ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

ServiceNow and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. ServiceNow is ranked #38 with an average rating of 8.0, while SolarWinds is ranked #22 with an average rating of 7.6. ServiceNow holds a 0.7% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ServiceNow users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Read 4 ServiceNow Cloud Observability reviews

1,208 Views
1,160 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

4,410 Views
2,778 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and ServiceNow Cloud Observability compete in the IT management tools category. User reviews indicate SolarWinds has the upper hand with its pricing model and customer support, while ServiceNow stands out for its robust features.

Features: SolarWinds offers comprehensive monitoring, alerting capabilities, and detailed performance insights. ServiceNow has strong IT workflow integration, advanced analytics, and extensive integrations.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds could improve scalability, dashboard customization, and user interface. ServiceNow needs to address setup complexity, notification noise, and initial training requirements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds provides a straightforward deployment process with high-quality support. ServiceNow, while more complex to deploy, also offers robust customer service.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds is noted for cost-effective pricing and good ROI. ServiceNow, though higher in cost, offers satisfactory ROI due to its advanced features.

To learn more, read our detailed ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

February 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

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

38th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

22nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (8th), Active Directory Management (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.3%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.3%
ServiceNow Cloud Observability	0.7%
Other	98.0%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

VinayKumar16

Senior DeliveryManager at ITC Infotech

Provides ease of use in areas like analytics and reporting

The feature of the tool that is more impactful for cloud performance stems from the area revolving around analytics and reporting. It is an easy-to-use tool. There is something known as performance analytics within ServiceNow that offers complete analytics, which offers end-to-end analytics along with the KPI metrics with what we have in place and so on. With the aforementioned aspects of the tool, I think we should be able to create a dashboard according to the operations view called the operation dashboard view, specifically for C-level executives.

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.

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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

"The solution Lightstep/ServiceNow has a couple of pretty advanced functionalities to help us investigate a deviation and help the development teams have better observability in the environment using distributed and complex services."

"The UI is very intuitive."

"To a certain extent, it is possible to save on the costs of the product."

"The ability to create a stream based on different parameters, operation name, service name, URL, tags, and URI part, is one valuable feature."

"The initial setup was relatively easy, and we didn't have to install anything. All we had to do was put on the devices we wanted to monitor."

"The component and cable monitoring are good. SolarWinds is more intuitive and user-friendly than AppDynamics. The AppDynamics console is more complex because it's a more feature-rich solution, so it's not easy for somebody to pick it up."

"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."

"The more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature."

"The solution has good alerts. Notifications are sent via email to technicians. You can filter the kinds of alerts you want to receive as well. It's excellent."

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

"The application dependency feature identifies issues between applications and servers or within the network where the application is hosted. It highlights related problems, whether related to packet processing or other issues, enabling the creation of alerts and reports accordingly."

"The graphical interfaces, GUI customizations, and alert configurations are impressive."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"The dashboard and graphics must be improved."

"The support team could be better. Because of the different versions of different tactics of integrating reactive code base, the documentation is not very clear if someone has to be onboard. I would rate the documentation of Lightstep a five out of ten. It could need improvement."

"The design of this solution is not very intuitive and probably could come with more friendly tips for beginners."

"In terms of licensing, users would want the product to offer them the ability to tailor the tasks offered in the solution to suit their needs."

"In terms of the dashboards on offer, they should work to improve them. The types of dashboards that you get in terms of the graphs on offer aren't ideal right now."

"The stability, flexibility, and ease of use could be improved."

"From an integration point of view, if you want to have a manager of manager kind of layer, that is currently lacking in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor."

"The tool’s report feature created issues for us. We needed to gain skills to use that feature. The tool’s customization is not easy since you have to reconfigure the whole system."

"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."

"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."

"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."

"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive. I rate the tool's pricing model an eight out of ten."

"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."

"SAM is not per server so the pricing model can be deceiving. If you have an enterprise environment, you will quickly exceed your licensing quickly. You should know this before going in."

"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."

"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."

"Pricing is inexpensive, starting at 2440 euros. For that, you get the ability to monitor a couple of nodes and one year of maintenance and support."

"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."

"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."

"The product is expensive."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

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881,821 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Educational Organization

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with LightStep?

There are a lot of workflows and connectors. In terms of licensing, users would want the product to offer them the ability to tailor the tasks offered in the solution to suit their needs.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for LightStep?

I use the solution in my company since it has multiple tenants available. Basically, what happens in business is that you have a hybrid setup model, and for that, you extensively use a cloud platfo...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering LightStep?

I recommend the product to others. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

See all answers

What do you like most about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

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

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

January 2026

Download ServiceNow Cloud Observability product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

January 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

LightStep

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

ServiceNow Cloud Observability is a comprehensive platform designed to enhance visibility, control, and performance monitoring of your IT infrastructure and applications. It seamlessly integrates log management, trace management, metrics monitoring, and infrastructure monitoring in real-time, leveraging AI and machine learning for automated tasks and actionable insights. With benefits including improved visibility, faster incident resolution, enhanced application performance, simplified IT operations, and reduced costs, this cloud-native solution is ideal for businesses of all sizes with complex IT infrastructures. It integrates seamlessly with ServiceNow IT Operations Management (ITOM), supports OpenTelemetry standards, and provides AI-powered insights along with pre-built dashboards and reports.

ServiceNow

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers powerful application and server monitoring capabilities for IT pros, enabling them to diagnose and troubleshoot performance issues faster. Do not let slow applications and downtime impact your end-users and business services. Pinpoint the root cause of application issues across various layers of the IT stack. SolarWinds SAM is affordable and easy to deploy, use, and customize. You can automatically discover your system's environment and start monitoring in about an hour. No professional services or consultation needed.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

InVision, Twilio, Lyft, Yext, DigitalOcean,

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

February 2026

Free Report: ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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