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ManageEngine ADManager Plus vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 9, 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

ManageEngine ADManager Plus
Ranking in Active Directory Management
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
16
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 (20th), Server Monitoring (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of ManageEngine ADManager Plus is 12.6%, down from 14.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.8%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ManageEngine ADManager Plus12.6%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.8%
Other85.6%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

MUBDIUL ISLAM - PeerSpot reviewer
Junior System Engineer at Corporate Projukti Limited
User management becomes efficient and installation is straightforward
My primary use case for ADManager is to manage users and groups, perform group policy without logging into Active Directory, and provide easy and secure management and monitoring capabilities. One of my clients uses ADManager for these purposes With ADManager, I can easily complete any Active…
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

"The product helps to validate every activity."
"The solution offers very good reports for management purposes."
"The solution provides oversight, reports, and logs that are easy to understand."
"The most valuable feature was conducting the automation of our cloud and all services of the Active Directory."
"Makes it easy to administer your active directory."
"Simple with good automation."
"The scalability is also good. ADManager Plus is being used by seven to eight system administrators right now, and it has been working fine."
"It makes our job easier, especially for managing data for a bulk of users."
"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."
"Monitoring of processes and services is the most valuable feature. It is not necessarily just the server alone in terms of the CPU or the memory. We can go in-depth into services and processes."
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"I have found the visibility into server health with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor very beneficial, which we use on a daily basis."
"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."
"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."
 

Cons

"This solution is not stable, it wasted my time."
"API integrations are not supported for all HR tools."
"The number of main controllers affects the database for creating the hardware specs."
"The solution is very complex, especially when there's an active directory of more than 1,000 users, which makes it hard to administrate. They need to improve the management of the administrative process."
"There is room for improvement in support, they should work on overall competence and turn-around time."
"With the number of available integrations these days, it would be beneficial to have more ready-to-integrate technologies in other products as well."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements can be introduced by making it available at a cheaper rate."
"Lacks sufficient integration with management tools."
"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."
"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."
"They are complex to operate; users need to know what they want during setup."
"It lacks a user experience for measuring things like the end-to-end time for which a user waits for a specific response in the system. In the application layer, it has some very basic stuff. You have to build your own with manuscripts and things like that."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"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."
"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I downloaded the trial version, only."
"The pricing depends on scope and makes sense for use cases with multiple domains."
"I need to pay for the license, and I believe that it could be made cheaper."
"The tool's pricing is good."
"The cost of this product is a little higher than I would expect for a tool like this."
"It is not expensive."
"I am satisfied with the solution’s pricing."
"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."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"The price is too high."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"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
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ManageEngine ADManager Plus?
While the features in ManageEngine ADManager Plus are very good, not all features are necessary for every organization. Automation is a strong feature within the product but is not currently requir...
What is your primary use case for ManageEngine ADManager Plus?
ManageEngine ADManager Plus is used for multiple tasks, especially for reporting purposes that cannot typically be obtained from Active Directory or present difficulties requiring additional expert...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about ManageEngine ADManager Plus vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.