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Active Roles by One Identity vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 20, 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

Active Roles by One Identity
Ranking in Active Directory Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (3rd), Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) (1st)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Active Directory Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (18th), Server Monitoring (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of Active Roles by One Identity is 12.3%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 3.0%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
One Identity Active Roles12.3%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor3.0%
Other84.7%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

Varun Mehra - PeerSpot reviewer
collaboration support engineer at a retailer with 11-50 employees
Automation has transformed onboarding and access control and now streamlines daily governance
While One Identity Active Roles is a strong identity and access management solution overall, there are a few areas where it could improve. One challenge we experienced was the initial setup and configuration complexity. Deploying workflows, policies, and delegation models require careful planning and a good understanding of the Active Directory environment. For organizations without experienced administrators, the learning curve can feel quite steep in the beginning. The user interface could also be more modern and intuitive. Some administrative tasks require navigating through multiple menus and the overall experience could be simplified for faster day-to-day management. Another area for improvement is reporting and customization. While the auditing features are good, creating highly customized reports sometimes requires additional efforts or scripting knowledge. More built-in reporting templates and easier dashboard customization would be helpful. We have also noticed that troubleshooting workflows or synchronization issues can occasionally take time because the logs can be very detailed and technical. Better diagnostic tools and simpler error explanations would improve the operational experience. That said, once the platform is properly configured and maintained, it performs reliably and delivers strong automation, delegation, and governance capabilities. One additional area where One Identity Active Roles could improve is cloud integration and hybrid environment management. While it works well with Active Directory and the Microsoft environment, organizations moving heavily towards cloud-first infrastructure may want even deeper and more seamless integration with modern SaaS platforms and identity providers. Performance optimization in large environments could be improved. In very large enterprise deployments with complex workflows and multiple managed domains, some administrative actions and synchronization tasks can occasionally feel slower than expected. Another point is documentation and onboarding resources. The product is feature-rich, but some advanced configurations require going through extensive documentation. More practical examples, guided setup wizards, and easier to follow best practice guides would help new administrators adopt the platform faster. Overall, the core functionality is solid, and most of the pain points are related more to usability, complexity, and modernization rather than the reliability. One additional improvement I would mention is around integration flexibility with third-party ITSM and DevOps tools. While the platform integrates well within Microsoft-centric environments, broader out-of-the-box integration and simpler API workflows for non-Microsoft ecosystems would make deployment and automation easier for organizations using diverse infrastructure. Another area is upgrade and migration simplicity. In enterprise environments, version upgrades and environment migration sometimes require careful planning and testing. Streamlining that process with more automated compatibility checks and migration assistance would reduce operational overhead.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With this solution, they are skipping all the domain administrators and keeping the normal users, which is fantastic for them because some of the personnel are basic IT technicians without the knowledge of AD advanced features."
"With the use of the sync service we were able to import information from multiple external systems and populate them within our space and leverage them for downstream systems."
"Automated provisioning and access management reduced manual administrative effort by nearly 50 to 60%, which saved significant onboarding time and lowered the number of access-related errors and support tickets."
"One Identity Active Roles has had a very positive impact on our organization, mainly by improving efficiency and security at the same time."
"One Identity Active Roles has impacted my organization by simplifying centralized Active Directory management and improving efficiency for user provisioning, access management, and routine administrative tasks."
"Active Roles helped reduce our identity-based breaches."
"One Identity Active Roles has impacted my organization positively by reducing manual work, improving security, saving administrative time, and reducing human errors."
"One Identity Active Roles has positively impacted our organization in both efficiency and security."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."
"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."
"From a customers point of view, they get a good return on investment because they are not paying a lot of money when you compare to what they used to pay for IBM and other large vendors."
"It is scalable."
"Once we got our IT inventory organized and aligned with the business, we were able to leverage our Orion Platform to provide more than just a reactive-based monitoring service to the business."
"SolarWinds is one of the best products on the market and if they eventually support the IBM Mainframe then it will be perfect."
"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."
 

Cons

"One area that could be improved in One Identity Active Roles is the user interface and initial configuration process, as some advanced workflows and policy settings can be complex for new administrators."
"When doing a workflow, we would like a bit better feedback on the screen, as we're trying to get it to work."
"One area where One Identity Active Roles can be improved is in the user interface. It can feel outdated and not very intuitive for new users."
"There are a couple of areas where One Identity Active Roles can be improved. One area is the overall user interface and experience, as the UI is sometimes very complex, so simplifying workflows for non-stakeholders would be helpful."
"Additional documentation about the Angular web interface is needed."
"The UI of One Identity Active Roles could be more modern and responsive, and some advanced workflow configurations can feel complex during setup."
"It's a fairly stable product but not perfectly reliable."
"One Identity Active Roles could be improved with better cloud-native management and SaaS options, simpler reporting, and easier customization."
"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges."
"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
"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' interface is slow, and this is a global concern."
"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."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is high. I have not been involved with the renewal or cost aspect, but I know it is not cheap by any means. However, it is very useful for our environment."
"The licensing model is a simple user-based model, not that much complicated."
"The pricing is on the higher end."
"It's expensive."
"The price is reasonable. It costs us about 1 million Danish kroner annually, and we also spend about half as much on consultants."
"It's fairly priced."
"The pricing for Active Roles is expensive but not as expensive as other solutions like Okta."
"I have always said SolarWinds is very “proud” of their products, meaning they are expensive. I cannot afford to purchase all the licenses I need for all the SolarWinds products."
"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."
"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's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"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 is overpriced in terms of application management."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business96
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise44
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for One Identity Active Roles?
I wasn't directly involved in the pricing or licensing decisions, so I cannot comment on the exact cost. For our operations, I believe the investment was considered worthwhile because the product r...
What needs improvement with One Identity Active Roles?
I think One Identity Active Roles is a mature and reliable solution, but there are a few areas where it could be improved. The biggest one is the management interface, which feels dated compared to...
What is your primary use case for One Identity Active Roles?
Our main use case for One Identity Active Roles is to simplify and standardize Active Directory administration across multiple business units while reducing the amount of manual work handled by our...
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...
 

Also Known As

Quest Active Roles
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

City of Frankfurt, Moore Public Schools, George Washington University, Transavia Airlines, Howard County, MD. See all stories at OneIdentity.com/casestudies
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Active Roles by One Identity vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
905,526 professionals have used our research since 2012.