Instana Dynamic APM vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Instana and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Instana is ranked #22 with an average rating of 7.8, while SolarWinds is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.4. Instana holds a 1.0% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.4% mindshare. Additionally, 84% of Instana users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Instana Dynamic APM

Read 14 Instana Dynamic APM reviews

2,081 Views
2,060 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 42 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

3,776 Views
2,681 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Instana Dynamic APM

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and Instana Dynamic APM are leading application performance monitoring tools. Instana Dynamic APM generally has the upper hand due to its advanced features and ease of use, despite its higher cost, compared to SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor's attractive pricing and robust customer support.

Features: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is valued for comprehensive monitoring capabilities, hardware health monitoring, and application availability. Instana Dynamic APM is praised for advanced AI-driven alerts, real-time data collection, and dynamic tracking of microservices.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve in reporting capabilities, dashboard visualization, and enhanced analytics. Instana Dynamic APM users see room for improvement in documentation, cost of ownership, and user interface complexity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is known for straightforward deployment and strong customer support. Instana Dynamic APM, while easy to deploy, has more complex initial configurations but offers excellent ongoing customer service.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is noted for its cost-effectiveness and solid ROI. Instana Dynamic APM is perceived as expensive but delivers significant returns due to its advanced features.

To learn more, read our detailed Instana Dynamic APM vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Instana Dynamic APM vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

September 2025

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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

Instana Dynamic APM

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

22nd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

20th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

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

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Instana Dynamic APM is 1.0%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.4%, down from 1.7% 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 (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.4%
Instana Dynamic APM	1.0%
Other	97.6%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Jawwad Hassan

IT Consultant at Arcana Info

A really good GUI that is easy for non-technical users to understand

Our company uses the solution for one of our bank clients. We use App Connect middleware to monitor services and applications such as Docker, Kubernetes, MongoDB, and MS SQL Server. We also monitor the bottleneck for all servers. We currently have 20 users at one of our branches. We plan to expand…

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VIVEK PATHAK

Solutions Architect at Airtel

Offering reasonably good dashboarding features but needs to improve the application performance monitoring

My company uses Riverbed for application performance monitoring. I was doing research so that I could understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provide APM capabilities similar to Riverbed, which allows our company to get a packet capture of an entire session, and on the basis of it, we look at the application performance monitoring part. With SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, my company does SNMP polling, so it can drag an entire session, but it focuses more on availability, CPU memory, and server connection status. In Riverbed, my company catches an entire system, so when we deal with two applications, we have end-to-end app visibility. All the application monitoring happens through Riverbed. Our company's main problem is that, as of now, we have two different products in our organization, and we don't want to continue with the multiple products currently. I wanted to understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor already have capabilities like Riverbed, and if they do, then I wanted to figure out why our company should not go with SolarWinds and why we are using products from multiple vendors. My company needs to continue with either Riverbed or SolarWinds. I wanted to see which products are good for the organization and how much I want to continue with Riverbed.

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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

"We can easily perform root cause analysis using the tool."

"It is a stable solution."

"The most valuable feature of Instana Dynamic APM is auto-instrumentation."

"If a key monitored value has crossed a threshold, it sends out an alert. And the solution is able to intelligently find out if something is beyond the range that it normally resides in."

"It's great for monitoring services and applications."

"Sometimes it's able to provide a proper RCA on its own. It's able to correlate different events that occurred and that becomes like an RCA in itself."

"It is user-friendly, but we encounter issues processing input and understanding the graphics, such as seeing a flatline without knowing the cause. When these problems occur, I have to contact my support team to address and fix them. Also, monitoring processing is good."

"The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis."

More Instana Dynamic APM pros

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

"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."

"The component and cable monitoring are good. SolarWinds is more intuitive and user-friendly than AppDynamics. The AppDynamics console is more complex because it's a more feature-rich solution, so it's not easy for somebody to pick it up."

"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."

"Solarwinds has an open database that allows you to do serious integrations. It doesn't matter which service desk you have, you can implement and integrate it with SolarWinds."

"Identifying the problem statement is easy."

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"The solution's monitoring is pretty weak and should be improved."

"Its SLI and SLA features need improvement in setting up alerts."

"I think that Instana should improve the university and the certification process, so the users can find experts in Instana with their certification module process."

"While it is already quite good, there is room for improvement in terms of providing better functionality"

"Maybe log monitoring could be better."

"The configuration of Instana Dynamic APM needs improvement because it requires quite a bit of work."

"New Relic has a better UI in terms of how it presents the data."

"They could improve the product’s dashboards and provide more dashboard options."

More Instana Dynamic APM cons

"Nodes in Azure are able to be monitored with the use of agents, but this does not apply to cloud service offerings that are not node based."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's reasonably priced and manageable, especially for individuals who grasp the significance of application monitoring."

"The pricing is $1,200 per year which is a bit high compared to other vendors."

"Its pricing isn't a big pain point. Its pricing seems to be better than some of the other competing products in the market, but they also have some of the features and functionalities that are better than Instana."

"Pricing is quite competitive. Dynatrace, AppDynamics, and New Relic were all several times more expensive than Instana, both the on-prem and the SaaS versions. Price-wise they are a lot more competitive than anyone else out there."

"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."

"Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies compared to other vendors."

"The solution is less expensive than one of its competitors."

"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

28%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Government

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	20

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Instana Dynamic APM?

The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Instana Dynamic APM?

I rate the pricing a seven out of ten. There are no additional costs associated with the product.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Instana Dynamic APM?

Sometimes, the issue arises from user changes, such as adjusting firewall settings without proper consideration, leading to compatibility issues within the network monitoring.

See all answers

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 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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dynatrace vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 50% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 15% of the time

Datadog vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Application Performance Management vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 7% of the time

Broadcom DX Application Performance Management vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 6% of the time

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Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 17% of the time

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 16% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 9% of the time

Prometheus Group vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Instana Dynamic APM

September 2025

Download Instana Dynamic APM product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

August 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

Instana’s Enterprise Observability Platform, powered by automated Application Performance Monitoring, discovers and maps all services, infrastructure, and their inter-dependencies automatically. Instana ingests all observability metrics, traces each request, profiles every process, and updates application dependency maps in real-time to deliver the context and actionable feedback needed by Dev+Ops to optimize application performance, enable innovation, and mitigate risk to help them add value and efficiency to the pipeline. Learn more at https://instana.com.

Instana

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

Sample Customers

Daxko Lifts Fitness Studios Through COVID Regulations with Quick Engineering PivotsAltissia Meets SLAs to Support Student DeadlinesImmocloud Unlocks Observability to Modernize Real EstateEnento Group Boosts Service Reliability with Real-Time Visibility into Application Performance Instana’s Observability for Amazon EKS Helps Yara Deliver Digital Farming Solutions

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

Instana Dynamic APM vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

September 2025

Free Report: Instana Dynamic APM vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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