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Akamai mPulse vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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

Akamai mPulse
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
64th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (5th), Active Directory Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Akamai mPulse is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.0%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.0%
Akamai mPulse0.6%
Other98.4%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Arivu Arumugam - PeerSpot reviewer
Staff Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Lacking in regard to observation of the entire platform but does dynamic injections from within
There is little that's unique about mPulse but since the solution is part of Akamai, you can do dynamic injections from within the product which is a great feature. the UI is quite good. It offers a basic set of features but nothing unique other than that as part of Akamai, you can do dynamic injections.
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

"It’s a very good product for performance tracking, I haven’t used many others, so I can’t comment on a competitive level."
"There's a good relationship between the price and the licences."
"We are a worldwide company and we need to have a solution with good performance which the solution is providing us with; it has helped our company."
"It provides a great overview for management regarding user experience."
"The most valuable feature is the solutions overall performance. It is very efficient and accurate for our usage."
"There is little that's unique about mPulse but since the solution is part of Akamai, you can do dynamic injections from within the product which is a great feature."
"It provides real-time monitoring for performance and availability of specific portions of the website without a significant data overhead."
"Enables dynamic injections from within the product which is great."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
"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."
"We choose the Solarwinds based on the simplication of managing the tool itself."
"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."
"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."
"The initial setup was relatively easy, and we didn't have to install anything. All we had to do was put on the devices we wanted to monitor."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."
"The product integrates with Remedy."
 

Cons

"The end-to-end distributor tracing connectivity isn't there."
"The solution didn't help us much and that's the reason we never used mPulse on a full scale and why we chose to go with Dynatrace."
"Scalability to larger volume of data seems to be hit or miss."
"It needs a more intuitive GUI and more customization options."
"They work very well, only thing is they need more time to improve and fix all the issues."
"In the next release, I would like to see the possibility of sharing the metric from this solution with other solutions."
"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."
"Having two places to build and manage alerts is not efficient and not all alerting tools are available in the trap manager."
"AppInsight needs to include more applications, the current list is very limited."
"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."
"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."
"It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle."
"SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"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."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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

SOASTA mPulse
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nordstrom, Gatwick, DirecTV, MSN, SquareSpace, SAP, Lenovo, Hallmark, myspace, Intuit, Kentucky Derby, Toys "R" Us, Netflix, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Lowe's, Nike, REI, Apple, Sears, Verizon, Wendy's, Huawei
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai mPulse vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.