SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Zabbix comparison

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

Zabbix and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor are robust monitoring tools used by businesses to oversee their IT infrastructure. SolarWinds often garners higher marks for feature-richness and ease of deployment, though Zabbix still has strong user support for its pricing and customization options.

Features: Zabbix is known for its deep customizations, scalability, and the ability to monitor a diverse range of devices. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor stands out for its comprehensive out-of-the-box capabilities, detailed insights, and advanced alerting options.

Room for Improvement: Zabbix users often mention that the initial setup can be challenging, and the learning curve is steep. Enhancements in documentation and more intuitive initial configurations are frequently suggested. SolarWinds users commonly point out the need for better licensing models, more cost-effective pricing tiers, and optimized system resource utilization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is frequently highlighted for its straightforward deployment process, which includes detailed guides and responsive customer support. Zabbix is generally reported to have a more complex setup process. Customer service experiences vary, with SolarWinds receiving more positive feedback for support responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: Zabbix, being open-source, offers substantial cost savings, which is a significant advantage for budget-conscious users. Despite this, the return on investment is perceived to be slower due to the time needed for configuration and optimization. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor users often view the higher price point as justified by the robust features and efficient performance, leading to quicker ROI for enterprises willing to invest in its comprehensive capabilities.

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

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Zabbix

February 2026

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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

22nd

Ranking in Server Monitoring

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Active Directory Management (9th)

Zabbix

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

9th

Ranking in Server Monitoring

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

108

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st)

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 Zabbix is 2.3%, down from 3.0% 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 (%)
Zabbix	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.

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KamranBhatti

Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Helps reduce response time but has room to improve customization complexity

We are not working on simple standalone solutions like Kaspersky DDoS Protection or Hybrid Cloud Security. Once you understand Zabbix, then it is easy to customize those web pages and graphs for our customer use. It is fully automated to your requirements. Zabbix is working fine with no issues, and I am satisfied with it. We have combined Zabbix and SolarWinds. The integration works fine, and it is easy to integrate Zabbix with the IT environment. We were trying to purchase MDR (Managed Detection and Response), but we are not working on that. I don't have real experience with MDR. We are using Falcon software for that. We are working with Falcon Complete, not with Sandbox. We are not using Kaspersky for business or cloud protection. For that, we are using Zabbix CrowdStrike Falcon Complete solution. I have given this review an overall rating of 8.

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

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

"We use the solution as a central monitoring tool. We use it to monitor every transaction that has a relation to the organization’s infrastructure."

"The solution can be deployed quickly."

"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."

"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."

"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."

"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"Zabbix is scalable."

"The solution is quite mature and very stable."

"Zabbix is good for discovery."

"Zabbix is fully scalable, with no limitations in that regard."

"During my testing, the features that I like the most are that it can be integrated with my system, and it provides me with reports of all of my servers."

"Zabbix can use old data to current data to set the threshold. We can use previous data to set the threshold."

"Zabbix is an excellent performance monitoring tool."

"I really enjoy network traffic triggers that allow us to check traffic threshold from ISP."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"The tool's AppStack needs to improve in the storage monitoring part. It should also include an analytics and recommendation approach. If I have found a fault in a server or application, I would like to know what caused it and how do I recover from it."

"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."

"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."

"Currently SolarWinds SAM offers AppInsight for modern versions of: IIS, Exchange, SQL Server. They have shown to be powerful and insightful tools. However, AppInsight needs to be offered for more applications: Citrix, SharePoint, AX, etc."

"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."

"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."

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

"They are complex to operate; users need to know what they want during setup."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"Its UI needs to be improved a little bit more so that an end-user is also able to handle it. I can handle it, but others should also be able to handle it in a better way. It becomes complex when we are growing and need to add proxies. We need more scalability features and documentation for different use cases. A lot of articles are available, but they need to be in proper documentation. For example, when you have thousands of servers that have to be monitored in different regions of the world, there should be some kind of documentation to describe how you can create proxies and add them. Sometimes, when you are using the database, it can get overloaded. When the network is growing, the number of transactions becomes very high, and the database gets overloaded. There should be information about how to reduce the load on the MySQL database, which is what Zabbix is using. The market is growing a lot, and it should be enhanced for a lot more things. We are currently bringing enhancements at our end for different use cases. For example, when dockerization is going on, how can we check the logs inside the Dockers. We should also be able to monitor and check the number of logins and add features such as SSO login and two-factor authentication as a protocol. These are the security features and concerns that we have to deal with. Currently, we are developing modules to add features to Zabbix, but they should also work on these features."

"The networking monitor is not too easy to work with."

"I would like to see a more flexible mobile client, and better HA out of the box."

"The reporting is lacking because this is an open-source tool, and nowadays, management's expectation is that the reports should be of high quality and every information should be presented in a concise manner."

"Zabbix claims that there is an auto-discovery process but my team member was facing difficulty and was told that it's not really automatic, and there are some manual steps."

"The product delivers false positives during reporting because of flapping. Other reasonably priced alternatives may have better performance."

"For us, the initial setup was complex"

"There are not too much documentation or manuals. We found the tutorials very easy to understand but do not go deep enough in the use of Zabbix. We need more manuals, proper use, documentation, etc."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."

"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."

"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."

"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."

"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 price is too high."

"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"It is a true open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."

"There is no license but we need to pay for support."

"It's free software released under the GNU/GPL license."

"If you have 20,000 hosts, the support costs around €95,000 for a year."

"It is free, which allows us to reduce costs."

"Zabbix is an open-source tool, and it's free to use."

"This is an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."

More Zabbix 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.

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

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	56
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	34

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 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 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?

I think Zabbix is economical, whereas SolarWinds is expensive. SolarWinds has a lot of secure features, but Zabbix is providing everything free of cost. Zabbix is economical, and you can install it...

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

The potential and customization is a little difficult because you have to learn scripts. I think Zabbix needs to improve the customization better. At present, I am satisfied with the functionality ...

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Product Reports

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

January 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

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January 2026

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM

No data available

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

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

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