Elastic Observability vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Elastic and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Elastic is ranked #11 with an average rating of 9.0, while SolarWinds is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.0. Elastic holds a 1.9% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Elastic users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Elastic Observability

Read 29 Elastic Observability reviews

10,155 Views
7,210 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

6,217 Views
3,668 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Elastic Observability

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and Elastic Observability are two leading tools in their respective domains. Based on user feedback, Elastic Observability seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced analytics and versatile features.

Features: SolarWinds offers in-depth performance monitoring, alerting mechanisms, and a user-friendly interface. Elastic Observability provides robust data analysis, visualization tools, and highly customizable dashboards.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds needs better integration with third-party tools, more frequent updates, and improved scalability. Elastic faces a steep learning curve, requires a more intuitive setup process, and could benefit from enhanced user documentation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds is relatively straightforward to deploy but has mixed customer service feedback. Elastic is slightly more complex to deploy but receives consistent praise for responsive and knowledgeable support staff.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds users are satisfied with the initial setup cost but are concerned about long-term ROI due to recurring subscription fees. Elastic’s pricing is higher upfront, but users find the advanced features justify the expense, resulting in a better perceived ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

April 2026

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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

Elastic Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (15th), Log Management (15th), Container Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

17th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (8th), Active Directory Management (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 1.9%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.2%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Elastic Observability	1.9%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.2%
Other	96.9%

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

NikhilKalwint

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.

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 full stack observability, Elastic is the best tool compared with any other tool like New Relic or AppDynamics or Dynatrace."

"The Elastic User Interface framework lets us do custom development when needed. You need to have some Javascript knowledge. We need that knowledge to develop new custom tests."

"Elastic APM has plenty of features, such as the Elastic server for Kibana and many additional plugins. It's a comprehensive tool when used as a logging platform."

"Elastic provides built-in features for queries and report generation. It's a very good tool for monitoring integration capabilities."

"All the features that we use, such as monitoring, dashboarding, reporting, the possibility of alerting, and the way we index the data, are important."

"The solution allows us to track performance via metrics and we're able to see where latency is happening."

"It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it."

"It's easy to deploy, and it's very flexible."

More Elastic Observability pros

"Management Console - Managing service to each server enrolled in the Solarwinds is much easier. Using a web base console, you can control your service much convenient way. There is no need to login remotely. It save a lot of time and effort."

"Identifying the problem statement is easy."

"We use the solution as a central monitoring tool. We use it to monitor every transaction that has a relation to the organization’s infrastructure."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."

"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."

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

"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"The solution would be better if it was capable of more automation, especially in a monitoring capacity or for the response to abnormalities."

"The auto-discovery isn't nearly as good. When you drop the agent onto the JVM and you're trying to figure things out, having to go through and manually do all that is cumbersome."

"Improving code insight related to infrastructure and network, particularly focusing on aspects such as firewalls, switches, routers, and testing would be beneficial."

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

"The auto-discovery isn't nearly as good. That's a big portion of it. When you drop the agent onto the JVM and you're trying to figure things out, having to go through and manually do all that is cumbersome."

"The solution needs to use more AI. Once the product onboards AI, users would more effectively be able to track endpoints for specific messages."

"More web features could be added to the product."

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

More Elastic Observability cons

"PerfStack can be made more effective."

"The technical support team's response time could be improved."

"The tool's AppStack needs to improve in the storage monitoring part. It should also include an analytics and recommendation approach. If I have found a fault in a server or application, I would like to know what caused it and how do I recover from it."

"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."

"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is not stable. We have to maintain the platform and it goes down frequently."

"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges."

"The technical support is nothing special."

"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve by having a cloud version. They have an observability platform but it still needs to be maintained by us."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."

"The product’s pricing needs improvement."

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

"Elastic Observability is cheaper than other similar solutions, such as Dynatrace. Its license calculation is based on various factors like data volume and physical infrastructure, particularly related to RAM capacity."

"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."

"The product is not that cheap."

More Elastic Observability pricing and cost advice

"The licenses start from USD 3000.00 and go up to USD 20,000.00 for the year. It's a perpetual license. Nothing is free in SolarWinds, anything that you need is an additional cost."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It is just the standard price, but it can vary depending on the current rate of the dollar."

"The product is expensive."

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

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

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Healthcare Company

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	17
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

Questions from the Community

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

What is your primary use case for Elastic Observability?

My use case for Elastic Observability is observability, as we upload our customers' data, including logs, and when there is an issue, we can analyze what went wrong.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Compared 7% of the time

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Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability

May 2026

Download Elastic Observability product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

April 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds SAM

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

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provides comprehensive server, application, and infrastructure monitoring, focusing on integration, application dependency, and network insights through user-friendly interfaces and detailed dashboards.

With AppStack and AppInsight support, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor offers service management, detailed resource dashboards, and integration capabilities. It monitors hardware metrics and performance parameters, facilitating database and network insights for cloud and virtual environments. Robust alerting, predictive analytics, and capacity planning ensure efficient management of server health and application performance.

What are the key features?

Integration: Seamlessly connects with existing tools.
AppStack: Provides a holistic view of applications.
AppInsight: Supports widely-used applications.
SNMP Polling: Efficient network data collection.
Diagnostics: Real-time troubleshooting.
Customizable Dashboards: Tailored monitoring views.

What benefits should users expect?

Comprehensive Monitoring: Extends from servers to databases.
Transparent Control: Enhances visibility into performance metrics.
User-Friendly: Simplifies proactive monitoring with alerts.
Predictive Features: Supports capacity and trend planning.

Industries implement SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor to enhance server utilization reporting, network configuration, and AV equipment performance tracking. They benefit from monitoring critical services across diverse deployment models, improving management efficiency and decision-making.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

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

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

April 2026

Free Report: Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

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