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SCOM vs Zenoss Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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
Ranking in Event Monitoring
5th
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zenoss Cloud
Ranking in Event Monitoring
14th
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
77th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (33rd), Server Monitoring (23rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (54th), Container Monitoring (10th), Cloud Monitoring Software (40th), AIOps (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of SCOM is 8.1%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zenoss Cloud is 1.7%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

MarcMermuys - PeerSpot reviewer
Has efficient monitoring with robust integration capabilities
We use SCOM to configure different monitors using several management packs. It integrates systems like Active Directory and correlates them, and it is used for monitoring and managing systems SCOM allows integration of several systems, providing correlation between different systems such as…
ClaudiaChen - PeerSpot reviewer
Generates close to real-time alerts so users can resolve issues, but needs more integration and public cloud monitoring features
As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SCOM's most valuable features are the network path feature, reporting, and integration with business intelligence."
"It works better than other products I’ve used – namely SolarWinds, which is cumbersome and error prone for web app monitoring. SCOM is not."
"SCOM provides alerting capabilities and threshold settings, which are helpful for monitoring."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of Windows and Linux servers."
"Setting up SCOM is straightforward and takes about an hour as long as you have all your firewalls and DNS settings in place."
"Being able to make and customize management packs and send out notifications is very valuable."
"They have great integration with the active directory."
"I like the historical reporting of observer metrics."
"It's easy to use."
"They have also accommodated many state-of-the-art technologies like Docker and ZooKeeper."
"The product offers good documentation that helps with initial training."
"The most valuable feature is the flexible discovery mechanism."
"What I like most about Zenoss Service Dynamics is that it monitors the devices and gives close to real-time alerts. For example, in case the device is not available, Zenoss Service Dynamics generates an alert so my team can resolve the issue."
"The custom built integration is one of the most valuable features because you can see all the especially critical items."
"Its Docker Container concept is mind blowing. It is the first monitoring tool which comes with Docker features."
 

Cons

"The solution should be more user-friendly and offer a better user interface."
"I would like more customized reports. People should have some customization option on the dashboards for whenever they put multiple lists into it. Beyond customizing the content, there should be the ability to customize the colors so that they can engage some priority and mark challenges separately."
"Of course, price is always an issue with Microsoft and could be improved."
"It would be a much better product if Microsoft provided management packs with the product."
"The management of the servers could be better."
"Regarding certain issues in the solution, it can be difficult to generate reports if we have a program that is not user-friendly for reporting. While this is not necessarily negative, we may need to use another solution."
"Third-party tools have had to be created to make SCOM management pack creation more efficient and effective. However, this weighs down the application as it just adds a resource requirement, which is ballooning the size of the necessary storage and all that for essentially substandard components."
"SCOM is likely to be phased out in favor of more compatible tools like Icinga for application monitoring or when moving to cloud solutions like CloudWatch and Azure."
"As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor."
"There was a problem with Zenoss and storage monitoring."
"There is room for improvement with the administrative part. They introduced Control Center to manage things in Zenoss 5. The services that Zenoss provides remained the same, but the administrative part, since they introduced Docker, etc., has become a little complex"
"The inclusion of a feature to show a graphical view of the network would be a helpful improvement."
"Now it is stable, but they should design threshold parameters in percentage instead of raw values."
"The AI aspect needs to improve."
"It would be ideal if the product offered sound alerts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you have a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, then this is part of the agreement."
"We have to pay for a license and the price is fine for us."
"The pricing is good, and it's part of their system center suite."
"It is more expensive than the competition."
"We have an enterprise agreement that includes this product as part of it."
"There is a license needed to use this solution and it is paid annually."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $30 per user, per month."
"The pricing and licensing are fair."
"It is very cost-effective compared to the tools I worked with in the past. The company is gaining a lot with respect to the cost factor. It provides agentless monitoring and in a very cheap way."
"There are additional costs you'll have to pay apart from the license fee for Zenoss Service Dynamics. I can't remember exactly how much my company is paying because I don't handle the finance part, but the cost is paid annually. On a scale of one to five, with one being the cheapest and five being the most expensive, I'm rating the solution three out of five."
"The pricing depends on the environment, the number of services, and the size of the data center. It can go from $100,000 to a million dollars."
"It depends on the customer, what he wants."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
SCOM is likely to be phased out in favor of more compatible tools like Icinga ( /products/icinga-reviews ) for application monitoring or when moving to cloud solutions like CloudWatch and Azure ( /...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
In my experience, I worked with many monitoring software, but the one that gave me the most functionalities of a large-scale company is Zenoss, due to its ability to monitor completely hybrid and a...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
Cloud Monitoring, Zenoss Service Dynamics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dialog Telekom
2degrees, Rackspace, State of North Dakota, El Paso Independent School District, NWN Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about SCOM vs. Zenoss Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.