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Quest Foglight for APM [EOL] vs SolarWinds AppOptics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Quest Foglight for APM [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds AppOptics
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (56th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (62nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (43rd)
 

Featured Reviews

AK
Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Drill-down monitoring shows us the entire transaction chain, from the front end to back end. It needs HTML5 interface.
I want to see a new interface that contains HTML5 features. The current version of Foglight (on-premise edition) is so fusty in comparison with leaders of Gartner APM Quadrant - i.e. Appdynamics, NewRelic, Dynatrace. If you try to compare SaaS and on-premise Foglight versions you can see differences in UI-design. It's my subjective experiences, but SaaS version looks more modern. Hope this helps
John Yuko - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager ICT - Projects at I&M Bank Ltd
Unique features allow consolidating and combing metrics into a single dashboard, but don't monitor mobile solutions
I would like to see more granular information provided on Unix applications. Also, the integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward in terms having an agent to retrieve your credentials rather than having to enter or save them for SSH on SolarWinds. From the outset, we had to set some commands to log into the search console, and they are saved on the solution, which presents a challenge in terms of exposure. The solution is unable to monitor APK solutions completely because we'd then be forced to break down the APK and provide the APIs or go through the source code. They don't have a module that can analyze an application that is maybe under-used.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Capacity on database and file servers. I found the algorithms to forecast growth and concerns particularly intuitive."
"FxV is valuable as we can playback the session."
"Over all in my organization, this product helped us to maintain health, risk and efficiency of the virtual infrastructure."
"Excellent monitoring capability and business service views"
"Many other tools are capable, but IMO not as flexible or powerful except for particular applications."
"The ability to track performance of an application or application suite over time is extremely valuable to our business partners and for our application development team with near real time results."
"A lot of features for the price: Java/.Net instrumentation, End User replay (similar to TeaLeaf), and a huge library of monitoring cartridges."
"Dell Foglight does analyze and optimize your virtual infrastructure. It definitely reduces operational cost."
"With minimal effort on our part, TraceView provides extraordinary visibility into the requests that flow through our SOA applications."
"Customer service is exceptional, as they are very much in tune with our service needs and are always in contact for both enhancement requests and overall satisfaction."
"SolarWinds AppOptics does far more than what an individual may realize; it is not just a SIEM tool."
"AppNeta provides a range of products, all based around intelligent network testing algorithms."
"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."
"It's a solid application."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."
 

Cons

"Migrating to newer versions is always a challenge with Foglight."
"In an older version of Foglight, we were not able to get any of our custom agents to work properly so that feature was not as much use as we had initially hoped and haven't tried using since."
"I would perhaps like to see more SSMS connections."
"I want to see a new interface that contains HTML5 features."
"Being able to incorporate other bespoke monitoring into Foglight would have made the tool even more useful."
"We are running a Webmethods stack (Software AG) and Foglight is unable to instrument. We are in a POC with Dynatrace and it was able to instrument with little effort."
"I recall that the lay-out was rather dull when I used this particular version of Foglight."
"When we first turned on Foglight for the first time, it was like a fire hose."
"Because of its inability to monitor mobile solutions, I would rate this solution as a seven out of ten."
"I'd like to see the ability to use other internal instrumented applications as filters in the overview/aggregation screen."
"The support is not too bad, but also not very good—it's quite standard."
"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."
"In terms of the technology, I think they need to put some more advanced troubleshooting into SolarWinds, in terms of AI capabilities. That's the next generation, especially in the cases of APIs which have already adopted AI capabilities into their products."
"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."
"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."
"Does not perform traditional SNMP/CLI/NetFlow/WMI etc monitoring."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Foglight can be expensive I would go with the pricing at a three year deal."
"Since the product split – the licensing is a bit more complex."
"The price is expensive for us."
"I recall it being a very expensive solution relative to function and stability."
"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."
"Mostly, it's a perpetual license. We don't have any customers using the subscription right now—it's mostly a perpetual license that the customers purchase. The licensing is based on the number of elements, whereas other solutions are node-based."
"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
 

Also Known As

Foglight, Dell Foglight
AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Anji Automotive Logistics, Unimat, Priceline.com
TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista
Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability. Updated: May 2026.
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