SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

SolarWinds and Splunk are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. SolarWinds is ranked #22 with an average rating of 7.6, while Splunk is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.3. SolarWinds holds a 1.3% mindshare in APM, compared to Splunk’s 2.3% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

4,410 Views
2,778 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Splunk Observability Cloud

Read 78 Splunk Observability Cloud reviews

8,968 Views
4,753 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Splunk Observability Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Splunk Observability Cloud and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor compete in the IT monitoring and management space. Splunk holds an advantage with its advanced AI capabilities and comprehensive cloud integration, while SolarWinds offers competitive pricing and strong application-specific monitoring.

Features: Splunk Observability Cloud includes fast log searching, custom dashboard creation, and real-time problem solving. It is adaptable for complex environments, offering advanced AI capabilities. SolarWinds SAM offers robust application monitoring like AppInsight for SQL and Exchange, providing detailed monitoring of popular applications, enhanced data integration, and diagnostics.

Room for Improvement: Splunk faces high costs, complex configuration, and calls for improved documentation and automation. Its endpoint protection needs enhancement. SolarWinds requires better performance speed, cloud integration, and dashboard customization. Users report issues with navigational ease and dependency on Windows Servers. Both can improve third-party integration capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Splunk offers flexible deployments for cloud and hybrid models, with responsive customer support needing better consistency and speed. SolarWinds primarily supports on-premises deployment and has a solid customer service reputation, though there are calls for faster response times. Its deployment process can be slow for larger architectures.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk is seen as expensive, offering robust features that justify its price for complex enterprise needs but raises concerns over scaling and licensing fees. SolarWinds is competitively priced, delivering great value for mid-sized to large organizations focused on specific application monitoring. While both solutions provide ROI, SolarWinds' pricing is more accessible.

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

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

February 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 881,757 peers since 2012

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 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)

Splunk Observability Cloud

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

7th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (7th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th), Container Management (6th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.3%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 2.3%, up from 1.5% 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 (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud	2.3%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.3%
Other	96.4%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

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.

Read full review

Taiwo Ige

IT Operations Engineer at ABC Supply Co. Inc.

Alerting improves incident response across teams and enables faster awareness before customer impact

Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved in terms of integrations with more technical add-ons, such as Zoom. Although they have one with Zoom, it's not available in the cloud, so having that feature would be beneficial. Essentially, Splunk should continue expanding to create easier ways to ingest logs from different products. The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders. However, there are aspects that could be improved, such as linking dashboards to one another. While IT leaders may not drill down, it's crucial to create levels of dashboards for technical users to find root causes, making it effective for stakeholders.

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 product integrates with Remedy."

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

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."

"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."

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

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

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."

"The solution can be deployed quickly."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"Splunk's GUI and dashboard capacity are the most valuable features of Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring."

"The best features in Splunk Observability Cloud are the metrics; I can see any logs or anything related to the server or services we want to monitor, and the metrics are a good function."

"Splunk APM helps us to find errors immediately and resolve them."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to customize dashboards based on my queries or any other customization I may need."

"The dashboards are the features of Splunk Observability Cloud that I appreciate the most, providing visual representation of all data and text, which has benefited my organization by speeding up people's jobs and allowing a place to monitor all logs, as there are usually thousands of entries coming in which can become very disorderly."

"I find the monitoring console very helpful. With one click, I can see how we are performing, and at the same time, I can see what data is flowing."

"It's beneficial for monitoring performance and infrastructure, especially when deploying applications with multiple versions with Git."

"The ability to create custom dashboards is one of the best features and that's typically why most people deploy Splunk. Users can create dashboards for just about anything."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pros

Cons

"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."

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

"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."

"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."

"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."

"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."

"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."

"Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring's data analytics can be improved by including suggestions for various types of continuous monitoring."

"Splunk Observability Cloud has not yet completely improved our operational performance for our company's resilience as we are just starting out, however, it will help us ultimately to reduce incident time."

"The product collects a lot of data but it does not assure that it collects all of it."

"A wide variety of logging makes log onboarding difficult."

"The security could be better."

"The deployment can be quite complex."

"The implementation can be more user-friendly."

"The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders. However, there are aspects that could be improved, such as linking dashboards to one another."

More Splunk Observability Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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 like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."

"The licenses start from USD 3000.00 and go up to USD 20,000.00 for the year. It's a perpetual license. Nothing is free in SolarWinds, anything that you need is an additional cost."

"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."

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

"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It is just the standard price, but it can vary depending on the current rate of the dollar."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"Licensing cost is the biggest argument I get from those divesting from Splunk. There are those within our organization who say we are going to go to other tools since Splunk is too expensive."

"Splunk Observability Cloud is expensive."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"The price of Splunk APM is less than some of its competitors."

"The product is a bit expensive considering the competition but the company may negotiate the price."

"Splunk APM is a very cost-efficient solution."

"It appears to be expensive compared to competitors."

"Splunk APM is expensive."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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

See recommendations

881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	50

Questions from the Community

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

What do you like most about SignalFx?

The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SignalFx?

Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and pr...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SignalFx?

The solution involves observability in general, such as Application Performance Monitoring, and generally addresses digital applications, web applications, sites, and mobile applications. I worked ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 9% of the time

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 9% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

eG Enterprise vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 3% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Avantra vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

Observe vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Datadog vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Cribl vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Dynatrace vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

More Splunk Observability Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

January 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Observability Cloud

January 2026

Download Splunk Observability Cloud product report

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring

Overview

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

Splunk Observability Cloud offers sophisticated log searching, data integration, and customizable dashboards. With rapid deployment and ease of use, this cloud service enhances monitoring capabilities across IT infrastructures for comprehensive end-to-end visibility.

Focused on enhancing performance management and security, Splunk Observability Cloud supports environments through its data visualization and analysis tools. Users appreciate its robust application performance monitoring and troubleshooting insights. However, improvements in integrations, interface customization, scalability, and automation are needed. Users find value in its capabilities for infrastructure and network monitoring, as well as log analytics, albeit cost considerations and better documentation are desired. Enhancements in real-time monitoring and network protection are also noted as areas for development.

What are the key features?

Log Searching: Efficiently search and analyze logs from various sources.
Data Integration: Seamlessly integrate with multiple environments.
Dashboard Customization: Tailor dashboards to specific monitoring needs.
Monitoring Capabilities: Provides comprehensive insights into application performance.
Security Features: Analyze and address security threats across systems.
Visualization Tools: Enhance data analysis and system performance optimization.

Why consider this for ROI?

Comprehensive Visibility: Gain complete insights into IT infrastructure.
Performance Optimization: Improve overall system performance and efficiency.
Rapid Deployment: Quick setup to meet organization demands swiftly.
Enhanced Security: Strengthen security measures through detailed analytics.

In industries, Splunk Observability Cloud is implemented for security management by analyzing logs from detection systems, offering real-time alerts and troubleshooting for cloud-native applications. It is leveraged for machine data analysis, improving infrastructure visibility and supporting network and application performance management efforts.

Splunk

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

February 2026

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

Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Observability Cloud and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Observability Cloud report.

See our list of best Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability vendors.

We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.