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ManageEngine ADManager Plus vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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 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 (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of ManageEngine ADManager Plus is 8.7%, down from 14.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 3.3%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ManageEngine ADManager Plus8.7%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor3.3%
Other88.0%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

AliImran - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Administrator at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
Reporting features have supported regular user management while some automation capabilities remain unused
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 required due to the organization's environment and needs. There are always possibilities for improvements in the initial setup of ManageEngine ADManager Plus.
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 solution offers very good reports for management purposes."
"The most valuable feature of this product is that it makes it easy to administer your active directory."
"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."
"With ADManager, I can easily complete any Active Directory tasks from anywhere, making it an excellent solution."
"It makes our job easier, especially for managing data for a bulk of users."
"The product helps to validate every activity."
"Simple with good automation."
"The most valuable feature is the dashboard. They allow me to see everything in real-time and drill down and pick and choose versus running scripts."
"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
"The ROI for SolarWinds products is unmatched in the industry."
"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."
"SolarWinds SAM is very stable, and we are using it with hundreds or thousands of customers and there are no stability issues."
"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
"The recommendations are a life saver."
"The solution can be deployed quickly."
 

Cons

"Some things are not very intuitive."
"The bulk email ID creation must be improved. I had to create 50 to 60 IDs manually because when I tried the bulk option, it didn't work. I still had to cross-verify because some fields were empty."
"The number of main controllers affects the database for creating the hardware specs."
"I think the cost of this product is a little higher than I would expect."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements can be introduced by making it available at a cheaper rate."
"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 main downside is that, for my environment, I must have two products to conduct the same purpose."
"All of it needs to be improved. It has corrupted my environment."
"We are looking into other solutions because it is just too expensive to keep scaling."
"Scalability was an issue in the past."
"I believe that SolarWinds should spend more effort in reporting."
"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."
"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 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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I downloaded the trial version, only."
"The cost of this product is a little higher than I would expect for a tool like this."
"I need to pay for the license, and I believe that it could be made cheaper."
"It is not expensive."
"The pricing depends on scope and makes sense for use cases with multiple domains."
"I am satisfied with the solution’s pricing."
"The tool's pricing is good."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"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%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
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 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 ...
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

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 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.