Instana Dynamic APM vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Instana Dynamic APM vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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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

22nd

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

19th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (10th), Active Directory Management (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Instana Dynamic APM is 1.0%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.3%, 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	1.3%
Instana Dynamic APM	1.0%
Other	97.7%

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…

Read full review

VIVEK PATHAK

Solutions Architect at Airtel

Offering reasonably good dashboarding features but needs to improve the application performance monitoring

My company uses Riverbed for application performance monitoring. I was doing research so that I could understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provide APM capabilities similar to Riverbed, which allows our company to get a packet capture of an entire session, and on the basis of it, we look at the application performance monitoring part. With SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, my company does SNMP polling, so it can drag an entire session, but it focuses more on availability, CPU memory, and server connection status. In Riverbed, my company catches an entire system, so when we deal with two applications, we have end-to-end app visibility. All the application monitoring happens through Riverbed. Our company's main problem is that, as of now, we have two different products in our organization, and we don't want to continue with the multiple products currently. I wanted to understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor already have capabilities like Riverbed, and if they do, then I wanted to figure out why our company should not go with SolarWinds and why we are using products from multiple vendors. My company needs to continue with either Riverbed or SolarWinds. I wanted to see which products are good for the organization and how much I want to continue with Riverbed.

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

"With auto-discovery, we didn't need to consider much. We just installed the agent on the host and it was able to detect everything from the host level up to the service level, for whatever stack was installed, and that includes containers and dockers."

"It's great for monitoring services and applications."

"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."

"We can easily perform root cause analysis using the tool."

"The overall capabilities are the most valuable."

"The primary selling point of this product is its unparalleled transparency into the infrastructure."

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

"Sometimes it's able to provide a proper RCA on its own. It's able to correlate different events that occurred and that becomes like an RCA in itself."

More Instana Dynamic APM pros

"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"

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

"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."

"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."

"SolarWinds SAM has significantly improved our workflow by allowing us to develop a comprehensive knowledge base of known errors and automate responses to specific alerts."

"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."

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

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

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."

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

"Its SLI and SLA features need improvement in setting up alerts."

"Maybe log monitoring could be better."

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

"I think that Instana should improve the university and the certification process, so the users can find experts in Instana with their certification module process."

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

More Instana Dynamic APM cons

"Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."

"The templates could use improvement. Currently, they are quite complex. They should have drag-and-drop functionality instead. It would make it easier to use."

"The technical support team's response time 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."

"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."

"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."

"Downside of the tools is the web console are hung or crash. It need to improve the performance."

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

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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 and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."

"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 solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."

"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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.

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868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

28%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Healthcare 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	16
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	20

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.

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.

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.

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

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

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.

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...

Dynatrace vs Instana Dynamic APM

Comparisons

Compared 51% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 14% of the time

Datadog vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 8% of the time

New Relic vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 6% of the time

Broadcom DX Application Performance Management vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 6% of the time

More Instana Dynamic APM Competitors

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 18% of the time

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 15% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 8% of the time

Prometheus-AI Platform vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Nagios XI vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Instana Dynamic APM

Download Instana Dynamic APM product report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor 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

Instana Dynamic APM vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor