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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
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Active Directory Management
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.3
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Server Monitoring (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of ManageEngine ADManager Plus is 14.5%, up from 13.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ManageEngine ADManager Plus14.5%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.2%
Other84.3%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

MUBDIUL ISLAM - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
VIVEK PATHAK - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a stable solution."
"The solution provides oversight, reports, and logs that are easy to understand."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its ease of use, the ability for us to customize the access privileges for the users, and integration with ServiceDesk Plus."
"It makes our job easier, especially for managing data for a bulk of users."
"The product helps to validate every activity."
"The most valuable feature was conducting the automation of our cloud and all services of the Active Directory."
"Almost every feature of the solution is valuable to me. This includes the importing and exporting to the active directory from the CSC firewall."
"The solution offers very good reports for management purposes."
"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."
"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."
"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."
"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 has an open database that allows you to do serious integrations. It doesn't matter which service desk you have, you can implement and integrate it with SolarWinds."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."
 

Cons

"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements can be introduced by making it available at a cheaper rate."
"This solution is not stable, it wasted my time."
"The number of main controllers affects the database for creating the hardware specs."
"Some of my clients experience issues with the GPO results, which do not always generate the real outcomes."
"I think the cost of this product is a little higher than I would expect."
"API integrations are not supported for all HR tools."
"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."
"Other products have more flexibility and integration in managing identities."
"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"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."
"The tool's AppStack needs to improve in the storage monitoring part. It should also include an analytics and recommendation approach. If I have found a fault in a server or application, I would like to know what caused it and how do I recover from it."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is good."
"I am satisfied with the solution’s pricing."
"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."
"It is not expensive."
"The cost of this product is a little higher than I would expect for a tool like this."
"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."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It is just the standard price, but it can vary depending on the current rate of the dollar."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"Understanding the counts of objects to monitor will determine the licensing need. In terms of pricing, it’s not cheap but it’s not expensive as larger vendors whose products don’t have all the features or integrations."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ManageEngine ADManager Plus?
Some of my clients experience issues with the GPO results, which do not always generate the real outcomes. This needs to be resolved by technicians. Additionally, upgrading from recent to the lates...
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...
 

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: September 2025.
869,785 professionals have used our research since 2012.