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Microsoft Configuration Manager vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2025

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
6.4
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Software Distribution (1st), Configuration Management (3rd), Patch Management (1st)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Active Directory Management (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 5.2%, down from 7.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.5%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

MikeNelson2 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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

"The solution effectively handles inventory management, deployment, and reporting."
"SCCM does everything from A to Z for a Windows operating system."
"It has the ability to perform mass distribution."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is the availability of being able to manage the Microsoft estate. It handles many areas, such as asset management and tracking."
"The initial setup is straightforward and not too complicated."
"Microsoft Configuration Manager is integrated with other Microsoft products."
"It is easy to install, and quick to deploy."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."
"The solution has good alerts. Notifications are sent via email to technicians. You can filter the kinds of alerts you want to receive as well. It's excellent."
"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."
"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"
"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."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
 

Cons

"Troubleshooting in general needs improvement. There's just a ton of logs to go through, and so finding the error log that corresponds with that you're doing can sometimes be difficult."
"In spite of us being a premier customer we find the support unsatisfactory."
"The solution could improve the functionality for automating, license management. Additionally, more and better-looking reports are needed."
"Its dashboard can be improved and made a little bit better."
"There were misconfigurations by our team rather than issues with the product itself. However, it does seem a bit buggy from time to time, based on what I have heard."
"It needs to be able to load faster during deployment."
"Some of the capabilities aren't fully developed yet. It's an ongoing work in progress. I think they are making some steps in the right direction as far as managing workstations centrally, like Intune."
"The setup was complex and I faced a lot of problems initially because I was new to the solution."
"Mapping interactions between systems."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."
"The technical support was better in previous years. With the launch of the premium support service, the normal support has declined."
"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."
"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."
"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."
"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the cost as eight out of ten."
"Overall, I think it's fine. It's pretty much in-line because there are ways to offset it with the Office 365 licensing."
"We have a support license from Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager and the overall price of the solution is reasonable."
"Microsoft provides a steep price for their enterprise products, but they offer very competitive pricing for their legacy customers."
"SCCM comes with its own version of SQL Server. If you use that SQL Server with SCCM and don't use it for another applications than you get an SQL Server for free."
"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."
"Pricing and licensing are horrible. You have to not look at dollar value to use SCCM. It's super-duper expensive but it works. The acquisition cost is expensive, it's labor-intensive. But it works."
"We have to pay for a license."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"I would advise potential buyers to wait until the end of the quarter, end of year, or other time to place orders. There are actually great deals to be had at those times if your budget cycle can match up."
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Top Industries

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

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...
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...
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 ...
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

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM ), Microsoft SMS
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.