Apica vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Apica and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Apica is ranked #17 with an average rating of 7.7, while SolarWinds is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.4. Apica holds a 0.4% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.4% mindshare. Additionally, 81% of Apica users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Apica

Read 11 Apica reviews

1,214 Views
826 Comparison Views

81% 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

Apica

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and Apica compete in monitoring IT infrastructure and applications. Based on user reviews, Apica holds an advantage due to its feature-rich experience and advanced capabilities, despite SolarWinds' strengths in detailed insights.

Features: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor offer customizable monitoring options, detailed application performance insights, and comprehensive internal infrastructure monitoring. Apica provides robust synthetic monitoring, extensive API testing tools, and focuses on external performance metrics.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve in scalability, reducing resource consumption, and optimizing performance. Apica could enhance ease of use, dashboard intuitiveness, and simplify its configuration process.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is noted for its straightforward installation process and responsive support team. Apica’s deployment can be complex and might require more technical expertise, but it also has a supportive customer service team.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor offers competitive pricing and is regarded as providing good ROI due to its extensive feature set and ease of use. Apica, though potentially higher in cost, is seen as worth the investment by users due to its advanced monitoring capabilities.

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

Buyer's Guide

Apica 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

Apica

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

17th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (18th), IT Operations Analytics (5th), Observability Pipeline Software (2nd)

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 Apica is 0.4%, up from 0.2% 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 (%)
Apica	0.4%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.4%
Other	98.2%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Punith H K

Senior Systems Engineer at Infosys

Enables users to create scripts easily and provides excellent real-time monitoring features

It is easy to create scripts. We don't have to write any script. Ready-made options are available. We can select, drag, and drop the options, and the script is ready. The solution’s real-time monitoring features have had a huge impact on our service delivery. If we have an application and the script for it, we keep monitoring it. When the script goes red, it indicates that something is not working. So, we check and analyze the applications. We keep track of applications and monitor whether they are live or not. The tool is also useful for monitoring cloud services.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"APICa allows me to record APIs easily and enhances scripts through options like auto-correlation, enabling me to access dynamic fields."

"Apica allows me to record APIs easily and enhances scripts through options like auto-correlation, enabling me to access dynamic fields."

"It helps with releases because we monitor them in staging. We can tell if something is critically wrong before it gets into production, e.g., if it was load related or function related and also what was different in the dev stage. It then alerts us straightaway inside of our production monitors once it has been released. Therefore, it has improved how we run our systems since we monitor multiple environments."

"It is easy to set up and configure."

"The solution captures all our requests and responses."

"I like the transcript download feature. And with UI scripting, it's helpful that Apica handles a lot of the backend work automatically. I don't have to tag everything manually, though I can tag elements later if needed. It's really good at recording the steps."

"Our application SREs do script checks in such a way that closely mimic our customers' actions using the platform. Because there are so many different ways and options to be able to configure checks to closely mirror your applications' capabilities, it provides a lot of optionality for teams to create the right type of check that can notify when there are any issues. At the end of the day, we want our monitoring tools to be able to catch any outage before our customers do. This is where Apica Synthetic does a great job."

"What I like the most is that Apica can simulate different browsers and different versions of desktop or mobile browsers."

More Apica pros

"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."

"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."

"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."

"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."

"The product integrates with Remedy."

"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"The tool does not provide automatic correlation features."

"Learning the tool has always been a little difficult from a scripting perspective because the framework is proprietary and unique. Once we became used to what it does and how to perform it, then it became easier for my team and me. I would like to see some of the testing steps be part of a more well-known language, like Java or Python. That would be a big improvement."

"The having to install an application on your desktop to utilize something like ZebraTester is a little cumbersome. It would be nice to see that become a web-based application. Having the documentation a little more accessible, and easier to digest by people who are just learning how to use the framework, especially when it comes to more complex or more edge-based cases would be really helpful to have."

"The customer service and support were a little slow to respond. The browser sometimes checks alerts on unknown issues like latency from Apica's side."

"If you are adding any input file, the tool fails to capture the path."

"Apica was a relatively new tool when I started using it. Although Apica had good documentation, it still felt less developed or advanced than a tool like LoadRunner."

"I have noticed that the tool isn't widely recognized outside our organization. Also, there aren't any tutorials or dedicated resources for this tool, making it challenging for newcomers to learn. It would be beneficial if someone experienced with it could provide guidance."

"We have been focused on reducing polling times for synthetic checks. We have gone from 10 minutes down to five minutes for a pretty broad swath, but there is some appetite to reduce that further, which could be an improvement."

More Apica cons

"The technical support was better in previous years. With the launch of the premium support service, the normal support has declined."

"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."

"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."

"The product needs to reduce its price."

"The stability, flexibility, and ease of use could be improved."

"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."

"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."

"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is fair. It is neither too cheap nor too expensive."

"License management is another area that Apica could do better. We have already had these conversations with our account teams. This is something that they are looking at largely improving in upcoming releases. I believe that this is already on their roadmap."

"The level of alerting accuracy has saved us time and money in operational costs. Overall, it has automated a lot of the manual efforts which have been more complex with some of our other scripting tools or monitors. So, it brings things together by doing things faster and saves us money."

"I know Apica is an expensive solution, but it is worth the money for the service it provides."

"I am sure that Apica's price will be lower than LoadRunner."

"Another main difference between Apica and the other products was the cost. We really thought that the balance in Apica between the features and costs was the best among all the products on which we did a PoC."

"Apica is pretty cost-effective if you buy both solutions together: Synthetic and LoadTest. If you are going for one solution, the cost is on par with any tool in the market."

"The tool is completely free and open source. I've been using it for about two and a half years and installed it on both my personal and client machines without needing a license. All features are available for use without any hidden fees."

More Apica pricing and cost advice

"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."

"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."

"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."

"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."

"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."

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

"The price is too high."

"The product is expensive."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

24%

Media Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

Retailer

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	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	17

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apica Synthetic?

The GUI is powerful and doesn't require scripting or regular expressions. It has a vast finder for correlation, which is easier than other tools like JMeter and LoadRunner. It's also easy to integr...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apica Synthetic?

I know Apica is an expensive solution, but it is worth the money for the service it provides.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Apica Synthetic?

Apica cannot perform endurance or scale-up tests independently. It requires other tools like ALM. When editing scripts, only one can be accessed at a time, risking changes affecting other folders. ...

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

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Apica

September 2025

Download Apica 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

Apica LoadTest, Apica Synthetic

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

Apica leads in observability cost optimization, empowering IT teams to manage telemetry data economics efficiently. It supports various data types, reducing costs by 40% with flexible deployment options and eliminating tool sprawl through modular solutions.

Apica Ascent optimizes observability costs across metrics, logs, traces, and events and provides adaptability beyond proprietary formats. Its patented InstaStore™ technology ensures maximum storage efficiency and advanced root cause analysis. Organizations leverage Apica for comprehensive control over observability investments, reducing runaway costs. With solutions for mitigating high-cardinality data challenges, Apica supports any data lake preference and offers cloud or on-premises deployments. Its modular solutions eliminate unnecessary tool redundancies, enhancing economic efficiency in telemetry data management.

What features define Apica's capabilities?

Global Presence: Extensive points of presence worldwide
Advanced Alerting: Accurate system notifications
Robust Scripting: Supports multiple protocols easily
Flexible Integration: Effortless system connections
Environment Simulation: Adapts various test scenarios globally

Which benefits should users expect from Apica?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces observability costs by 40%
Data Flexibility: Supports any data source
Modular Approach: Eliminates tool redundancies
Advanced Analysis: Enhanced root cause capabilities
Deployment Variety: Cloud and on-premises options available

Apica addresses industry needs in monitoring and testing applications, enhancing user experience across sectors. It is instrumental in synthetic checks, load testing, API monitoring, and validating functionalities for stability in gaming, finance, eCommerce, and banking platforms. Apica's versatility supports both on-premises and cloud environments, ensuring accurate insights into service availability and network performance.

Apica

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

HBO, JPMC, Morgan Stanley, Xander, EA Sports, Volvo

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

Apica vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

September 2025

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