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SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer vs Spotlight comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 2025

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

SolarWinds Database Perform...
Ranking in Database Development and Management
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Spotlight
Ranking in Database Development and Management
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is 4.1%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spotlight is 4.1%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer4.1%
Spotlight4.1%
Other91.8%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2787105 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Deep query analysis has reduced MTTA and MTTR and now safeguards critical customer workloads
In addition to the features SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer offers, I wish it had more robust performance monitoring and analyzing features for PostgreSQL databases. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is very strong when we come to SQL Server, but it is still lagging when it comes to PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL is an upcoming enterprise-level database technology in the market. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is still struggling to have a solid monitoring and performance analyzer in comparison to SQL Server. This is one of the features I am looking to SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer to develop as soon as possible. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer can be improved in two areas. One is more and robust performance monitoring and analyzing features for PostgreSQL databases. Second, SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is still lagging for monitoring the cloud instances of databases including Aurora DB and Cloud SQL DB. These two areas are where SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer needs to work extensively to make this monitoring and performance analyzing robust. From an operational perspective, SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer still has a limitation of 250 licenses per instance. This is really a problem for someone with larger server sizes available and more instances running on the same SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer URL. SolarWinds should look at how they can increase that threshold because there should not be a limit of 250 instances.
BC
Sr. Database Administrator at Comcast Business
Facilitating on-the-spot troubleshooting with detailed root cause analysis
Spotlight provides valuable features such as the ability to get alerted and drill down to a very granular level to find out where actual problems are coming from. The drill-down feature helps with isolation, root cause analysis, and determining next steps. It aids in preventing potential issues by allowing us to make correctable changes internally within SQL Server. When needed, it also helps address external influences affecting system design. Additionally, the historical data analysis is helpful for long-term capacity planning.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer helped us locate the performance issues quickly."
"In IT, problems often occur in areas such as applications, web interfaces, or databases. The tool allows users to easily determine the root cause of these issues, whether they stem from the network layer, database layer, or elsewhere."
"Using SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer has positively impacted our organization by decreasing the time taken for our database deployments by 37%, reducing the baseline learning period from one to two weeks to a shorter period of time, saving resources, and providing real-time dashboards and automated alerts that have allowed us to save at least 28 to 32% in costs, optimizing better and following the advisor recommendations to prevent outages by improving that part by 22 to 28%."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer's most valuable features include the notification of consuming the SQL queries, collecting data, and notifying about managing space and tables."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is anomaly detection. It alerts you when things outside the norm are happening, and the feature that analyzes your indexes informs you if you have wide or overlapping indexes. It also helps identify SQL query bottlenecks, letting you know if something is taking longer than usual, if a query plan has changed, and if you need to update statistics. In terms of usage, it is straightforward to use, learn and understand. The patching process is smooth and explains each feature, including links to external resources for further reading."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer can help us identify issues we cannot see manually."
"What I like most about SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is that it's a powerful solution that lets me advise customers about performance, and it also gives a lot of supporting information."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"Spotlight provides valuable features such as the ability to get alerted and drill down to a very granular level to find out where actual problems are coming from."
"The tool is a SaaS product where I just need to type a URL and start with the design process. I can integrate all elements of source control like GitHub, GitLab, etc. The tool also supports authentication-related provisions like SSH."
"Its dashboards are most valuable. The drill-down of the dashboards is useful."
"I consider the solution very scalable."
"Spotlight provides valuable features such as the ability to get alerted and drill down to a very granular level to find out where actual problems are coming from."
 

Cons

"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer should be easy to implement and it should have more facilities to make it better."
"There is room for improvement with the pricing of the platform."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is still lagging for monitoring the cloud instances of databases including Aurora DB and Cloud SQL DB."
"Technical support for this solution needs to be improved."
"The areas where it currently lags are in reporting and dashboarding. The reports and dashboards are somewhat static, and we cannot create custom dashboards for specific customer needs."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer should include more details on how everything works."
"It is capable, but I don't believe it has the right value matrix. It also depends on the budget of the company."
"I feel that SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is a really good solution without needing significant changes, but I would suggest improvements in the feature friction to make it easier for small organizations, as it is currently limited in automation and manual tuning advice is needed."
"There's no reporting with this tool, and there really should be. They should add that into future releases."
"One improvement could be the inclusion of suggestions for missing indexes or better analysis of how indexes are utilized and how execution plans are used, similar to what other products offer."
"Some customizations of the dashboard, such as having backup reports, would be useful."
"The software does not support webhooks. It doesn't support advanced versions of APIs. The tool also doesn't support advanced versions of specifications. The change that we do in one part of the model is not reflected throughout the specification. There are also some mutations in the clones. I am not able to do a local source control with the product as well."
"One improvement could be the inclusion of suggestions for missing indexes or better analysis of how indexes are utilized and how execution plans are used, similar to what other products offer."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't remember the exact licensing cost for SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer, but it's within the range of $2,000 to $3,000 a year."
"Customers need to pay for the subscription-based license annually."
"There are no extra costs for maintenance or using the solution's support."
"The pricing is fairly reasonable, and it becomes more cost-effective with larger volumes of instances."
"The pricing of the solution is average."
"It could be less expensive."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is a little bit expensive."
"The tool is cloud-based. It is priced well."
"Its cost was somewhere in the middle."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Healthcare Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Healthcare Company
13%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?
In IT, problems often occur in areas such as applications, web interfaces, or databases. The tool allows users to easily determine the root cause of these issues, whether they stem from the network...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?
In addition to the features SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer offers, I wish it had more robust performance monitoring and analyzing features for PostgreSQL databases. SolarWinds Database Pe...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?
My main use case for SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is as a database performance monitoring tool. My day-to-day purpose of utilizing SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is for monito...
What needs improvement with Quest Spotlight?
One improvement could be the inclusion of suggestions for missing indexes or better analysis of how indexes are utilized and how execution plans are used, similar to what other products offer.
What is your primary use case for Quest Spotlight?
I primarily use Spotlight for on-the-spot troubleshooting and alerting to see if there are any issues. The drill-down features allow me to pinpoint problems, whether they are indexing, long-running...
What advice do you have for others considering Quest Spotlight?
I would rate Spotlight probably an nine out of ten. My advice would be to consider its cost-effectiveness and ease of use in smaller environments.
 

Also Known As

Confio, SolarWinds DPA, Ignite8
Dell Spotlight
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GSI Commerce, Liquid Digital Media, ProLogis, Indiana University
Jenkon
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer vs. Spotlight and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.