SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

SolarWinds and Splunk are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. SolarWinds is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.4, while Splunk is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.3. SolarWinds holds a 1.4% mindshare in APM, compared to Splunk’s 4.0% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 42 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

3,776 Views
2,681 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Splunk AppDynamics

Read 252 Splunk AppDynamics reviews

12,248 Views
9,676 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Splunk AppDynamics

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 17, 2025

Splunk AppDynamics and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor compete in the application monitoring category. Splunk AppDynamics seems to have the upper hand due to its in-depth code-level insights and advanced transaction tracking features.

Features: Splunk AppDynamics provides detailed code-level insights with robust transaction tracking, JVM memory monitoring, and real-time performance metrics. Its ability to correlate business transactions across nodes and auto-baseline applications offers a comprehensive end-to-end transaction view. SolarWinds excels in basic infrastructure and network health monitoring, with strengths in maintaining server performance and availability.

Room for Improvement: Splunk AppDynamics could improve its network monitoring capabilities, agent management, and cloud technology support. Simplifying its licensing structure and enhancing its user interface would also be beneficial. SolarWinds could improve its performance and stability during scaling, reduce false positives, and enhance its custom report creation and integration capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Splunk AppDynamics is praised for responsive and knowledgeable customer service but can be complex to deploy in hybrid environments. SolarWinds is easier to install in on-premises environments but struggles with hybrid or cloud deployments, and its customer service may not efficiently manage upgrades and scaling.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk AppDynamics is considered expensive, with detailed insights justifying the ROI for many. It is important to evaluate needs to manage costs effectively by choosing relevant modules. SolarWinds offers better value with lower pricing but may require additional investments for advanced features and enterprise-scale deployments.

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

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk AppDynamics

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

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)

Splunk AppDynamics

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

252

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Mobile APM (1st), Container Monitoring (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.4%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 4.0%, down from 5.6% 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 (%)
Splunk AppDynamics	4.0%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.4%
Other	94.6%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

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

Gyanesh Rahatekar

Back office at Reliance Industries Ltd

Application performance management and error resolution improved with data-driven insights

Dynatrace has multiple functions compared to Splunk AppDynamics, so Splunk AppDynamics should add those functions, which are not available as of now. Dynatrace has a universal agent that collects all information related to their CI, and if one CI has multiple languages, then there is no need to instrument multiple agents. However, Splunk AppDynamics requires multiple agents; if I have one server with multiple applications in different languages, then I need to instrument different agents for each application. Splunk AppDynamics should work with Dynatrace with one single universal agent that works with all application languages, eliminating the need for multiple implementations.

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

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."

"Identifying the problem statement is easy."

"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."

"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."

"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."

"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."

"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"I find troubleshooting is quicker because we can drill down into the end points and see which endpoints are getting critical. Visibility-wise, the micro details are easy to find."

"The features of Splunk AppDynamics that I appreciate most are the business processes, which benefit my organization by providing a bigger picture, not only of their own systems, however, how it influences other parts of the environment and how we are being influenced by other parts."

"What I like the most about Splunk AppDynamics is the end-to-end observability for the application, along with traces."

"After a major incident, root cause analysis is conducted and, most of the time, we understand what caused the incident and how it can be prevented from happening again."

"Provides monitoring more around business processes versus just servers, applications, etc. E.g., with complex systems, where a business process passes across multiple applications, the business needs us to monitor the heath of the process, not just a segment of the application."

"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the ability to discover and track transactions."

"Being able to install it on-prem and monitor our on-prem infrastructure is important for us... Most of our infrastructure is on-prem. We have highly scalable systems and AppDynamics will help us monitor our load on-prem. Our systems range from simple to the most complex and it gives us the visibility across transactions, in one dashboard."

"The solution helps us provide a better user experience to our customers."

More Splunk AppDynamics pros

Cons

"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."

"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."

"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."

"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."

"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."

"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."

"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."

"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"We constantly need to improve our alert mechanism because we get a lot of false-positive alerts. These are not real errors. In addition, for end-user monitoring, sometimes, we are not able to catch all user activities. Because of not being able to follow the user activity from the start to the end, we are missing out on the performance issues."

"When you have high stress of visits I do not know if you are more stress because of the amount of visits or because you have to wait eternal 60 seconds to find out it things are going well or you already have mess."

"The solution must improve security and setup."

"There needs to be an option to capture all the sessions for all the users, not just samplings."

"Sometimes, it is hard to navigate through and find if something is wrong or figure out where an error stemmed from."

"AppDynamics Server Monitoring has room for improvement in terms of pricing. If the price could be cheaper, it would be great for both the customer and the integrator. What I'd like to see in the next release of AppDynamics Server Monitoring is a better dashboard for the customer. The dashboard should be more interactive."

"I have found it sometimes a bit difficult to trace the transaction all the way through to the application. I'm not sure if that problem is on the database side or on the application side, but that would be something that I would like to be improved. The traceability from the application to the database, sometimes, is a bit of a challenge. If you're using AppDynamics, with the Java agent, for instance, you need to be able to trace it through."

"One area for improvement is the MST model. It would be more helpful if it could be offered as a managed service provider model with more multi-tenancy and features."

More Splunk AppDynamics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."

"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."

"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."

"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."

"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."

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

"The price is too high."

"Price can always be lower. It is neither on the expensive side nor on the cheap side. We have worked with them for a lot of years, so we get a discount due to the size of the installation."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"Our purchasing experience through the AWS Marketplace has been pretty painless."

"It is not a cheap tool, but you also save in manpower to setup because it is easy and fast. At the end of the day, I think the revenue is much better. BUT, they have an awful co-term mode of licensing."

"There is an annual cost to use this solution. The licensing model could be improved by making it more cost-effective."

"AppDynamics Server Monitoring is a very expensive product, but if you negotiate well, you get value for money...My company used to make early payments toward the licensing costs of the solution, but now my company has opted for a different licensing model."

"The licensing scheme is very complex. They need to make it easier."

"I rate AppDynamics Mobile Real-User Monitoring's pricing as seven out of ten. Mobile monitoring is paid based on the number of instances utilizing the mobile monitoring service, which increases as the scale grows. Consequently, your mobile user count can proportionally surpass all other applications."

"There is a license needed to use the solution and it is expensive. The licensing model needs to improve."

"It could be cheaper. It's a little cost prohibitive. There are so many features that also show a lot of value, but it’s not always easy to justify the cost."

More Splunk AppDynamics pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

28%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	54
Midsize Enterprise	36
Large Enterprise	188

Questions from the Community

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

Any advice about APM solutions?

There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...

See all answers

APM tools for a Managed Service Provider - Dynatrace vs. AppDynamics vs. Aternity vs. Ruxit

Hi Avi! It's great to see your thorough approach to selecting an APM package for your MSP company. Considering your focus on SMBs and enterprises in Israel, Dynatrace seems like a solid choice with...

See all answers

What do you like most about AppDynamics?

The solution saves time and cost.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 17% of the time

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 16% of the time

Prometheus Group vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

Nagios XI vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Dynatrace vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 14% of the time

Datadog vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 9% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 8% of the time

New Relic vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 8% of the time

Instana Dynamic APM vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 2% of the time

More Splunk AppDynamics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

August 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk AppDynamics

August 2025

Download Splunk AppDynamics product report

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM

No data available

Overview

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

Splunk AppDynamics enhances application performance monitoring with advanced diagnostics and real-time insights, offering seamless end-to-end transaction tracking and infrastructure visibility.

AppDynamics provides critical tools for businesses to analyze application behavior and performance. Through innovative features like transaction snapshot analysis and adaptable dashboards, users can quickly identify and address issues, ensuring high levels of system uptime and efficiency. It is designed to support complex environments including Kubernetes and AWS, enhancing user experience by detecting performance issues early. Despite needing improvements in network monitoring and integration, it remains a robust option for tracking application health.

What are the key features of AppDynamics?

Real-time Performance Monitoring: Offers immediate insights into application behavior.
Business Transaction Tracking: Tracks transactions from start to finish for bottleneck identification.
JVM Memory Monitoring: Provides detailed JVM metrics and memory use information.
Deep-dive Diagnostics: Enables in-depth analysis of code and stack traces.
Adaptable Dashboards: Customizable views for better data interpretation.

How does AppDynamics benefit users?

Improved Incident Resolution: Faster problem detection and solution implementation.
Enhanced Application Performance: Real-time monitoring optimizes system operations.
Comprehensive Visibility: Provides a full view of application infrastructure.
Informed Decision Making: Detailed analytics guide performance improvements.
Customer Satisfaction: Enhances user experience through faster issue resolutions.

In industries like financial services and e-commerce, AppDynamics facilitates performance tracking across distributed systems, optimizing infrastructure to meet consumer demands. It excels in environments needing precise transaction monitoring and is pivotal in delivering high value and satisfaction.

Splunk

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Cisco, Sony, Nasdaq, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Edmunds.com, Puma, Fox News, DirecTV, Pizza Hut, T-Systems, Cornell University, OpenTable, BITMARCK, Green Mountain Power, Care.com, Overstock, Paddy Power, eHarmony, Kraft, The Motley Fool, The Container Store, and more See more customers

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk AppDynamics

September 2025

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