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SCOM vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor 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

SCOM
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (4th), Network Monitoring Software (13th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (22nd), Server Monitoring (8th), Active Directory Management (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

SCOM and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. SCOM is designed for Event Monitoring and holds a mindshare of 9.1%, up 7.6% compared to last year.
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, on the other hand, focuses on Server Monitoring, holds 3.3% mindshare, up 2.5% since last year.
Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SCOM9.1%
ServiceNow IT Operations Management11.8%
OpsRamp9.4%
Other69.7%
Event Monitoring
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor3.3%
Zabbix13.4%
Checkmk6.6%
Other76.7%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

AK
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
Have integrated effective monitoring and seamless alerting with improved visualization capabilities
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool. We have implemented and integrated this to create dashboarding of the SCOM monitoring system for the database, SQL, and the Linux servers we have configured in SCOM. We have created separate dashboarding for it, and the monitoring and creating rules and monitors in the management servers and management packs that SCOM provides are very useful for us. The alerting mechanism of SCOM has benefited our operations because we have modified the thresholds as per our internal requirements. We have configured threshold modifications for the CPU, memory, and especially for disk space. For routine disk space usage on the system, we have provided a separate threshold configuration.
NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This product is really easy to use and has best monitoring capabilities when used to monitor Microsoft products."
"SCOM's most valuable features are the network path feature, reporting, and integration with business intelligence."
"Setting up SCOM is straightforward and takes about an hour as long as you have all your firewalls and DNS settings in place."
"The solution's reporting engine has given me detailed information on which applications or services I've either failed or about to fail in terms of the predictive makeup on Azure cloud."
"This solution satisfies all of the requirements that we need for our Windows-based systems, so if you are using the Windows platform then this is an easy solution."
"If SCOM is implemented correctly, it can take away the need for administrators to constantly monitor things or perform health checks."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of Windows and Linux servers."
"The fact that I'm able to see all my devices and the status of them has been extremely useful."
"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."
"SolarWinds allows network administrators to easily monitor the network by customizing the pages to see what exactly is needed, in addition to the deep statistics shown for nodes and interfaces like response time, packet loss, interface CRC, interface errors, as well as the rich graphs for all network elements."
"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."
"The ROI for SolarWinds products is unmatched in the industry."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"If you are looking for a single pane of glass to monitor Windows products then SolarWinds is your product."
"The product integrates with Remedy."
 

Cons

"The solution’s initial setup is difficult."
"They can focus more on cloud monitoring instead of on-premise monitoring. We should be able to monitor cloud-related applications."
"Overall, I find that this is a good solution but the presentation layer is really bad."
"Monitoring non Microsoft products and 3rd party applications."
"SCOM is not as straightforward in terms of user interface or general experience, which could be improved."
"The configuration, especially for alerts, are somewhat lengthy."
"There could be more integration of SIM in the solution."
"Reporting could be improved, you get many reports out-of-box but they can be difficult to interpret and drill down into."
"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."
"AppInsight needs to include more applications, the current list is very limited."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"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."
"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."
"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."
"As per my view, Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you have a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, then this is part of the agreement."
"We have an EA with Microsoft, and it comes as part of the EA."
"SCOM is part of the System Center suite and I am satisfied with the pricing."
"The pricing is good, and it's part of their system center suite."
"We have to pay for a license and the price is fine for us."
"I don't know the exact cost because it's managed by our sales team, but Microsoft is on the higher side."
"It is the cheapest product available in the market."
"The pricing and licensing are fair."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SCOM?
The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCOM?
I am not aware of the exact pricing as it is managed by my supervisor. As an academic institution, we receive substantial discounts.
What needs improvement with SCOM?
We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting. We can work on deploying new ways of viewing things and modifying visualizat...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dialog Telekom
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
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