SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

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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 Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

19th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (11th), Active Directory Management (10th)

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

29th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (31st), Container Monitoring (6th), Cloud Monitoring Software (23rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.5%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 0.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Carlos Camargo

Senior Operations Manager at Sencinet

Provides user-friendly API features and has straightforward deployment process

One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules. The misalignment of licensing terms can present commercial challenges when adding new modules or additional pollers. Additionally, the granularity of polling times for specific components could be enhanced to better meet individual customers' needs without impacting the entire polling pool.

Read full review

ToniLindberg

senior consultant at Virtual Consultants Sverige AB

Troubleshooting capabilities have improved application monitoring and support engagement

I can see what happens end to end, which is pretty beneficial. The solution has troubleshooting capabilities, providing a direct connection to knowledge base articles from VMware Broadcom. When I encounter an error, I can search directly within the system to see what solutions have been employed by others. It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started.

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

"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."

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

"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements. The threshold gets configured automatically, so it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."

"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."

"Management Console - Managing service to each server enrolled in the Solarwinds is much easier. Using a web base console, you can control your service much convenient way. There is no need to login remotely. It save a lot of time and effort."

"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."

"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."

"The product integrates with Remedy."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"The stability of Aria Operations for Applications has improved significantly over the years."

"Tanzu itself, integrated with multiple solutions, bestows support and security upon a container platform, especially when it comes to managing open-source container platforms such as Kubernetes."

"People are very pleased with the implementation."

"I find VMware Aria Operations for Applications to be very stable, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."

"It significantly improves application performance management by offering recommendations for resource allocation to avoid wastage or overcommitment."

"VMware Aria Operations for Applications offers significant features such as real-time statistics, the ability to identify possible issues within the VM environment, and helpful heat maps."

"This solution allows me to have true visibility for any metrics when it comes to my cloud, and private."

"No issues with stability."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros

Cons

"Downside of the tools is the web console are hung or crash. It need to improve the performance."

"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."

"The tool’s report feature created issues for us. We needed to gain skills to use that feature. The tool’s customization is not easy since you have to reconfigure the whole system."

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

"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."

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

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

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

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"The return on investment is best suited for organizations that do not have the resources for a dedicated VM environment team. However, the cost of the product doesn't show significant benefits."

"The initial setup should be easier and more seamless."

"An area for improvement would be more in-depth reporting, such as analyzing disk IO during business hours compared to after hours."

"I find that there could be improvements in the support service response time, as the urgency varies unless specified as Priority 2 or 1 cases."

"It could use a URL document server. Everything in the market is moving towards automation and everybody's looking for the single click operations as well relational data locality."

"Its billing model is consumption-based. I understand the consumption-based model, but it is not necessarily easy to estimate and guess how many points or how much we are going to consume on a specific application up until we get to that point. So, for us, it would be helpful to have more insights or predictability into what we can expect from a cost perspective if we are starting to use specific features. This can potentially also drive our consumption a bit more."

"In the new version, I would love to see more prediction capabilities. It would be great if one could see the alerts get a little more enriched with information and become more human-friendly instead of the technical stuff that they put in there. I think those would be really awesome outcomes to get."

"I would like to see integration with Kubernetes cluster and APIs so that you can manage the entire stack."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The price is too high."

"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."

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

"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."

"I would advise potential buyers to wait until the end of the quarter, end of year, or other time to place orders. There are actually great deals to be had at those times if your budget cycle can match up."

"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."

"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"I would rate the pricing as three out of five."

"I don't have the details. In our case, there is a mixture in place. We have production usage, and we are also doing training for VMware. So, we also have a training instance. It is worth the money you would spend on it. That's because if you were to build all of this yourself by using some of the open source tools, then you would need a lot of time."

"The licensing costs are very high, particularly when you consider that we have to purchase a level 1 license for every integration, such as the load balancer, HAProxy, and the MSSP. And if you want to use vSAN, that's another license. Then, of course, Tanzu Observability has its own separate license."

"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."

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860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

19%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

The cost of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is fair and reasonable compared to what we receive in support and packages from VMware.

What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

I find that there could be improvements in the support service response time, as the urgency varies unless specified as Priority 2 or 1 cases.

What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

Our primary use case for VMware Aria Operations for Applications is to enhance application monitoring tasks, allowing us to set up alerts for different components and send them via SMTP to a team d...

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Product Reports

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Download VMware Aria Operations for Applications product report

VMware Aria Operations for Applications report

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM

Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability

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

VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront is a powerful tool for monitoring and analyzing the performance and availability of applications and infrastructure in real-time.

With its comprehensive monitoring capabilities, visualizing and analyzing data becomes effortless. The real-time alerting system ensures timely issue resolution, while scalability and a user-friendly interface provide a seamless experience for smooth operations.

VMware

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

1. Atlassian 2. Cisco 3. Databricks 4. DigitalOcean 5. Equinix 6. Fidelity Investments 7. Google 8. Hewlett Packard Enterprise 9. Honeywell 10. IBM 11. Intel 12. JetBlue Airways 13. LinkedIn 14. Lyft 15. Mastercard 16. Microsoft 17. MongoDB 18. Netflix 19. Nvidia 20. Oracle 21. PayPal 22. Pinterest 23. Qualcomm 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. SAP 27. Spotify 28. Square 29. TMobile 30. Twitter 31. Uber 32. VMware

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications