Microsoft Configuration Manager vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Microsoft and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Server Monitoring category. Microsoft is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.0, while SolarWinds is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.4. Microsoft holds a 5.7% mindshare in SM, compared to SolarWinds’s 2.6% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Configuration Man...

Read 81 Microsoft Configuration Manager reviews

2,136 Views
1,713 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 42 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

989 Views
717 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Microsoft Configuration Man...

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Microsoft Configuration Manager and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor are competitors in the IT management software industry. Microsoft Configuration Manager seems to have the upper hand in centralizing IT operations for efficiency in large environments, while SolarWinds Server excels in providing detailed performance insights.

Features: Microsoft Configuration Manager supports configuration integrity enforcement, system imaging, and centralized software deployments. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor offers SSL Certificate Monitoring, AppInsight, and component monitoring.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Configuration Manager needs better remote management, accurate compliance reporting, and better integration with non-Microsoft products. SolarWinds requires better web console performance, expanded monitoring capabilities, and improved security compliance integration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Configuration Manager offers on-premises and hybrid deployment but involves complex setup and variable technical support quality. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is easier to use, deployed primarily on-premises, yet criticized for slow technical support.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Configuration Manager is considered costly, particularly for small businesses; however, it is deemed a worthy investment due to features and ROI. SolarWinds is also expensive yet valued for features and ROI by large organizations. Both products provide flexible licensing options.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

April 2025

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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

Microsoft Configuration Man...

Ranking in Server Monitoring

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Configuration Management (4th), Patch Management (1st)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Server Monitoring

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Active Directory Management (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 5.7%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.6%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

MikeNelson2

IT Infrastructure Coordinator at NSW Government

Deployment recovery works well but requires configuration improvements

While I do not use the product frequently, many issues were due to configuration rather than the product itself. I cannot give an exact recommendation as it is not my area of responsibility. The team that uses it finds it adequate. It is presently good enough for us not to investigate other options. Overall, I rate the product a six out of ten.

Read full review

Subhajit Nag

Senior Process Associate at Tata Consultancy Services

The component and cable monitoring features are good, but the interface is slow

SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern. Every SolarWinds user complains about the sluggishness. The response is slow. If you browse from one page to another, you have to wait. Our company is a massive user with plenty of licenses, so the performance issues could be due to the load per license. Ten thousand components can be mapped under one license. So SolarWinds needs to take care of the speed problem. It cannot be this slow. That is a huge complaint. Otherwise, the tool is good. 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. The upgrade time matters because you only install the solution once, but you'll need to upgrade the solution repeatedly over the life of the product. A complex installation isn't an issue, but I mind if the upgrade takes too long because it's already in production.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It gives us the ability to set up schedules, according to what our security requirements are, to automate the patching of our servers and desktops."

"There have to be made some improvement in WSUS and control in other non-Microsoft products updates."

"With the SCCM inventory, we found a lot of rogue applications. We were able to identify them, find out who was running them, and either put them on our application list or remove them."

"The most valuable feature is the scalability."

"This solution captures all the devices in our infrastructure."

"It is a very good solution. It has a good interface and is easy to use. On top of that, it is very reliable in terms of distribution as well as getting the report."

"It saves a lot of money when you can install things automatically and they are installed the exact same way on every computer."

"The cloud account management is a valuable feature."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pros

"The solution can be deployed quickly."

"The solution is end-to-end from the network and the application to the processes. Everything about the enterprise infrastructure is being covered by the solution. It's easy to use and easy to navigate and one of the leaders among monitoring solutions."

"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"

"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."

"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 has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements. The threshold gets configured automatically, so it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."

"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"Their compliance reporting is not accurate, and they admitted it on the phone when we had a call with them. We were trying to understand why their numbers didn't match on our compliance reports. It is not accurate and you cannot depend on the compliance reports. The numbers just don't match, and we can't figure out why. We called Microsoft and they said, "Yeah, that's a known issue." But there is no word that they're working on it."

"Could do with some cosmetic improvements on the user interface."

"Its client interface should be more accessible, and the notifications should be more customizable from the console. It should be more user friendly and have some kind of customized notifications so that we can use it on the client side. These are the reasons why we restricted its use only for the server environment and didn't use it on the client side."

"The solution can be improved with the addition of a mobile device manager."

"This solution needs to be supported on all Operating systems."

"I want the system to provide some dependency relations. I would also like to see the relationship between different machines."

"The App to upgrades to the server needs to be improved."

"It would be nice to have everything in one place. Now they have Intune for the desktops and SCCM to handle their servers."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager cons

"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."

"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."

"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."

"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."

"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."

"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."

"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve the server monitoring and the web application monitoring features are not good. Microsoft SCOM has better server monitoring."

"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is expensive."

"For enterprises, there is an annual license required to use this solution. The price of the solution could be cheaper. However, this is mostly because of the exchange rate from the dollar to the Nigerian currency."

"When you compare this solution with other tools in the market you might actually find a lot of variation in the pricing and that's why people opt for the other tools rather than Microsoft tools."

"We use the tool's free license. It is expensive."

"The solution operates on a licensing model that can be expensive."

"Pricing and licensing are a downside of SCCM. It's expensive. I'd have to confirm this, but I think they changed the licensing to core-based instead of socket-based. It's not cheap, because you have to buy the software, you have to buy SQL. Another thing we learned from talking to Microsoft is that they provide you a license for SQL if you run it on the same box as the primary server. If you run it outside that box, you have to buy SQL. Microsoft does recommend you running it on the same box because of performance. But then, in order to run SQL, SCCM, and everything on the same box, you better have some resources. It's an expensive solution. There's no doubt about it."

"The license price could be reduced for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager They should make the price more affordable for smaller companies, most companies would be able to use the solution if it was priced better. There are more people on this cloud because you don't have to have either a server room or an on-premise server. You can have one IT person handle this without any local infrastructure."

"The solution is expensive. Microsoft Configuration Manager would likely be considered high-priced for small businesses because they may not fully utilize all of its features and capabilities."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing and cost advice

"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."

"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."

"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."

"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

35%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...

See all answers

How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?

ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. What I like most about ManageEngine is that I can log on to every PC very easily a...

See all answers

What do you like most about SCCM?

One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages efficiently and deploy them to specific groups within our network. This streamlined ...

See all answers

What do you like most about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

The initial cost is quite high, but the renewal cost is reasonable.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 13% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

BigFix vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 5% of the time

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 18% of the time

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 18% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 11% of the time

Prometheus Group vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 8% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager

May 2025

Download Microsoft Configuration Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

April 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

Microsoft Configuration Manager helps IT manage PCs and servers, keeping software up-to-date, setting configuration and security policies, and monitoring system status while giving employees access to corporate applications on the devices that they choose. When Configuration Manager is integrated with Microsoft Intune, you can manage corporate-connected PCs and Macs along with cloud-based mobile devices running Windows, iOS, and Android, all from a single management console.

New features of Configuration Manager, such as the support of Windows 10 in-place upgrade, co-management with Microsoft Intune, Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise Servicing Dashboard, integration with Windows Update for Business, and more make deploying and managing Windows easier than ever before.

Microsoft

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers powerful application and server monitoring capabilities for IT pros, enabling them to diagnose and troubleshoot performance issues faster. Do not let slow applications and downtime impact your end-users and business services. Pinpoint the root cause of application issues across various layers of the IT stack. SolarWinds SAM is affordable and easy to deploy, use, and customize. You can automatically discover your system's environment and start monitoring in about an hour. No professional services or consultation needed.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

April 2025

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