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AWS Auto Scaling 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

AWS Auto Scaling
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
15th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (11th), Active Directory Management (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of AWS Auto Scaling is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.5%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Mbula Mboma - PeerSpot reviewer
Boosts deployment efficiency with seamless automatic scaling capabilities
My primary use case for Auto Scaling is mainly to deploy applications at scale Auto Scaling has made the deployment of applications more efficient, allowing us to manage traffic and maintain performance as user counts increase. Auto Scaling is a cool feature that works well and its automatic…
VIVEK PATHAK - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AWS Auto Scaling is very good for managing traffic and creating new instances when necessary."
"The tool gives you the flexibility to scale up and grow. The solution is also fast to deploy."
"The health check integration feature ensures that the instances are healthy and capable of absorbing traffic, thus serving their purpose effectively."
"Our internal business applications are hosted in AWS Auto Scaling."
"AWS Auto Scaling is very good for managing traffic and creating new instances when necessary."
"It can scale."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it scales automatically without manual intervention based on the metrics we provide."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to select a minimum amount of active servers so that a new server automatically launches if one fails."
"We use the solution as a central monitoring tool. We use it to monitor every transaction that has a relation to the organization’s infrastructure."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
"The solution can be deployed quickly."
"The more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature."
"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."
"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."
"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."
 

Cons

"AWS Auto Scaling's documentation could be better."
"There hasn't been a need for improvements."
"The only area of improvement is the speed at which servers are launched. When cleaning up to six servers at a time, it can take up to 15 to 20 minutes to launch new servers."
"The tool's stability could be improved."
"Setting up the configuration involves too much work for the cloud engineer, like configuring the ALB, the target group, and all the steps."
"Setting up the configuration involves too much work for the cloud engineer."
"The product could add more features for managing instances."
"We can have more auto scaling algorithms implemented in AWS Auto Scaling."
"It lacks a user experience for measuring things like the end-to-end time for which a user waits for a specific response in the system. In the application layer, it has some very basic stuff. You have to build your own with manuscripts and things like that."
"The templates could use improvement. Currently, they are quite complex. They should have drag-and-drop functionality instead. It would make it easier to use."
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
"One area that could benefit from improvement is its performance"
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."
"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

"AWS Auto Scaling is a pay-per-use and pay-as-you-use service."
"The pricing is good. I have not had any customers that have complained about the price."
"AWS Auto Scaling's price is high."
"The product has moderate pricing."
"AWS Auto Scaling is an expensive solution."
"AWS Auto Scaling is a cheap solution."
"The product is expensive."
"Understanding the counts of objects to monitor will determine the licensing need. In terms of pricing, it’s not cheap but it’s not expensive as larger vendors whose products don’t have all the features or integrations."
"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 price is too high."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"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."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS Auto Scaling?
The tool's most valuable feature is vertical auto-scaling, which is easy to use. However, most companies now prefer horizontal scaling. I set up the health check integration to monitor CPU usage. W...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Auto Scaling?
The pricing of Auto Scaling is medium range, neither high nor low.
What needs improvement with AWS Auto Scaling?
It is sometimes very critical to deploy on AWS since some servers are already running in the background. There are challenges for employees on how to deploy at a given time. It requires a downtime ...
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...
 

Also Known As

AWS Auto-Scaling
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Auto Scaling vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.