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Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Azure Monitor
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
3rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (5th)
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Obs...
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
34th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Azure Monitor is 6.2%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Usman Khawar - PeerSpot reviewer
Native integration simplifies monitoring but documentation and cost improvements are needed
The ease of access in Azure is significant since it's native to the platform and easy to integrate. It has no maintenance overhead, and users don't have to navigate to another portal to get their desired result. It's the handiness that it has, rather than the features. The interpretation from the logs and injection requires custom runbooks. While it's complex, many services provide native insights and workbooks. It does the basic job quite efficiently. They added new kinds of metrics with more integrations to send out metrics. They have even added support for third-party tools that can be integrated. Azure Monitor is working on improvements and becoming more mature. Azure Monitor is stable and scalable. Azure Monitor is evolving with new workbooks and dashboards.
Ravi Khanchandani - PeerSpot reviewer
A unified platform designed to monitor the entire infrastructure
The tool's escalation process needs improvement. More support is needed for the new generation of solutions, particularly SD-WAN support and newer storage components. Additionally, as more vendors move towards API-based monitoring, we anticipate SolarWinds HCO will increase integrations with other solutions. Another area for improvement is reporting. With infrastructure becoming increasingly diverse, the static infrastructures of the past are evolving into dynamic setups. Traditionally, we had wireless in the office, a backend Internet connection, and connections to head offices and data centers. With the advent of SD-WAN, multiple service providers, and cloud-based options, infrastructure is more dynamic. Today, most customers are not using on-premise solutions exclusively; they are opting for Office 365, G Suite, or similar services. Therefore, monitoring requirements are no longer limited to on-premise infrastructure but span diverse environments—some on-premise, some in the cloud. This is why SolarWinds is moving towards hybrid cloud observability. We would like to see more integrations and support for third-party vendors. For example, current support for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is limited, and expanding this support would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a Microsoft native tool, so it works well with other Microsoft technologies, which is predominantly what our customer end-user base is."
"Azure Monitor gives us the observability to check everything that we have in the cloud."
"Technical support is good and helpful...The initial setup is easy."
"The solution has tons of valuable features."
"I find the query language in this tool very beneficial, as it allows me to customize some dashboards and create alerts according to my thresholds and metrics."
"I use the solution to monitor the infrastructure and applications."
"The most valuable features of Azure Monitor are the login analytics workspace and we can write any kind of custom queries in order to receive the data that is inserted into the login analytics workspace, diagnostic settings, et cetera."
"The solution's most valuable features are its ease of use and support for multiple environments"
"I rate my satisfaction with SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability at nine out of ten."
"The primary use cases are for customers who require complete infrastructure monitoring. I mean IT infrastructure, which includes network devices, security devices, and server environments, whether physical, virtual, or cloud-based. The platform can manage any infrastructure component that needs monitoring."
"The initial setup is straightforward and quick if prerequisites are met, taking only a couple of days."
"SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability offers very good community support with many documents and best cases for various situations."
 

Cons

"The cost skyrockets once you start using it, and there are complaints that the actual cost of the Kubernetes cluster was less than the cost they were incurring for Azure Monitor."
"The process of implementation needs to be easier."
"The solution should have cross-connection or cross-communication between tech partners."
"They need to work with other cloud providers - not just Azure."
"In terms of pricing, Azure Monitor's billing based on data size can sometimes lead to increased costs, especially when developers need to purge data frequently. While there are mechanisms in place to track and manage this, there is room for improvement in terms of optimizing data pausing and related processes. Enhancements in this area could help mitigate potential billing concerns and provide a more seamless experience for users."
"The scalability could be improved as there are some limitations."
"I believe Azure Monitor is already a top-notch solution with excellent functionality and there is not much I would suggest for improvement. However, there is one limitation that certain features require payment, even for testing purposes, which can be a challenge."
"The onboarding process of certain assets and the overall UI can be improved in Azure Monitor"
"The solution could improve in areas such as on-premises container monitoring, CICD observability, and providing additional documentation and support files in languages other than English."
"Event management features can be added as it has limited capability to ingest events from external sources."
"The solution could improve in areas such as on-premises container monitoring, CICD observability, and providing additional documentation and support files in languages other than English."
"SolarWinds HCO platform offers various features spanning components, such as network, security, server, virtual, and application components. Common features include dashboarding, reporting, and alerting. These features provide comprehensive visibility, allowing you to see how one area's issues affect others. For instance, if a network issue impacts server performance, this visibility is crucial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is a monthly fee."
"The solution is very costly because you have to pay for various things such as adding to logs and internet alerts."
"Regarding pricing, Azure Monitor is free with Azure license, so there are no additional costs for using it."
"Azure Monitor is a low-priced solution, which is why it would work best on small-scale projects."
"There is a monthly fee for the alerts triggered and the data stored."
"Besides standard licensing fees the customer needs to additionally pay based on the ingested data size"
"It is a pay-as-you-go model. I find it very cost-effective."
"The cost of Azure Monitor application performance should be less expensive."
"The solution's pricing is quite reasonable. It has moved to node-based licensing, simplifying the process. They don't distinguish between different types of nodes, such as server nodes, physical routers, or switches. One node equals one license, making it easy to manage. If you have 500 devices, you need five hundred licenses to get all the features of this unified monitoring platform."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does Splunk compare with Azure Monitor?
Splunk handles a high amount of data very well. We use Splunk to capture information and as an aggregator for monitoring information from different sources. Splunk is very good at alerting us if we...
What do you like most about Azure Monitor?
Azure Monitor is a very easy-to-use product in the cloud environment.
What needs improvement with Azure Monitor?
The primary challenge is the documentation. The major challenge that remains is the costing factor for the logs ingestion. The cost skyrockets once you start using it, and there are complaints that...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability?
Event management features can be added as it has limited capability to ingest events from external sources.
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability?
I work day-to-day on SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability ( /products/solarwinds-hybrid-cloud-observability-reviews ). It covers network, server, storage, and networking.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rackspace, First Gas, Allscripts, ABB Group
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Monitor vs. SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.