Elastic Observability vs SolarWinds AppOptics comparison

Elastic and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Elastic is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.7, while SolarWinds is ranked #55. Elastic holds a 2.6% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Elastic users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Elastic Observability

Read 29 Elastic Observability reviews

8,436 Views
6,833 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

SolarWinds AppOptics

Read 9 SolarWinds AppOptics reviews

1,452 Views
886 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Elastic Observability

SolarWinds AppOptics

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

SolarWinds AppOptics and Elastic Observability compete in the observability and monitoring category. SolarWinds AppOptics edges ahead in pricing and support, while Elastic Observability takes the lead in feature robustness according to user reviews.

Features: SolarWinds AppOptics includes detailed monitoring, integrations, and ease of use. Elastic Observability offers powerful data visualization, extensive search capabilities, and flexibility. Users find Elastic Observability's features more robust and valuable.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds AppOptics users mention enhanced customization and advanced alerting capabilities. Elastic Observability users point to improved simplicity and better documentation. Both products have areas needing enhancements, but Elastic Observability's complexity remains a notable concern.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds AppOptics is praised for straightforward deployment and responsive customer support. Elastic Observability's deployment is more intricate, but its support also has positive feedback. Users find SolarWinds AppOptics simpler to deploy.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds AppOptics is considered cost-effective with quick return on investment. Elastic Observability, although pricier, is perceived as offering better value for its comprehensive capabilities. Users see Elastic Observability as a worthy investment despite higher initial costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds AppOptics Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds AppOptics

January 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 881,082 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

Elastic Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

6th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

9th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (14th), Container Monitoring (4th)

SolarWinds AppOptics

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

55th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

58th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

47th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 2.6%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.7%, 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 (%)
Elastic Observability	2.6%
SolarWinds AppOptics	0.7%
Other	96.7%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Mohammed-Abdelalim

Assistant Vice President at QualityKiosk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Has provided powerful customization for unique monitoring needs but needs more out-of-the-box capabilities

In my opinion, the best features of Elastic Observability are their flexibility to integrate with other existing systems and the ability to build a unified monitoring tool that can integrate with existing ones and end-to-end user journeys which require a lot of customizations. The greatest feature in Elastic is the ability to customize. This is similar to my comments about customizable dashboards in Elastic because it's visible to the analyst. However, it's very great. Customizing these dashboards can meet the customer's specific use cases and specific stories that they have in their environment, their special environment that doesn't look like other environments. The dashboarding in Elastic is highly customizable to the level of logos. If the customer wants his company logo in the dashboard, it can be done.

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 architecture and system's stability are simple."

"The most valued feature of Elastic is its log analytics capabilities."

"It has always been a stable solution."

"The most valuable feature of Elastic Observability is the text search."

"Good design and easy to use once implemented."

"The solution has been stable in our usage."

"Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning over a month from multiple data sources can be completed within seconds."

"The tool's most valuable feature is centralized logging. Elastic Common Search helps us to search for the logs across the organization."

More Elastic Observability pros

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

"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."

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

"The reporting of the solution is very good."

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

"The product has a great dashboard."

Cons

"Elastic Observability is difficult to use. There are only three options for customization but this can be difficult for our use case. We do not have other options to choose the metrics shown, such as CPU or memory usage."

"It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like network observability, package flow analysis, and device performance data on the infrastructure side."

"Simplifying the parsing of logs and manual efforts would also be beneficial."

"Elastic Observability could improve asset discovery as the current requirement to push the agent is not ideal."

"The cost must be made more transparent."

"Elastic Observability is an excellent product for monitoring and visibility, but it lacks predictive analytics. Most solutions are aligned with the AIOps requirements, but this piece is missing in Elastic and should be included."

"If we had some pre-defined templates for observability that we could start using right away after deploying it – instead of having to build or to change some of the dashboards – that would be helpful."

"I am familiar with Azure Monitor, which I find more user-friendly compared to Elastic, which is a very technical tool."

More Elastic Observability cons

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

"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."

"The solution should be more user-friendly."

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

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not that cheap."

"There are two types: cloud and SaaS. They charge based on data ingestion, ingest rate, hard retention, and warm retention. I believe it costs around $25,000 annually to ingest 30GB of data daily. That is the SaaS version. There is also a self-managed license where the customer manages their own infrastructure on-prem. In such cases, there are three license tiers that respectively cost $5,000 annually per node, $7,000 per node, and $12,500 per node."

"The product’s pricing needs improvement."

"We have been using the open-source version."

"So far, there are just the standard licensing fees. Several of the components are embedded in the license or are even open source. They're even free depending on what you use, which makes it even more appealing to someone that is discussing pricing of the solution."

"We will buy a premium license after POC."

"Elastic Observability's pricing could be better for small-scale users."

"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."

More Elastic Observability pricing and cost advice

"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."

"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."

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.

See recommendations

881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	16

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Elastic Observability?

Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?

The problem is their licensing model, which is a bit confusing. Many customers struggle to understand their total cost of ownership because Elastic licensing is not dependent on easy, quantifiable ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?

After careful consideration about areas for improvement in Elastic Observability, aspects such as pricing, customization, implementation, and scalability could be improved. As a user of the system,...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Sentry vs Elastic Observability

Compared 8% of the time

Dynatrace vs Elastic Observability

Compared 7% of the time

New Relic vs Elastic Observability

Compared 7% of the time

Grafana vs Elastic Observability

Compared 7% of the time

Zabbix vs Elastic Observability

Compared 6% of the time

More Elastic Observability Competitors

New Relic vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 15% of the time

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 14% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 8% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Instana Observability vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 5% of the time

More SolarWinds AppOptics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability

January 2026

Download Elastic Observability product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

January 2026

Download SolarWinds AppOptics product report

Also Known As

No data available

AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato

Overview

Elastic Observability offers a comprehensive suite for log analytics, application performance monitoring, and machine learning. It integrates seamlessly with platforms like Teams and Slack, enhancing data visualization and scalability for real-time insights.

Elastic Observability is designed to support production environments with features like logging, data collection, and infrastructure tracking. Centralized logging and powerful search functionalities make incident response and performance tracking efficient. Elastic APM and Kibana facilitate detailed data visualization, promoting rapid troubleshooting and effective system performance analysis. Integrated services and extensive connectivity options enhance its role in business and technical decision-making by providing actionable data insights.

What are the most important features of Elastic Observability?

Centralized Logging: Streamlines the collection, analysis, and storage of log data.
Powerful Search: Provides robust search capabilities for quick access to relevant information.
Scalability: Supports growing data needs across diverse environments.
Real-time Telemetry: Ensures up-to-date insights and monitoring.
Platform Integration: Seamlessly connects with services like Teams and Slack.
Data Visualization: Enhances visibility with Elastic APM and Kibana.

What benefits and ROI should users explore in reviews?

Cost-effectiveness: Offers significant savings through efficient data management.
Rapid Incident Response: Minimizes downtime with quick troubleshooting tools.
Comprehensive Insights: Supports better business decisions with detailed data analysis.
Performance Tracking: Enables assessment of system effectiveness and improvements.

Elastic Observability is employed across industries for critical operations, such as in finance for transaction monitoring, in healthcare for secure data management, and in technology for optimizing application performance. Its data-driven approach aids efficient event tracing, supporting diverse industry requirements.

Elastic

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

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank

TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds AppOptics

January 2026

Free Report: Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds AppOptics

Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds AppOptics and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds AppOptics report.

See our list of best Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability vendors, best IT Infrastructure Monitoring vendors, and best Cloud Monitoring Software vendors.

We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability 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.