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Grafana vs SolarWinds Pingdom comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

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

Grafana
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Pingdom
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
67th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Grafana is 2.7%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Pingdom is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Grafana2.7%
SolarWinds Pingdom0.6%
Other96.7%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Unified dashboards have empowered teams and have democratized real-time operational insights
Grafana's snapshot and dashboard sharing features are critical for our remote incident response. During production issues, I generate a public snapshot of a dashboard at a specific point and share the URL in our Slack war room so every engineer can see exactly what the metrics looked like when the error occurred. This helps significantly during the process of finding the root cause in those scenarios. The best features Grafana offers go beyond just pretty charts; it is an integration engine. The fact that I can join data from my SQL database with metrics from Prometheus in the same table is a feature I have not found performed as well elsewhere. My team uses this feature by comparing two different tables from the databases to show one single view, which Grafana is really helping with. In a visualized way, the charts can be displayed on one dashboard, allowing end users who are not familiar with these technical aspects to extract valuable data from it. Grafana has positively impacted our organization by democratizing data within our company. Before using Grafana, only developers could see the system health, but now our product managers and executives have their own high-level dashboards, which has improved cross-departmental transparency and alignment.
Jay Vekaria - PeerSpot reviewer
Linux System Administrator at Ergode
High performance, quick setup, but lacking ease of use
Some of the functions could improve by making them easier. There is room for improvement when it comes to the graphs provided by the software. Additionally, there seems to be an issue with the ping status, as it sometimes indicates that a website is down even when it is functioning properly. It appears that there are certain aspects related to cache management or other backend functionalities that are unclear. The time range graph and overall user interface could be more user-friendly. For example, when selecting a custom graph for a specific time period, clicking on it should open the corresponding website in a new tab, but instead, it displays the current graph. This lack of consistency can be frustrating when trying to navigate the interface. Furthermore, the reports shared on a weekly basis arrive one week late, reducing their usefulness. Overall, some extra efforts are required to make the user experience smoother and more efficient.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It gives us the visibility we need. I like that when we add deployment markers or release markers, we know exactly when an issue arises. For instance, if there is an increased usage of CPU, we can link it directly to the deployment that might have caused the issue. It increases productivity and observability. We can now easily tell when a certain issue arises. It's way easier to debug because it can point you to certain things based on these markers, and we can debug easier."
"The most valuable aspect is customization. There are many customizations possible, so I like that."
"We chose this solution because it met the requirements of visualizing and monitoring to make decisions."
"Grafana is stable and has great engineers."
"The best thing about Grafana is the visualization. The colors and the ease of use make it very user-friendly."
"Grafana has helped our organization with observability and operational excellence."
"The solution's application server is easy to use and its overall architecture is better for development."
"Grafana is a very scalable product. It's a really good product."
"One valuable feature is real user monitoring."
"Overall, this is a very good product and one that I recommend."
"There are alerting mechanisms in place to let us know, for example, if a device is not responding to a ping test and is probably not going to work."
"My advice to anybody who is considering Pingdom is that this is a good product at an affordable price."
"Once you set the threshold on your environment, it feels very real-time"
"One notable feature of this software is its page speed setup, which is highly commendable. Additionally, the metrics it provides are also impressive."
"The most valuable features are monitoring and reporting."
 

Cons

"There are some areas of network drives that are not showing as expected based on server usage."
"More dashboard is required, out-of-the-box, for OpenNMS."
"The look and feel of the charting and graph capabilities in Grafana could improve."
"Perhaps the display of the trigger limits should be more efficient because it's difficult to see that in a graph."
"If there was an issue on one node, we couldn't drill down and see all the issues on other nodes."
"It is limited on the reporting type supported, which is important for managerial-level officers who want reports that are either general or specific."
"I rate Grafana a six out of ten."
"They should improve the functioning of its editing tool."
"Technical support could use some improvement."
"Pingdom is always improving everything in its product. So, they should work on the GUI."
"Pingdom is always improving everything in its product. So, they should work on the GUI."
"Some of the functions could improve by making them easier."
"Technical support could use some improvement."
"I would like to see better integration with other products."
"I would like to see better integration with other products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I give the price an eight out of ten."
"For me, Grafana is a cheap tool because I don't have to spend much time learning the product since it is a simple solution."
"Since Grafana is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."
"My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."
"​Grafana is free and open source.​"
"We are using the open-source license."
"I use the open source model so it is free."
"I am using an open-source version"
"This price of this solution is reasonable."
"While I wouldn't describe it as excessively expensive, if you require specific and reliable monitoring, SolarWinds can be a suitable option. The advantage is that SolarWinds offers a free version as well. If you don't heavily rely on its monitoring capabilities and are content with its basic features, the free version could suffice for your needs."
"The license was paid yearly and included technical support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Construction Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise25
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is very reasonable and has excellent community support.
What needs improvement with Grafana?
Currently, I do not think that any improvement is required, but there are multiple use cases.
What is your primary use case for Grafana?
My main use case for Grafana is to create and design dashboards based on the metrics provided by different exporters via Prometheus. We have different exporters, and we are creating different dashb...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Grafana vs. SolarWinds Pingdom and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.