No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

AlertSite vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor 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

AlertSite
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
38th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
API Monitoring Software (3rd)
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 (8th), Active Directory Management (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of AlertSite is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.3%, down from 1.6% 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 Monitor1.3%
AlertSite0.5%
Other98.2%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

IH
Assistant Director at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Enterprise-level monitoring facilitates global observability and seamless script creation with intuitive tools
SmartBear, as a vendor, is focusing more on API management and testing rather than monitoring. AlertSite could benefit from more future-focused innovation, especially with competencies in generative AI. Additionally, support from AlertSite is not at an enterprise level since it is not offered 24/7. Outside of critical platform issues, there's no continuous support available.
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

"I found multiple features in AlertSite that I like. One is data monitoring history, for example, a history of the blackouts and the data. Sometimes, there's a glitch in the application that AlertSite can capture, and the tool notifies you about that glitch. It also identifies issues that could happen in the future. AlertSite is also a fast tool that you can use to monitor on-premise servers, internal applications, and even global applications. The data is available on a single UI in AlertSite, so there's no need to monitor and click on different applications or URLs. I also love that the tool is quite user-friendly, apart from being fast."
"The alerting capabilities of AlertSite were really helpful."
"The return on investment of this solution is well witnessed in our organization because of the integration and various capabilities that it offers to interact with the upstream or downstream systems."
"There are custom reports available along with the inbuilt reports."
"My company went with AlertSite because as a tool, it's fast, easy to maintain, and provides great support."
"I highly recommend AlertSite to other users."
"The alerting capabilities were really helpful."
"This solution has numerous advantages; it's extremely simple to configure, and either digital monitors or single-URL monitors are simple to configure and build."
"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."
"The solution is end-to-end from the network and the application to the processes, everything about the enterprise infrastructure is being covered by the solution, it's easy to use and easy to navigate and one of the leaders among monitoring solutions."
"The component and cable monitoring are good, and SolarWinds is more intuitive and user-friendly than AppDynamics."
"The solution can be deployed quickly."
"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."
"This feature from Solarwinds SAM helped us to monitor and alert whenever the SSL cert is going to expire on the server to avoid any downtime of the services running on the server specially on ADFS platform where we have Video conference, Webex, Office 365 and single sign-on services."
"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."
"SolarWinds SAM has significantly improved our workflow by allowing us to develop a comprehensive knowledge base of known errors and automate responses to specific alerts."
 

Cons

"One area that needs improvement in AlertSite is the slow UI. I'm using the classic UI because it's quite user-friendly, or in human-readable format, but it's a little slow. It takes time to load all the monitors, so if that could be sped up, that would be helpful. The AlertSite support team also needs improvement in terms of availability. Most of the agents in the team aren't available 24 x 7, so if there's something you need to discuss, you need to tell the support team ahead of time to schedule it. Multiple times, when a case comes up during weekends or whenever my team is doing an update, support needs improvement, availability-wise. I use AlertSite for synthetic monitoring, so whatever is available right now is okay, but if I want to request a new feature on a website, currently, the UI refreshes automatically. I would like to have the option on AlertSite to configure that manually. The UI auto-updates every few minutes, so if I can control that manually, that would be helpful."
"It is not compatible with all of the product platforms that we use."
"AlertSite sometimes triggers false alerts or fake alerts, which needs to be rectified. When we see an alert and go ahead and run certain tests on it, the test always passes. However, on the main screen, it shows up as critical. Therefore, the false alert needs to be fixed."
"What needs improvement in AlertSite is the documentation, particularly the lack of documentation. If there's a specific activity you want to do, you can't even find information on how to do it, so you have to contact the AlertSite support team to assist you, and only then would the issue be resolved. At the moment, it's not easy to find or get full documentation on how to deal with different issues. You always have to go back to AlertSite support and get help. The documentation for AlertSite could be improved and it's what I'd like to see in the next release of the tool because at the moment, the documentation isn't complete, so you'll have to contact support, but contacting support isn't an issue because the team responds to you quickly."
"What needs improvement in AlertSite is the documentation, particularly the lack of documentation."
"AlertSite requires improvements related to security, even at the enterprise level."
"I could use a few changes to the user interface."
"I would like the ability to get more data points with regard to some of the unique requirements that we have."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"In terms of the dashboards on offer, they should work to improve them."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"One area that could benefit from improvement is its performance"
"Mapping interactions between systems."
"The stability, flexibility, and ease of use could be improved."
"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is high."
"We purchased the license once and had the option of selecting the number of user licenses."
"My company pays to use AlertSite, but I'm unsure of the exact costs because it depends on how many monitors you have."
"We are on an annual license to use the solution. The price of the solution is expensive. The price is based on a bunch of factors, such as the number of engines and elements."
"The product is expensive."
"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 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."
"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."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.
885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
25%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Transportation Company
7%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AlertSite?
I would rate the pricing aspects of AlertSite as nine out of ten, indicating it is good or low-priced.
What needs improvement with AlertSite?
SmartBear, as a vendor, is focusing more on API management and testing rather than monitoring. AlertSite could benefit from more future-focused innovation, especially with competencies in generativ...
What is your primary use case for AlertSite?
I have been working with the AlertSite ( /products/alertsite-reviews ) product since 2019. Within our organization, specifically one service unit at one of the Big Four firms, this product has been...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, Payless ShoeSource, Hilton Inc., StubHub, Symantec, Newegg, Sapient, AstraZeneca, Dell, Quest Diagnostics
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about AlertSite vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.