SQL Sentry vs SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer comparison

SolarWinds and SQL Sentry are both solutions in the Database Development and Management category. SolarWinds is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.5, while SQL Sentry is ranked #14. SolarWinds holds a 4.1% mindshare in DDM, compared to SQL Sentry’s 2.8% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 66% of SQL Sentry users who would recommend it.

SolarWinds Database Perform...

Read 14 SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer reviews

1,319 Views
1,319 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

SQL Sentry

Read 2 SQL Sentry reviews

692 Views
692 Comparison Views

66% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Database Perform...

SQL Sentry

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer and SQL Sentry are competing products in database management, focusing on optimizing performance and monitoring. SQL Sentry appears superior due to its advanced feature set, despite SolarWinds being favored for pricing and support.

Features: SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer focuses on real-time monitoring, anomaly detection, and proactive database management. SQL Sentry provides robust alerting, comprehensive query tuning, and deeper performance insights, making it more suitable for environments requiring granular control.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer offers straightforward deployment and solid support, suitable for various organizations. SQL Sentry provides seamless deployment and stands out with responsive customer service, ensuring efficient resolution and support.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is known for competitive pricing and quick ROI, appealing to budget-conscious buyers. SQL Sentry has a higher price point but offers extensive capabilities and long-term value, often seen as outweighing initial costs.

To learn more, read our detailed SQL Sentry vs. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

SQL Sentry vs. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

December 2025

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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

SolarWinds Database Perform...

Ranking in Database Development and Management

4th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SQL Sentry

Ranking in Database Development and Management

14th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

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 SQL Sentry is 2.8%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database Development and Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer	4.1%
SQL Sentry	2.8%
Other	93.1%

Database Development and Management

Featured Reviews

reviewer2787105

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.

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Steve McCubbin

Sql Db Administrator at a non-tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Lets you know when your jobs are taking longer than average and allows you to go back in history and find out what was happening at certain times

To be able to go back in history and find out what was happening at certain times is the most valuable feature of the product. Another thing that's good about the product is that it will let you know when your jobs are taking longer than average so that you can foretell that there's going to be an issue coming up. Your SQL agent job is taking longer.

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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 initial setup is pretty straightforward."

"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer helped us locate the performance issues quickly."

"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 platform solves and prevents delays in receiving answers from databases."

"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%."

"Monitoring is most valuable, and being able to know that there is an issue or problem and I need to go look is also valuable. So, monitoring and learning are the most important features."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support for older databases and the ability to manage them in a centralized dashboard."

More SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer pros

"To be able to go back in history and find out what was happening at certain times is the most valuable feature of the product."

"This solution has identified blocking, deadlock, memory pressure, and high CPU consumption issues."

Cons

"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer should be easy to implement and it should have more facilities to make it better."

"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is still lagging for monitoring the cloud instances of databases including Aurora DB and Cloud SQL DB."

"One area where the tool could improve is by adding support for additional databases. For instance, supporting newer databases like Couchbase or MongoDB would be beneficial."

"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."

"It is capable, but I don't believe it has the right value matrix. It also depends on the budget of the company."

"Technical support for this solution needs to be improved."

"There is room for improvement with the pricing of the platform."

"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer should provide customization options allowing users to add different columns."

More SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer cons

"If we can get details on wait types from system views, it will help identify a more detailed root cause."

"There could be some more metrics on the high availability to let us know when there are issues synchronizing between the hosts."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is fairly reasonable, and it becomes more cost-effective with larger volumes of instances."

"It could be less expensive."

"The pricing of the solution is average."

"Customers need to pay for the subscription-based license annually."

"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."

"There are no extra costs for maintenance or using the solution's support."

"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is a little bit expensive."

"It's fairly expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Healthcare Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	8

No data available

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...

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What needs improvement with SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?

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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...

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Comparisons

Foglight for Databases vs SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Compared 13% of the time

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server vs SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Compared 13% of the time

Spotlight vs SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Compared 10% of the time

Oracle Enterprise Manager vs SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Compared 10% of the time

IDERA SQL Admin Toolset vs SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Compared 9% of the time

More SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Competitors

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server vs SQL Sentry

Compared 14% of the time

Foglight for Databases vs SQL Sentry

Compared 13% of the time

Spotlight vs SQL Sentry

Compared 12% of the time

Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials vs SQL Sentry

Compared 8% of the time

IDERA SQL Admin Toolset vs SQL Sentry

Compared 6% of the time

More SQL Sentry Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

January 2026

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer report

Download SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer product report

Buyer's Guide

Database Development and Management

December 2025

Download SQL Sentry product report

Also Known As

Confio, SolarWinds DPA, Ignite8

No data available

Overview

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is a powerful monitoring service that allows customers to monitor their databases. It offers system metrics such as RAM consumption, IO, network traffic, etc. The service is available for both on-prem and cloud deployments, making it a versatile solution for businesses of all sizes.

The most valuable feature is its ability to monitor and learn from the data it collects, helping identify issues and problems before they become major problems, and saving businesses time and money. The service also provides supporting information for performance advising, which helps optimize database performance.

SolarWinds

SentryOne is the most capable, scalable platform for enterprise data performance management, from development through production. We empower Microsoft database professionals with the best solutions for developing, testing, documenting, and monitoring the Microsoft Data Platform.

SQL Sentry

Sample Customers

GSI Commerce, Liquid Digital Media, ProLogis, Indiana University

Coeo, Stack Overflow, GreatAmerica Financial Services Corporation, Hawaiian Airlines, Hennepin County Medical Center, Racing Victoria, Citrix, Insight, Shi, Woodforest National Bank, Telular

Buyer's Guide

SQL Sentry vs. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

December 2025

Free Report: SQL Sentry vs. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

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