Instana Dynamic APM vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Instana and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Instana is ranked #30 with an average rating of 8.0, while SolarWinds is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.6. Instana holds a 1.0% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 84% of Instana users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Instana Dynamic APM

Read 14 Instana Dynamic APM reviews

1,942 Views
1,884 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

4,008 Views
2,605 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Instana Dynamic APM

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and Instana Dynamic APM are leading application performance monitoring tools. Instana Dynamic APM generally has the upper hand due to its advanced features and ease of use, despite its higher cost, compared to SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor's attractive pricing and robust customer support.

Features: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is valued for comprehensive monitoring capabilities, hardware health monitoring, and application availability. Instana Dynamic APM is praised for advanced AI-driven alerts, real-time data collection, and dynamic tracking of microservices.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve in reporting capabilities, dashboard visualization, and enhanced analytics. Instana Dynamic APM users see room for improvement in documentation, cost of ownership, and user interface complexity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is known for straightforward deployment and strong customer support. Instana Dynamic APM, while easy to deploy, has more complex initial configurations but offers excellent ongoing customer service.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is noted for its cost-effectiveness and solid ROI. Instana Dynamic APM is perceived as expensive but delivers significant returns due to its advanced features.

To learn more, read our detailed Instana Dynamic APM vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Instana Dynamic APM vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

December 2025

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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

Instana Dynamic APM

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

30th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

20th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (9th), Active Directory Management (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Instana Dynamic APM is 1.0%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.2%, down from 1.7% 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 (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.2%
Instana Dynamic APM	1.0%
Other	97.8%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Jawwad Hassan

IT Consultant at Arcana Info

A really good GUI that is easy for non-technical users to understand

Our company uses the solution for one of our bank clients. We use App Connect middleware to monitor services and applications such as Docker, Kubernetes, MongoDB, and MS SQL Server. We also monitor the bottleneck for all servers. We currently have 20 users at one of our branches. We plan to expand…

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With Instana, the interface and the UI are very simple to use."

"The most valuable feature of Instana Dynamic APM is auto-instrumentation."

"It is user-friendly, but we encounter issues processing input and understanding the graphics, such as seeing a flatline without knowing the cause. When these problems occur, I have to contact my support team to address and fix them. Also, monitoring processing is good."

"The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis."

"Visually, it's very good. It provides everything needed for dynamic detection, which is very useful."

"Its GUI is really good and it easy to understand for non-technical users."

"If a key monitored value has crossed a threshold, it sends out an alert. And the solution is able to intelligently find out if something is beyond the range that it normally resides in."

"Instana is very fast to implement and deploy because the dashboards are automated and don't need configuration."

More Instana Dynamic APM pros

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."

"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."

"The more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature."

"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."

"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."

"The initial setup was relatively easy, and we didn't have to install anything. All we had to do was put on the devices we wanted to monitor."

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"We should be able to go back to scenarios during or before the issue. There should be something like a history playback. Such a feature or functionality would be good."

"New Relic has a better UI in terms of how it presents the data."

"While it is already quite good, there is room for improvement in terms of providing better functionality"

"Maybe log monitoring could be better."

"Many managers, as well as our customers, used to ask for reports, such as "top X number of queries that are slow," or "top pages that have the highest number of issues." This is something that can be improved by Instana. Currently, they don't have that kind of reporting available out-of-the-box."

"The integration could be improved with more plugins or open API."

"The solution's monitoring is pretty weak and should be improved."

"We'd always like to see additional functionalities."

More Instana Dynamic APM cons

"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."

"There is one feature that is a report writer. And they are currently trying to take it out from being a stand-alone application and integrating to the web. This doesn't give us the flexibility and it doesn't expand what we can get when it comes to reporting. So, putting it on the web is going to make it difficult to get some information. Leaving it where it is now will help us a lot."

"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."

"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."

"In terms of the dashboards on offer, they should work to improve them. The types of dashboards that you get in terms of the graphs on offer aren't ideal right now."

"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."

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

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its pricing isn't a big pain point. Its pricing seems to be better than some of the other competing products in the market, but they also have some of the features and functionalities that are better than Instana."

"The solution is less expensive than one of its competitors."

"The pricing is $1,200 per year which is a bit high compared to other vendors."

"Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies compared to other vendors."

"Pricing is quite competitive. Dynatrace, AppDynamics, and New Relic were all several times more expensive than Instana, both the on-prem and the SaaS versions. Price-wise they are a lot more competitive than anyone else out there."

"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."

"It's reasonably priced and manageable, especially for individuals who grasp the significance of application monitoring."

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

"The product is expensive."

"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

25%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Educational Organization

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Instana Dynamic APM?

The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Instana Dynamic APM?

I rate the pricing a seven out of ten. There are no additional costs associated with the product.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Instana Dynamic APM?

Sometimes, the issue arises from user changes, such as adjusting firewall settings without proper consideration, leading to compatibility issues within the network monitoring.

See all answers

What do you like most about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

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

Comparisons

Dynatrace vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 29% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 13% of the time

New Relic vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 7% of the time

Datadog vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 6% of the time

IBM Application Performance Management vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 6% of the time

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Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 11% of the time

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 11% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

Prometheus-AI Platform vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 4% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Instana Dynamic APM

January 2026

Download Instana Dynamic APM product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

January 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

Instana’s Enterprise Observability Platform, powered by automated Application Performance Monitoring, discovers and maps all services, infrastructure, and their inter-dependencies automatically. Instana ingests all observability metrics, traces each request, profiles every process, and updates application dependency maps in real-time to deliver the context and actionable feedback needed by Dev+Ops to optimize application performance, enable innovation, and mitigate risk to help them add value and efficiency to the pipeline. Learn more at https://instana.com.

Instana

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

Daxko Lifts Fitness Studios Through COVID Regulations with Quick Engineering PivotsAltissia Meets SLAs to Support Student DeadlinesImmocloud Unlocks Observability to Modernize Real EstateEnento Group Boosts Service Reliability with Real-Time Visibility into Application Performance Instana’s Observability for Amazon EKS Helps Yara Deliver Digital Farming Solutions

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

Instana Dynamic APM vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

December 2025

Free Report: Instana Dynamic APM vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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