New Relic vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

New Relic and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. New Relic is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.2, while SolarWinds is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.0. New Relic holds a 3.8% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of New Relic users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

New Relic

Read 176 New Relic reviews

24,526 Views
16,432 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

7,596 Views
4,330 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

New Relic

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and New Relic are both key contenders in application performance monitoring, with SolarWinds being praised for its easy deployment and support, while New Relic is preferred for its advanced features which justify its higher cost.

Features: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor excels in comprehensive monitoring capabilities, offering seamless integration with a variety of applications and servers. Its data visualization is intuitive and easy to comprehend, making it quite user-friendly. New Relic shines with its robust APM tools, delivering real-time insights and an extensive range of integrations, especially optimized for cloud environments. The emphasis on detailed real-time analytics provides New Relic with a substantial advantage.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds could enhance its long-term ROI potential by expanding its feature set and leveraging more advanced analytics. Improved cloud integration would also bolster its competitiveness. Refining dashboard customizations could further elevate user experience. New Relic might benefit from enhancing its customer support to offer more personalized service options. Additionally, improving cost transparency and streamlined onboarding processes could address barriers for new users. Offering more flexible pricing models might make advanced features more accessible.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds is recognized for its straightforward on-premise deployment, coupled with reliable support services. This makes it an attractive option for businesses seeking local installations with robust assistance. Conversely, New Relic's SaaS deployment model allows rapid setup and can easily scale, although it offers less personalized customer support compared to its competitor.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds generally offers a more cost-effective entry point to server and application monitoring with lower initial setup costs, yet its long-term ROI might be limited due to narrower feature offerings. On the other hand, New Relic involves higher upfront fees, but its expansive APM functionalities and adaptation to evolving tech landscapes provide substantial long-term ROI potential, making it a more valuable investment despite the higher initial costs.

To learn more, read our detailed New Relic vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

New Relic vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

August 2026

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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

New Relic

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

4th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

176

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (9th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (9th), IT Operations Analytics (3rd), Mobile APM (2nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (3rd), AIOps (4th)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

19th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (6th), Active Directory Management (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of New Relic is 3.8%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.0%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
New Relic	3.8%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.0%
Other	95.2%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

BasilJiji

System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Real-time alerts have reduced server outage impact and support fast incident response

In the dashboard, if they could show a little more metrics regarding the application and related things, that would be how New Relic could be improved. Currently, there are things showing from the server level and application level, but it can be improved. That is what I felt. Regarding user interface, I do not feel much concern, but for some kind of issues when we are trying to get support from the New Relic team, their SLA seems to be long. They are taking seven to ten working days for resolving some kind of scenario or issue. That is a bit difficult for us. If they could improve the customer support by reducing their SLA within three to five days, if they could remediate everything, that will be so much helpful. When it comes to the customer support part, I felt they need to be a little more improved on that part. The support overall is good, but they can improve. That is the reason I have given it eight out of ten.

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NikhilKalwint

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"To me, the most valuable feature of New Relic APM is the traceability, mainly based on the time travel method, so you get the overall response time, which is pretty helpful for developers and ADR techs looking into issues on a deeper level. New Relic APM is a very good, tailor-made solution."

"It's helped us to find problems early and to make sure that what we're doing is working."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to execute queries and analyze the data."

"The most important thing is that it tells us where the latency in throughput and response time are."

"New Relic is highly scalable and its build quality is very easy for handling to startup, enterprise, scale up, and workloads."

"We like the performance of the product; it's very good, very reliable, and all features are capable of responding to our requirements."

"It is stable and scalable."

"I’ve gotten our teams to use New Relic to help them craft code that properly performs right out of the gate."

More New Relic pros

"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."

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

"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, as we can go in-depth into services and processes."

"The solution can be deployed quickly."

"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."

"It is simple to implement and can provide fairly decent Windows-based monitoring, beyond simple SNMP. It is great for monitoring newbies and smaller shops."

"The recommendations are a life saver."

"This feature from Solarwinds SAM helped us to monitor and alert whenever the SSL cert is going to expire on the server to avoid any downtime of the services running on the server specially on ADFS platform where we have Video conference, Webex, Office 365 and single sign-on services."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"I have noticed discrepancies between New Relic's documentation and Terraform resources."

"Raw transaction didn’t give us data that we needed."

"The browser isn't exactly reliable."

"The biggest issue is the lack of mobile support from the website."

"I would like to be able to invest less time in IT and ad hocs. We should be concentrating on other issues."

"I think the APM mode can be improved. In addition, its difficult to have a predictive tool to see how the application would behave in the future when it basically only shows the historical data."

"The solution only supports the cloud platform and not on-premises."

"Compared to their competitors, they are missing some features at the moment."

More New Relic cons

"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is not stable. We have to maintain the platform and it goes down frequently."

"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve by having a cloud version. They have an observability platform but it still needs to be maintained by us."

"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."

"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."

"The technical support team's response time could be improved."

"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."

"They are complex to operate; users need to know what they want during setup."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is priced reasonably. New Relic APM is one of the best products for me because it's economical, so anyone can easily pick it over other solutions and use it."

"We deploy everything on AWS. Purchasing the product on AWS Marketplace made it easier for us."

"Cost is significant with a lot of extras."

"The price of the solution could be less expensive. You have to pay a lot for each user. There is an additional cost for extra features."

"I loved this product, but we can no longer afford it, so we dropped it."

"The monthly cost os $1000 per server per month, but it could be even more. We pay about $250 for the server, and then New Relic wants over $1000 to give us statistics on those servers."

"This is an expensive tool."

"If I remember it correctly, the pricing was based on the core, and the monthly subscription used to cost us $1,500 or $2,000. We had pre-prod and production services. Costing was different for pre-prod and production. For pre-prod, it was 40% less than the production service cost. It was a combined package."

More New Relic pricing and cost advice

"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."

"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."

"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."

"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."

"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."

"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."

"The product is expensive."

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

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Outsourcing Company

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Educational Organization

13%

University

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	65
Midsize Enterprise	52
Large Enterprise	79

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?

There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...

See all answers

What needs improvement with New Relic Insights?

I find New Relic to be somewhat expensive. Our team shares logins, contrasting with other applications where individual team accounts are standard. Pricing is a primary concern since New Relic can ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for New Relic Insights?

As an Application Monitoring Engineer, my primary responsibilities include ensuring the uptime of services, managing infrastructure, and monitoring transactions. I use New Relic to set up incidents...

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 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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

New Relic

July 2026

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Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

July 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

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Also Known As

New Relic Browser, New Relic Applied Intelligence, New Relic Insights, New Relic Synthetics, New Relic Servers, New Relic APM

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

New Relic offers real-time application monitoring and insight into performance bottlenecks. Its customizable dashboards and APM integration provide efficient operational support, while server performance alerts ensure quick issue detection.

New Relic provides comprehensive monitoring of application performance, tracking bottlenecks across databases and front-end components. Users employ it for server and infrastructure monitoring, as well as analyzing key metrics such as CPU and memory usage. The solution's ability to integrate with tools like PagerDuty enhances incident management capabilities. However, users have expressed a need for improvements in query language simplicity, more detailed historical insights, and better mobile app monitoring support.

What are New Relic's most important features?

Real-Time Monitoring: Provides instant visibility into application performance.
Detailed Transaction Tracing: Identifies specific transaction issues quickly.
Error Rate Tracking: Monitors and reports on error occurrences efficiently.
Customizable Dashboards: Tailors dashboard views for specific needs.
APM Integration: Seamlessly integrates with application performance management tools.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Operational Efficiency: Quick issue detection reduces downtime.
Improved Debugging: Enhanced error analysis supports rapid problem resolution.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Offers a holistic view of application performance and user behavior.
Incident Management: Integration with incident tools helps streamline responses.
Efficient Alerts: Rapid alert systems ensure timely notifications of issues.

In industries like e-commerce and financial services, New Relic supports application performance monitoring to enhance user experience and system reliability. Organizations leverage its insights for optimizing performance, particularly in server operations and infrastructure management. Its ability to monitor API failures through synthetic monitoring is crucial for maintaining high service levels.

New Relic

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provides comprehensive server, application, and infrastructure monitoring, focusing on integration, application dependency, and network insights through user-friendly interfaces and detailed dashboards.

With AppStack and AppInsight support, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor offers service management, detailed resource dashboards, and integration capabilities. It monitors hardware metrics and performance parameters, facilitating database and network insights for cloud and virtual environments. Robust alerting, predictive analytics, and capacity planning ensure efficient management of server health and application performance.

What are the key features?

Integration: Seamlessly connects with existing tools.
AppStack: Provides a holistic view of applications.
AppInsight: Supports widely-used applications.
SNMP Polling: Efficient network data collection.
Diagnostics: Real-time troubleshooting.
Customizable Dashboards: Tailored monitoring views.

What benefits should users expect?

Comprehensive Monitoring: Extends from servers to databases.
Transparent Control: Enhances visibility into performance metrics.
User-Friendly: Simplifies proactive monitoring with alerts.
Predictive Features: Supports capacity and trend planning.

Industries implement SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor to enhance server utilization reporting, network configuration, and AV equipment performance tracking. They benefit from monitoring critical services across diverse deployment models, improving management efficiency and decision-making.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

World Fuel Services, Verizon, FootLocker, McDonald's, Trainline, Mondia Media, Confused, Costa Coffee, Ryanair, Marks & Spencer, William Hill, Delivery Hero, Skyscanner, BASF, DAZN, Veygo, Virtuo, movingimage, talabat, Australia Post, Tokopedia, Seven Network, Virgin Australia, Zomato, BigBasket, Mercado Libre, Lending Club

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

New Relic vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

August 2026

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