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SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Zabbix comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

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
Ranking in Server Monitoring
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Active Directory Management (10th)
Zabbix
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
9th
Ranking in Server Monitoring
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
106
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st)
 

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 Zabbix is 3.7%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Camargo - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
B Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless global client monitoring with reliable remote connectivity
I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients. Many tools that I require for system maintenance are included. I can easily monitor all of my clients throughout the world I did not give much thought to it, however, improvements could be made to Zabbix.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The graphical interfaces, GUI customizations, and alert configurations are impressive."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"It is simple to implement and can provide fairly decent Windows-based monitoring, beyond simple SNMP. It is great for monitoring newbies and smaller shops."
"I adore the NTA module that provides deep details on ingress/egress traffic for any interface. With a few clicks, you can correlate who is accessing what and when, beside the bandwidth consuming applications/users."
"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."
"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 provides high scalability, alerting, notification, templating, and end-to-end security."
"It has good graphs of what is going on within the operating system.​"
"The integration capabilities and APIs are the best part."
"The best feature is that Zabbix can report everything, and everything in Zabbix is free."
"It meets my organizational needs. It's pretty easy to use."
"It has an intuitive UI with beautiful graphs and customizable maps."
"The flexibility of this solution is amazing."
"The resource usage, CPU utilization, disk usage, network monitoring, network performance, and alerting features are invaluable."
 

Cons

"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."
"It lacks a user experience for measuring things like the end-to-end time for which a user waits for a specific response in the system. In the application layer, it has some very basic stuff. You have to build your own with manuscripts and things like that."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"There is one feature that is a report writer. And they are currently trying to take it out from being a stand-alone application and integrating to the web. This doesn't give us the flexibility and it doesn't expand what we can get when it comes to reporting. So, putting it on the web is going to make it difficult to get some information. Leaving it where it is now will help us a lot."
"The technical support was better in previous years. With the launch of the premium support service, the normal support has declined."
"Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."
"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."
"I would like to see a more flexible mobile client, and better HA out of the box."
"It could be more stable."
"The performance reporting could be improved."
"The solution needs to add features for finding loopholes or problems and their root causes."
"Zabbix isn't very good at automation just yet."
"The main problem with Zabbix is that you have to spend time writing templates for all of the products that you have."
"Implementation is always tailored to the customer and the kind of information we need from the client to carry it out can make them very uncomfortable. Sometimes the clients are not ready to share it."
"There are some features of Zabbix that are not good for reporting. The DX Spectrum solution has better reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"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."
"The price is too high."
"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."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"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."
"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."
"This is an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
"It is reasonable."
"My manager is very happy because it doesn't cost anything."
"We’re using the free version, which covers all our current needs."
"Zabbix is an open-source tool, and it's free to use."
"We use the open-source version of Zabbix."
"This solution is completely open-source, so it is quite affordable."
"Zabbix is a free solution but the support contact costs money."
report
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
19%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about Zabbix?
The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?
We didn't use the commercial version. We used the free version.
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
I think it's the best solution for monitoring. I don't know any better.
 

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Zabbix and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.