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Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 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

Icinga
Ranking in Server Monitoring
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (17th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (16th), Cloud Monitoring Software (14th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (16th), Active Directory Management (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Icinga is 9.4%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.6%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Harrison Bulley - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable, scalable and cost-effective solution that helps with inbuilt scripts for easy modification
I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built.
Subhajit Nag - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The apply rules feature saves a lot of time."
"There's a module called Icinga Director, which helps us configure the product using an intuitive interface through clicks instead of creating a text configuration. It's very helpful for us."
"The ability to customize scripts and build your own queries to request information from the infrastructure elements you want to monitor. This level of personalization and customization is highly appreciated."
"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."
"I like the ability to amend and adjust things really easily, which is useful in a case where you could make it auto-discover and then set a template to say all of these applications or servers under this template have an automatic threshold set that you’d set up manually."
"The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."
"The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first."
"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."
"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."
"I am impressed with the tool's AppStack feature which mainly helps us in the identification process. This feature can give an overview of the fault and help us identify the issues for performance degradation. Instead of looking at multiple places, we can look at a single place to identify the issues."
"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."
"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements. The threshold gets configured automatically, so it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."
 

Cons

"The installation and configuration are very complex."
"The tool currently fails to provide notifications to users."
"Icinga’s automation could be improved."
"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."
"Icinga is a complex solution that's hard to learn. It's a powerful product for monitoring, but new users will have a hard time figuring out what to do."
"One thing that Icinga lacks is the capability to create advanced and customized dashboards within the tool itself."
"We have found some problems with Nagios, and support isn't very responsive."
"It needs Trap SNMP. I saw the documentation for Zabbix, that it has its own built-in product which handles SNMP traps, and there's nothing similar in Icinga or Nagios. I think this feature is most important for me."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"Mapping interactions between systems."
"Downside of the tools is the web console are hung or crash. It need to improve the performance."
"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"The tool’s report feature created issues for us. We needed to gain skills to use that feature. The tool’s customization is not easy since you have to reconfigure the whole system."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"It's an open-source solution."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"The solution is cheap."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"The solution is free to use."
"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each."
"When planning for the number of licenses to purchase, make sure you understand all of the elements within an application required to really understand performance well. In our case, we quickly came to the conclusion that an unlimited license for SAM was the way to go."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
44%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Icinga?
The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Icinga?
It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low. If you want to include this product in the services you offer to your customers, the return on i...
What needs improvement with Icinga?
There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved. For instance, multi-tenancy for monitoring the virtual infrastructur...
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...
 

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.