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ManageEngine ADAudit Plus vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

ManageEngine ADAudit Plus
Ranking in Active Directory Management
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Active Directory Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (17th), Server Monitoring (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of ManageEngine ADAudit Plus is 7.8%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.9%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ManageEngine ADAudit Plus7.8%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor2.9%
Other89.3%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

Karthik G - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Pre-sales Specialist at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
Has enabled detailed auditing of sensitive changes across directory and file systems
The key functionalities of ManageEngine ADAudit Plus are primarily Active Directory reporting, where we create the whole user life cycle management, such as when users are created, who created them, when users are deleted, what group memberships changed, and not just for users, but for all Active Directory objects, users, computers, groups, and group policies. All changes are recorded immediately in real-time and reported for forensic analysis of incidents including who created them, what exactly changed, and what were the old and new values for the attributes. In case of a ransomware attack on a particular server, we can check what process created the files and what files have changed, even with features such as attack surface analyzer that help administrators see what's happening in their local Active Directory regarding password attacks. ManageEngine ADAudit Plus provides real-time tracking capabilities through agent installation, which works in real-time to collect information and immediately alerts if anything matches the defined conditions in the application.
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 assists in managing the active directory and modifying the reintegrated GPOs."
"ManageEngine ADAudit Plus provides real-time tracking capabilities through agent installation, which works in real-time to collect information and immediately alerts if anything matches the defined conditions in the application."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"We are happy with this product; we use it for multiple purposes and we get a lot of useful information from it."
"The most valuable feature of ManageEngine ADAudit Plus is its reports."
"ADAudit saves you the expense of hiring an outside auditor for compliance with regulations like PCI DSS or PCA."
"Customers prefer ManageEngine ADAudit Plus to other solutions because they produce good results for comparatively lower prices."
"The documentation for this solution is good."
"Manage Groups: The capability to group appropriate devices gives better visibility of sites, categories, or critical regions. The same can be used to represent a dashboard for higher management."
"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."
"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."
"We choose the Solarwinds based on the simplication of managing the tool itself."
"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
"Once we got our IT inventory organized and aligned with the business, we were able to leverage our Orion Platform to provide more than just a reactive-based monitoring service to the business."
"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement, especially in the standard professional edition. Some features require more external integration."
"There are so many reports that it sometimes makes it difficult to navigate to what you need."
"Sometimes the developers in technical support take time."
"There are so many reports that it can be a headache."
"The initial setup was quite complex and required some research beforehand."
"I consider the pricing for ADAudit Plus a bit high compared to other software solutions, so I would rate it around two or three on the pricing scale."
"Its configuration can be better. There were 44 pages of documented notes of what I had to do to get the product to work during the installation process."
"An area of improvement for ManageEngine ADAudit Plus could be in graphical reporting, as currently, it's limited with old school bar charts, and having more interactive reports with a better graphical user interface would be beneficial."
"We are looking into other solutions because it is just too expensive to keep scaling."
"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"Scalability was an issue in the past."
"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."
"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."
"Nodes in Azure are able to be monitored with the use of agents, but this does not apply to cloud service offerings that are not node based."
"Having two places to build and manage alerts is not efficient and not all alerting tools are available in the trap manager."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is affordable, and our company is very happy with it. If ten is the most expensive and one is the least expensive, I rate the tool a three or four."
"The solution's pricing is acceptable."
"It's a medium-priced solution."
"ADAudit Plus's pricing is affordable and flexible, with very low prices in the market."
"My guess is that it was around $4,000 or $5,000 a year, and we bought a license, and then we have maintenance fees. I'm not 100% sure how that worked out."
"Adding features and other functionality it costs you more. Also, the first installation costs an additional amount."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"I have always said SolarWinds is very “proud” of their products, meaning they are expensive. I cannot afford to purchase all the licenses I need for all the SolarWinds products."
"The price is too high."
"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."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ManageEngine ADAudit Plus?
An area of improvement for ManageEngine ADAudit Plus could be in graphical reporting, as currently, it's limited with old school bar charts, and having more interactive reports with a better graphi...
What is your primary use case for ManageEngine ADAudit Plus?
The main use case for ManageEngine ADAudit Plus is primarily focused on auditing, so any changes related to Active Directory or Azure Intra ID or even file servers, such as file monitoring, are imm...
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

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Warsaw City Hall, Acument Global Technologies, Inc., Cosma International, Bank of South Pacific, Life Management Center, Central Bank, UncleBob's Self Storage, Leeds Building Society, California Transplant Donor Network, First Response, Blessing Hospital, Northern Land Council, RMK Marine
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about ManageEngine ADAudit Plus vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.