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ITRS Geneos vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

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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

ITRS Geneos
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
33rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (38th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (28th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (5th), Active Directory Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of ITRS Geneos is 0.9%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.0%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.0%
ITRS Geneos0.9%
Other98.1%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Ravi ShankarSundarasan - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Cloud Architect at Blue Yonder
Real-time monitoring has improved incident response and supports proactive anomaly detection
The advantages and strong points of ITRS Geneos for me personally are seamless integration with existing systems as well as upcoming modern systems. The user interface is really good. From a management point of view, these are the key aspects with respect to the user interface and seamless integration. We get very good community support for this product. ITRS Geneos has impacted my organization positively, and I would rate it 4.5 out of 5.
NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It’s very easy to install and setup, offers high scalability, and has a low resource use."
"Once set-up, Geneos proved to be a very powerful and versatile tool to real-time monitor our IT infrastructure and - most important for us - our critical applications and business processes."
"The good thing is you get something out of it day one, you don't need years of training, and then you can build on that."
"It is the most adaptable product so you should go-ahead and use it."
"ITRS can define rules to alert when certain parameters that you monitor breach a threshold. Rules can be configured to fire recovery actions automatically to clear the alert"
"The great advantage of this tool is real-time monitoring."
"The ability to logically normalize data gathered from multiple types of sources via pre-built plugins is extremely powerful. This functionality, coupled with the ability to import custom data via the Toolkit plugin allows Geneos to be leveraged to monitor every system in the enterprise."
"The biggest benefit of Geneos is the fact that we can clearly see, if we have an alert, where that alert has come from. We can see the data around that alert and anything that might be relevant is also shown. We can very easily right-click and see why we've received that alert. That's the best part about it, that you've got all the data there with the alerting."
"If a company would really like insight into its database utilization or performance and why their servers are slow or why the database is not giving a proper response, this solution will help."
"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."
"The OOTB (Out of the Box) implementation does have very good node specific pages and can provide a wealth of information."
"I have found the visibility into server health with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor very beneficial, which we use on a daily basis."
"I adore the NTA module that provides deep details on ingress/egress traffic for any interface. With a few clicks, you can correlate who is accessing what and when, beside the bandwidth consuming applications/users."
"As I mentioned in one of the other points: "Simplicity at its best"."
"SolarWinds fit the bill because it gave many possibilities in monitoring with a good amount of out of the box capabilities."
"The graphical interfaces, GUI customizations, and alert configurations are impressive."
 

Cons

"I think there's a very steep learning curve with the product."
"The Geneos configuration has greatly improved since the nascent version 1.0 days, but still requires specialist knowledge and convoluted config debugging when something’s not monitoring as expected."
"Much of the reporting outside of the user interface is very basic and requires much customization to be useful."
"Currently the dashboard does not have the capability of providing different status levels, and this needs to be updated."
"ITRS have started to make some major changes that we haven't taken on board yet, in the creation of dashboards and more visibility of the metrics that we collect. At the moment, that's something that's lacking, but I know they have addressed it. Still, it’s not that easy to create stuff to help with visibility and dashboarding in Geneos."
"The ITA, the post-incident analytics, could be improved."
"The deployment method for upgrading is a bit tricky. It takes a little bit of manual effort. If that could be a bit more automated, it would help us a lot."
"The dashboard feature is full of bugs. Grouping items results in a distorted dashboard."
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."
"I believe that SolarWinds should spend more effort in reporting."
"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."
"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."
"MS Azure Service and user experience monitoring is an area in which the SolarWinds tools are lacking; without a doubt, this is the Achilles heel of the Orion monitoring tools, and I am currently reviewing other vendors for Azure service monitoring tools."
"AppInsight needs to include more applications, the current list is very limited."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ITRS Geneos is not a cheap tool. It's a moderate price for the banking industry. The reason we are not able to add the ITRS monitoring tool for the non-banking industries, and non-finance industries, is that the pricing is too high."
"The pricing is fairly market-related. They have been very lenient because we have been working with them for so long. An example is that we're currently migrating some of our services to AWS, and they've given us a grace period for some of the things to help with the migration and not to grow additional costs while we are migrating, but it's still on par with the market."
"Pricing is the touchy subject, even here. Upper management always wants us to find a cheaper solution. But we have so much integrated with ITRS... It's expensive, but it does its job very well. And you set it and go."
"The organization is not just purchasing a license for the product, but also managing services and professional services from ITRS. Another factor is if the implementation is going to be in production, non-production, or both."
"Pricing and licensing is based on the requirements."
"The product is priced quite high. There are pricing options for customers based on the size of the environment and plug-ins used by the monitoring system."
"Based on feedback from colleagues and friends working in the financial sector, Geneos is relatively costly. Many companies have been switching from Geneos to Dynatrace, Sysdig, or other monitoring tools in the past two years because of the price."
"I can say it's not that cheap because the licensing is a little bit costly"
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I would advise potential buyers to wait until the end of the quarter, end of year, or other time to place orders. There are actually great deals to be had at those times if your budget cycle can match up."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
49%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
4%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise40
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ITRS Geneos?
I do not have the pricing information because it lies with the finance team.
What needs improvement with ITRS Geneos?
I do not see much room for improvement. Support for data cloud platforms could be great. Modern cloud platforms and data cloud platforms require more attention from the product.
What is your primary use case for ITRS Geneos?
I was using ITRS Geneos at HSBC. I have been using this product for more than two years. I have 20 years of experience working in IT with software in general. I am working with an on-premises deplo...
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 ...
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...
 

Also Known As

Geneos
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ITRS Geneos is used by over 170 financial institutions, including JPMorgan, HSBC, RBS, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Clients range from investment banks to exchanges and brokers.
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about ITRS Geneos vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.