Amazon CloudWatch vs Change Auditor for Windows File Servers comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Quest Software are both solutions in the Log Management category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.1, while Quest Software is ranked #33 with an average rating of 9.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 1.9% mindshare in Log Management, compared to Quest Software’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Quest Software users who would recommend it.

Amazon CloudWatch

Read 48 Amazon CloudWatch reviews

4,548 Views
2,683 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Change Auditor for Windows ...

Read 2 Change Auditor for Windows File Servers reviews

431 Views
431 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Amazon CloudWatch

Change Auditor for Windows ...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Amazon CloudWatch and Change Auditor for Windows File Servers both serve monitoring and auditing needs. Amazon CloudWatch is preferred for its scalability and affordability, despite Change Auditor's unique audit features.

Features: Amazon CloudWatch is known for its comprehensive monitoring, logging capabilities, and seamless integration with AWS. It supports extensive scalability for growing businesses. Change Auditor offers detailed security and compliance insights, provides comprehensive audit trails, and delivers specialized features for Windows File Servers.

Room for Improvement: Amazon CloudWatch could improve its reporting capabilities and reduce complexity. Change Auditor might enhance alert customization and flexibility in integration. Both could benefit from more intuitive configuration processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon CloudWatch integrates smoothly with AWS, easing deployment, and offers quick customer service responses. Change Auditor provides tailored deployment options, although it can be complex to install. Its customer service is well-regarded but may not be as fast as Amazon.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon CloudWatch is cost-effective with its pay-as-you-go model, though costs can increase with more usage. Change Auditor offers strong ROI for its focused capabilities, though it may involve a higher initial setup cost, deemed worthwhile for specific auditing needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon CloudWatch vs. Change Auditor for Windows File Servers Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon CloudWatch vs. Change Auditor for Windows File Servers

December 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

Amazon CloudWatch

Ranking in Log Management

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (13th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)

Change Auditor for Windows ...

Ranking in Log Management

33rd

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 1.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Change Auditor for Windows File Servers is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Log Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Amazon CloudWatch	1.9%
Change Auditor for Windows File Servers	0.4%
Other	97.7%

Log Management

Featured Reviews

Azam S M

Infrastructure Lead at Danat Fz LLC

Has provided reliable monitoring and alerting through extensive metric tracking and dashboard configuration

Amazon CloudWatch itself provides a lot of data. However, for visualization, we need to use third-party tools. We are in a process of integrating Grafana, Loki, and Prometheus to have better visualization on Amazon CloudWatch. We are also integrating Grafana with the application itself to get the application data and logs. Alternatively, there is AWS Kinesis and Glue where you can scrape the logs and have visualization, but a more easy option is Grafana. If you want to get a proper visual representation to see what is happening, then you need to integrate a third-party tool. Amazon CloudWatch has all the data, but to see what is happening, you need some third-party tool.

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Krisarlex Foronda

Senior Operations Manager at Procter & Gamble

Provides granular queries of security logs and real-time alerting helps me mitigate risks

The real-time alerting helps me mitigate risks. For example, someone adds a member to the domain admin group. We have an alert set up, so if someone does this unexpectedly, we get notified. Then, we can check and verify if the action is legitimate or a potential threat to the environment.

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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

"You can enable alarms and metrics, and it has robust integration with AWS services. You can also trigger events. For example, if the CPU utilization is above 80%, it can launch a new instance for you."

"The most valuable features of Amazon CloudWatch are metrics, dashboards, alarms, logs, events, logs insight, and application insights."

"We can create events and alerts. We use the information to dive down into the infrastructure performance."

"The initial setup is easy."

"We have found the pricing to be reasonable."

"I can put it in a simple term, its simplicity is always there."

"The detection is the most valuable feature."

"The tool's UI is good. One can scroll through the logs very easily."

More Amazon CloudWatch pros

"In terms of features, the querying is great."

"The solution's most valuable aspect is that it can be fully integrated with Microsoft solutions and it doesn't impact the productivity order."

Cons

"For monitoring applications or for APM, CloudWatch has some limitations. You cannot monitor application performance from CloudWatch, and you have to go for a third-party tool."

"I found several areas for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch. First is that it's tough to track issues and find out where it's going wrong. The process takes longer. For example, if I get an exception error, I read the logs, search, go to AWS Cloud, then to the groups to find the keyword to determine what's wrong. Another area for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch is that it's slow in terms of log streaming. It requires an entire twenty-four hours for scanning, rather than just one hour. This issue can be solved with Elasticsearch streaming with Kibana, but it requires a lot of development effort and integration with Kibana or Splunk, and this also means I need a separate developer and software technical stack to do the indexing and streaming to Kibana. It's a manual effort that you need to do properly, so log streaming should be improved in Amazon CloudWatch. The AWS support person should also have a better understanding of the logs in Amazon CloudWatch. What I'd like added to the solution is a more advanced search function, particularly one that can tell you more information or special information. Right now, the search function is difficult to use because it only gives you limited data. For example, I got an error message saying that the policy wasn't created. I only know the amount the customer paid for the policy, the mobile number, and the customer name, but if I use those details, the information won't show up on the logs. I need to enter more details, so that's the type of fuzzy matching Amazon CloudWatch won't provide. If this type of search functionality is provided, it will be very helpful for businesses and companies that provide professional services to customers, like ours."

"Some of our customers want to use Kubernetes to monitor their CICD flow but Amazon CloudWatch does not support it. We need to use another solution, such as Datadog or Dynatrace has the needed capability."

"It's not very intuitive. It doesn't have drag-and-drop functionality to trigger actions from notifications."

"The dashboard and the UI could improve in Amazon CloudWatch. Additionally, they should focus on visibility inside the servers with AI and machine learning integrations. This would allow users who are using the solution to see what is happening within the system better."

"I think something that can be improved are the alerts and alerting mechanism based on no rejects. We want to have it more flexible and that is one of the key things that is required."

"The graphical interface has room for improvement. CloudWatch only gives you a breakdown of what's wrong. However, it would be nice if it could automatically remedy the problems it identifies. You should be able to configure it so that when a specific condition arises, it will take a predefined action."

"The integration with third-party tools must be made easier."

More Amazon CloudWatch cons

"The customer service and support could improve their approach to questioning issues. They tend to ask questions one at a time, which creates a lot of back-and-forth communication."

"The pricing could be improved. It needs to be reduced."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a free-of-charge service."

"The price is okay for me."

"The pricing is average."

"The solution is expensive."

"Amazon CloudWatch has very cheap pricing, and it hardly costs my company $25-$30 a month for fifty systems, so it's pretty affordable."

"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable. When the rate of data collection is done the price will increase. The price is less than other solutions."

"We have monthly licensing costs. The licenses are probably in the vicinity of about $300 - $350/month."

"The pricing model is pay-as-you-go so you have to be mindful of usage to manage costs."

More Amazon CloudWatch pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is per user. The cost is approximately $15/user on a yearly basis. If you need to, you can always upgrade as well."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Transportation Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	24

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon CloudWatch?

The monitoring features are valuable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudWatch?

No specific setup costs were mentioned.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?

See all answers

What do you like most about Change Auditor for Windows File Servers?

In terms of features, the querying is great.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Change Auditor for Windows File Servers?

They've already made improvements! They have a tool called IT Security Search, which lets you perform queries outside of Change Auditor. It's much faster. This is a really good addition and helps u...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Change Auditor for Windows File Servers?

I use Change Auditor for Windows File Servers to log history. It's helpful when we have critical changes in Active Directory, like adding or removing items. I use it extensively for monitoring.

See all answers

Comparisons

Grafana Loki vs Amazon CloudWatch

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon OpenSearch Service vs Amazon CloudWatch

Compared 8% of the time

Zabbix vs Amazon CloudWatch

Compared 6% of the time

Dynatrace vs Amazon CloudWatch

Compared 5% of the time

Datadog vs Amazon CloudWatch

Compared 4% of the time

More Amazon CloudWatch Competitors

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Change Auditor for Windows File Servers

Compared 41% of the time

FileAudit vs Change Auditor for Windows File Servers

Compared 33% of the time

Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs Change Auditor for Windows File Servers

Compared 27% of the time

More Change Auditor for Windows File Servers Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon CloudWatch

January 2026

Download Amazon CloudWatch product report

Buyer's Guide

Log Management

January 2026

Change Auditor for Windows File Servers report

Download Change Auditor for Windows File Servers product report

Overview

Amazon CloudWatch integrates seamlessly with AWS, providing real-time monitoring and alerting features. Its interface supports task automation, enhancing troubleshooting and analytics capabilities, while offering strong security and scalability at a cost-effective rate.

Amazon CloudWatch is an impactful platform for monitoring AWS resources and managing application performance. It simplifies infrastructure performance monitoring by providing comprehensive analytics capabilities, including application insights and event scheduling. Users appreciate CloudWatch for its detailed metrics, dashboards, and support in issuing alerts to detect anomalies. It efficiently tracks performance, optimizes resource utilization, and ensures service availability. CloudWatch is recognized for its robust alerting features and integration with other AWS services, further supporting its resource monitoring capabilities. However, there is room for improvement in dashboard customization, log streaming speed, and integration with non-AWS services. Enhancements in API integration, machine learning features, and support for third-party tools are also desired.

What features does Amazon CloudWatch offer?

Seamless Integration: Works effortlessly with AWS for cohesive service management.
Advanced Metrics: Provides detailed monitoring of CPU, memory, and more.
Real-time Monitoring: Offers up-to-the-minute alerts on infrastructure status.
Dashboards: User-friendly and informative for quick insights.
Automation: Supports task automation for efficient troubleshooting.

What benefits does Amazon CloudWatch provide?

Cost-effectiveness: Efficient resource monitoring without high costs.
Scalability: Easily adapts to growing infrastructure needs.
Security: Strong protocols for safe monitoring activities.
Improved Performance: Enhances application insights and operational efficiency.
Operational Insights: Provides comprehensive logging and performance analysis.

Industries implementing Amazon CloudWatch often focus on optimizing IT infrastructure. Companies in sectors like finance and e-commerce rely on its monitoring and alerting capabilities to ensure service uptime and performance. The platform's automation and analytics features empower teams to proactively manage performance and detect potential issues promptly.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Change Auditor for Windows File Servers helps you control and audit changes to Microsoft Windows file servers efficiently and cost-effectively. It proactively tracks, audits, reports and alerts on vital changes in real time and without the overhead of native auditing.

You will instantly know the “who, what, when, where and originating workstation” details, and get the original and current values for fast troubleshooting. You can then automatically generate intelligent, in-depth forensics for auditors and management, reducing the risks associated with day-to-day modifications and ensuring confidence at your next audit.

Quest Software

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus

Dragon Capital, Howard County MD

Buyer's Guide

Amazon CloudWatch vs. Change Auditor for Windows File Servers

December 2025

Free Report: Amazon CloudWatch vs. Change Auditor for Windows File Servers

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