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SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Tanium comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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 Server Monitoring
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (17th), Active Directory Management (8th)
Tanium
Ranking in Server Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (26th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (17th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (22nd), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.9%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tanium is 3.8%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tanium3.8%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor2.9%
Other93.3%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
MA
Division Manager, Information Technology at a legal firm with 51-200 employees
Centralized policies have improved remote endpoint control and have simplified data visibility
The integration is not simple and easy. It requires experienced users or people who have done the implementation. When certain policies are applied, they do not immediately push the policies. For example, we manage endpoint device USB access. We set a policy to block it, but it does not come into effect immediately. Sometimes it takes three or four days for it to reflect. That is a pain point. I have raised this issue with support as well, but they said that I need to limit the number of devices in the policy. In terms of application deployment, for us, it was seamless.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Having used various other vendors for monitoring over my career, the SolarWinds products give outstanding value for the price."
"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."
"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."
"SolarWinds SAM is very stable, and we are using it with hundreds or thousands of customers and there are no stability issues."
"The ROI for SolarWinds products is unmatched in the industry."
"SolarWinds allows network administrators to easily monitor the network by customizing the pages to see what exactly is needed, in addition to the deep statistics shown for nodes and interfaces like response time, packet loss, interface CRC, interface errors, as well as the rich graphs for all network elements."
"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."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
"Tanium is stable and it is also lightweight."
"For incident response tasks, all these tasks can get done in minutes with minimal disruption to the end-user."
"The solution is scalable and helps to understand how infrastructure works. It helps to improve the health of the organization."
"The insights we gain from our endpoints and the management capabilities that Tanium provides have been a boon to our operations and security."
"I like the tool's incident response and security patching."
"Tanium's most valuable feature is its instant discovery aspect."
"The interrogation piece was the most valuable feature because it was very detailed."
"Tanium’s best features include support for any Windows, Linux, or Mac endpoint, regardless of where it is, and the ability to do IT operations and security operations."
 

Cons

"Having two places to build and manage alerts is not efficient and not all alerting tools are available in the trap manager."
"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges."
"Scalability was an issue in the past."
"One area that could benefit from improvement is its performance"
"I had some stability issues. I lost my environment, but with the help of SolarWinds support, I was able to get back to a stable platform."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve the server monitoring and the web application monitoring features are not good. Microsoft SCOM has better server monitoring."
"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."
"MS Azure Service and user experience monitoring is an area in which the SolarWinds tools are lacking; without a doubt, this is the Achilles heel of the Orion monitoring tools, and I am currently reviewing other vendors for Azure service monitoring tools."
"Most of the time, agent-relative issues have to be more equipped with self-healing features. At times, the agent is there, but for some reason, it doesn't report a status. It gives certain problems that are obviously agent-based."
"It is not really additional functions, or the features that are needed, rather the complexity would be reduced based on the number of modules required to put together a comprehensive operational security and risk compliance model."
"Tanium’s scalability could be improved."
"I would like to have more integrations and custom plugins to input. Integration is always a big deal in a lot of different environments."
"We set a policy to block USB access. The moment a device is being set up on the network, I apply the policy, but it does not come into effect immediately."
"Our biggest issue with the solution is its lack of mobility."
"There are some bugs in the product. The tool needs to improve in the area of reporting."
"When working with Tanium, there are some older devices that haven't been patched for a long time, and certain patches are not included in Tanium. I have to search outside to download patches, create bundles, and then perform the task."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When planning for the number of licenses to purchase, make sure you understand all of the elements within an application required to really understand performance well. In our case, we quickly came to the conclusion that an unlimited license for SAM was the way to go."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"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 product is expensive."
"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's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each."
"It's an expensive solution. It would be nice if the cost were lower."
"There is an annual license required to use this solution."
"The solution is expensive but it's a good investment."
"The solution offers value for money."
"It is higher than some competitors in the market."
"The product's pricing differs from region to region depending on negotiations and the number of endpoints."
"Tanium is a more expensive solution in Latin America than some of the competitors, such as BigFix."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
I am doing research as we currently have both solutions, and I am looking to see if we need both or can manage with one. Currently, the outcome indicates that we need both. The focus point is diffe...
What needs improvement with Tanium?
While there is always room for improvement, I am pleased with Tanium.
What is your primary use case for Tanium?
The primary use case for Tanium ( /products/tanium-reviews ) is compliance, patching, and inventory as part of the core functions.
What advice do you have for others considering Tanium?
For smaller companies, Tanium is quite a big investment, and one needs to have a considerable setup to make it economically viable. I would recommend it to others with a similar use case. The solut...
 

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM
Tanium Inc Cloud, Tanium XEM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
JPMorgan Chase, eBay, Amazon, US Bank, MetLife, pwc, Cerner, Delphi, MGM Grand, New York Life
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Tanium and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.