ServiceNow Discovery vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

ServiceNow Discovery vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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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 Discovery

Ranking in Server Monitoring

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Asset Management (3rd), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Server Monitoring

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (19th), Active Directory Management (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 3.7%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.8%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
ServiceNow Discovery	3.7%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	2.8%
Other	93.5%

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Ayobanji Iluyomade

IT Service Performance Manager at MTN

Service helps organizations with network discovery and IT infrastructure management but troubleshooting challenges remain

ServiceNow Discovery was adopted by my organization. We use ServiceNow Discovery for discovery and ITSM The most beneficial features of ServiceNow Discovery for maintaining my IT infrastructure are the CMDB top and discovery of network switches. The areas of ServiceNow Discovery that have room…

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VIVEK PATHAK

Solutions Architect at Airtel

Offering reasonably good dashboarding features but needs to improve the application performance monitoring

My company uses Riverbed for application performance monitoring. I was doing research so that I could understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provide APM capabilities similar to Riverbed, which allows our company to get a packet capture of an entire session, and on the basis of it, we look at the application performance monitoring part. With SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, my company does SNMP polling, so it can drag an entire session, but it focuses more on availability, CPU memory, and server connection status. In Riverbed, my company catches an entire system, so when we deal with two applications, we have end-to-end app visibility. All the application monitoring happens through Riverbed. Our company's main problem is that, as of now, we have two different products in our organization, and we don't want to continue with the multiple products currently. I wanted to understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor already have capabilities like Riverbed, and if they do, then I wanted to figure out why our company should not go with SolarWinds and why we are using products from multiple vendors. My company needs to continue with either Riverbed or SolarWinds. I wanted to see which products are good for the organization and how much I want to continue with Riverbed.

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 best thing about Discovery is maintaining all the CIs in one place. I can sort the data, export it to Excel for manipulation, and build reports like how many computers or servers we have and their capacity."

"I find that the Discovery and scripting features are the most useful."

"They provide the ability to see into the Discovery tools I want. They offer the best tool view."

"They have a very good network in the infrastructure of Discovery."

"ServiceNow Discovery is useful for discovering the servers, like the servers of Windows and Linux, from the client network."

"It's a single system of record and it captures the relationships."

"The most valuable feature is its integration with CMDB, as it collects all the data."

"ServiceNow Discovery has normal discovery of CIs, as well as horizontal discovery for understanding Service Mapping."

More ServiceNow Discovery pros

"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."

"I am impressed with the tool's AppStack feature which mainly helps us in the identification process. This feature can give an overview of the fault and help us identify the issues for performance degradation. Instead of looking at multiple places, we can look at a single place to identify the issues."

"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."

"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."

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

"SolarWinds SAM has significantly improved our workflow by allowing us to develop a comprehensive knowledge base of known errors and automate responses to specific alerts."

"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"Technical support has not been helpful when we have come across problems."

"In a few instances, ServiceNow has failed to discover some basic things. Some other tools are better at network discovery than ServiceNow. I'm not talking about database servers or any other infrastructure—only networking. Cloud discovery could also be better."

"The product could improve some of the visualization and architecture setups."

"I cannot tie CMDB at this stage with strategic planning regarding ServiceNow Discovery ability to maintain accurate data in CMDB."

"The manual pattern-matching process is not only time-consuming but also presents challenges during system upgrades, demanding revisits to ensure compatibility."

"Improvements are required with the scripts used to collect the information from servers."

"I find it valuable to enhance IP address management. I've been in this field since around 2011, and my experience since then has revolved around automation, deployment, distribution, and comprehensive inventory management, all crucial for deploying various components, including patches. When we talk about patch management or vulnerability management, it's more complex than just applying patches; sometimes, you need to undergo significant upgrades or phase out old components for new ones, and this can turn into a substantial project, explaining why vulnerabilities persist. Now, the role of ServiceNow Discovery and security operations, or at one point, looking at vulnerability management in ServiceNow Discovery, is crucial. It allows you to identify vulnerabilities on assets and, with the addition of discovery, service mapping, and event management, you gain a business context for these vulnerabilities. It's not merely about knowing they exist on a server; it's about understanding which services are responsible for critical business processes or transactions, like payroll. This knowledge changes the approach and execution of vulnerability remediation."

"It's an expensive platform."

More ServiceNow Discovery cons

"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."

"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."

"It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle."

"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."

"The product needs to reduce its price."

"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."

"It lacks a user experience for measuring things like the end-to-end time for which a user waits for a specific response in the system. In the application layer, it has some very basic stuff. You have to build your own with manuscripts and things like that."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ServiceNow Discovery's licensing is not a very small investment, but it definitely pays off."

"As per a general discussion I had with the stakeholders, I figured out that it is a costly tool. There is a need to make additional payments apart from the licensing fees for better support services from ServiceNow."

"There is a subscription for ServiceNow Discovery. It's expensive, but I think it's one of the best solutions on the market, so it's worth it."

"You need a subscription to ServiceNow Discovery, so you can use its features. You can also use specific plugins with the tool, and some of the plugins are free. I don't have information on how much my company pays for the subscription to ServiceNow Discovery."

"ServiceNow Discovery has very broad pricing, so it becomes costly. It would be better if it had a pay-as-you-use licensing model because the total cost of ownership is quite high."

"The price could be better. It's a bit on the pricey side."

"It is not recommended for smaller companies because of the price."

"The solution is very expensive."

More ServiceNow Discovery pricing and cost advice

"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."

"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."

"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."

"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."

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

"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."

"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."

"The price is too high."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	23

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	20

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ServiceNow Discovery?

The solution can prioritize the discovery of IP ranges. The product automatically places all Discovery CIs into the correct class within the CMDB.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Discovery?

The pricing information for ServiceNow Discovery was requested but not provided.

What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?

A CMDB debugging tool to give indication about the errors that appear would be appreciated.

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

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

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.

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor at this time. I have not encountered any missing features or fu...

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Product Reports

ServiceNow Discovery

Download ServiceNow Discovery product report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

ServiceNow Discovery finds applications and devices on your network, and then updates the CMDB with the information it finds. Discovery is available as a separate subscription from the rest of the Now Platform.

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

York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

ServiceNow Discovery vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor