lot of years, so we get a discount due to the size of the installation."

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

"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."

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

"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."

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

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor 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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845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Educational Organization

45%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 do you like most about Azure Monitor?

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

What needs improvement with Azure Monitor?

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?

There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor at this time. I have not encountered any missing features or fu...

Dynatrace vs Azure Monitor

Comparisons

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Compared 22% of the time

Sentry vs Azure Monitor

Compared 14% of the time

Compared 13% of the time

Grafana vs Azure Monitor

Compared 11% of the time

Elastic Observability vs Azure Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

More Azure Monitor Competitors

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 19% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 12% of the time

Prometheus Group vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 8% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Nagios XI vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Azure Monitor

Download Azure Monitor product report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds SAM

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

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

Sample Customers

Rackspace, First Gas, Allscripts, ABB Group

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Azure Monitor vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor