New Relic vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Why PeerSpot?

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 #20 with an average rating of 8.0. New Relic holds a 3.7% 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

26,514 Views
17,499 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

8,214 Views
4,600 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: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

New Relic vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

September 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 (2nd), AIOps (5th)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

20th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (5th), Active Directory Management (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of New Relic is 3.7%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.0%, down from 1.3% 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	3.7%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.0%
Other	95.3%

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.

Read full review

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.

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

"The versatility of the solution is its most valuable feature."

"One valuable feature is that the synthetic alert stays open until the issue is resolved. You can actually monitor whether your system is back up."

"Their technical support is pretty good and responsive. We have a real good relationship with them."

"We were able to integrate with the messaging tool, Slack, which meant that we got notifications whenever something was not quite right."

"The breakdown of the response time of different components and getting in-depth details of the slow component are the most valuable features. It is easy to use, and it gets the job done."

"What I like best about New Relic APM is its user interface because it's simple. The most valuable feature of New Relic APM is end-to-end monitoring."

"The solution is an excellent product for time series and operation analyses."

"Since using New Relic, time saved has improved by almost 50% due to the integration of Copilots and AI, and the ticket count reduction has surpassed 75%, allowing us to efficiently address similar issues."

More New Relic pros

"The solution can be deployed quickly."

"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."

"I have found the visibility into server health with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor very beneficial, which we use on a daily basis."

"If a company would really like insight into its database utilization or performance and why their servers are slow or why the database is not giving a proper response, this solution will help."

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

"SolarWinds SAM is very stable, and we are using it with hundreds or thousands of customers and there are no stability issues."

"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."

"As I mentioned in one of the other points: "Simplicity at its best"."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"Better error reporting Better ability to drill-down into errors"

"The main reason we switched away from New Relic is that the cost is too high."

"It is a SaaS service and this creates internal friction that needs innovative solutions (but you have to own that)."

"Email alert customization is limited; it cannot be tailored much, which makes the system more rigid than optimal."

"It is a serious tool and requires a lot of time invested in order to understand how it works."

"Internally, we have a solution that’s better than Insights to provide us analysis of that data."

"There are certain features that are not supported in New Relic, such as CATSEARCH, which allows you to do a full-text search."

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

More New Relic cons

"The technical support was better in previous years. With the launch of the premium support service, the normal support has declined."

"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."

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

"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."

"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."

"AppInsight needs to include more applications, the current list is very limited."

"I had some stability issues. I lost my environment, but with the help of SolarWinds support, I was able to get back to a stable platform."

"Currently SolarWinds SAM offers AppInsight for modern versions of: IIS, Exchange, SQL Server. They have shown to be powerful and insightful tools. However, AppInsight needs to be offered for more applications: Citrix, SharePoint, AX, etc."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think it's overpriced for the technical support that we get. We spent over 1,00,000 USD a year."

"They gave us aggressive discounts when they were brought in for the first time, but they have also kept them for the year-on-year renewals, which has been absolutely fine."

"The new licensing model is great, as we pay for what we use (in computational units). However, the pricing is expensive compared to other tools."

"New Relic is either free with low retention and minimal functionalities, or expensive with full options and retention."

"The pricing is fine."

"Because of budget, we are not using the mobile app part of this tool."

"We feel it's a little bit pricey."

"The price depends on how many agents you want."

More New Relic pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

"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."

"The price is too high."

"The product is expensive."

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Outsourcing Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Educational Organization

13%

University

Financial Services Firm

Outsourcing 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

September 2026

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Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

August 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

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

September 2026

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