Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Microsoft and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Microsoft is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.7, while SolarWinds is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.4. Microsoft holds a 4.3% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Azure Monitor

Read 55 Azure Monitor reviews

11,124 Views
9,900 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

3,599 Views
2,339 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Azure Monitor

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and Azure Monitor compete in the server and application monitoring category. SolarWinds has an upper hand in pricing and customer support, while Azure Monitor is preferred for its integration and advanced features.

Features: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor offers comprehensive monitoring, robust alerting capabilities, and easy configuration. Azure Monitor provides advanced analytics, scalability, and seamless integration with other Azure services.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could enhance scalability and simplify reporting. Azure Monitor could improve its intuitive setup processes and integration documentation. SolarWinds needs better support for large-scale deployments, and Azure Monitor could benefit from improved initial setup support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor has a straightforward on-premises deployment model and responsive customer service. Azure Monitor offers cloud-based deployment, but its customer service is sometimes perceived as less proactive.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is considered cost-effective with a positive ROI due to robust features at a reasonable price. Azure Monitor's pricing is higher but offers substantial ROI through its advanced functionalities and integration with Azure services.

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

Buyer's Guide

Azure Monitor vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

November 2025

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Helped 872,846 peers since 2012

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 Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

6th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Monitoring Software (3rd)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

20th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (10th), Active Directory Management (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Azure Monitor is 4.3%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.2%, 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 (%)
Azure Monitor	4.3%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.2%
Other	94.5%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Usman Khawar

Software Engineer (DevOps/ SRE) at Sensys LLC

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.

Read full review

NikhilKalwint

Technical Specialist at ServiceIO

Monitoring over a thousand systems has improved decision making and operational visibility

From an advantage perspective, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is comparatively cheaper from a commercial point of view. It is easy to install and configure, very user-friendly, and quick to get up and running, allowing you to see the early value adds in your organization. It is compatible with most technologies for monitoring with very few chances of incompatibility. Configuration also allows us to monitor all the technical parameters we are looking for, making it a very good experience for us. The alerting feature in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is a main advantage, as it alerts based on threshold breaches and can raise tickets to the ticketing system, send SMS, and email notifications, allowing engineers to work on those tickets to resolve issues and avoid further impact. The visibility into server health is a beneficial feature that I am utilizing. We widely use various application performance metrics in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor such as database monitoring and server monitoring, which are quite good enough for any monitoring solution. We utilize the customizable dashboards in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor.

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 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."

"Provides an overview and high-level information."

"I am monitoring all of my Azure Monitor and getting good reports. I can customize the reports to get the information I need. I am also getting emails about which AAS instances are down and everything in the system related to my services. It is easy to use, scalable, and user-friendly. Microsoft has Many guides and videos to help you understand how to create and use Azure Monitor."

"Technical support is helpful."

"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."

"Azure Monitor is useful because of the useful application insights and telemetry, such as metrics and logs."

"We like this searchability and availability of the data."

"Azure Monitor is really just a source for Dynatrace. It's just collecting data and monitoring the environment and the infrastructure. It is fairly good at that."

More Azure Monitor pros

"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."

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

"One of the most valuable features are the reports. They're pretty good. Also, the ease of installation and customization for the client is another feature that we value. SolarWinds has a lot of features but these are the ones I like the most. We also like that the KPIs have the ability to be preset."

"SolarWinds SAM has significantly improved our workflow by allowing us to develop a comprehensive knowledge base of known errors and automate responses to specific alerts."

"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."

"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"

"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."

"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"This solution has fewer features than some of its competitors, so adding more features to it would make it better."

"The troubleshooting logs need improvement. There should be some improvement there. I have a hard time finding the right logs at the right times whenever there is an issue occurring."

"The scalability could be improved as there are some limitations."

"It's really complex to retrieve or query the logs in Azure Monitor."

"Automation related to gathering metrics from more applications could be improved."

"When something goes down, we want the option to have automation in place to get it back up again as quickly as possible."

"The onboarding process of certain assets and the overall UI can be improved in Azure Monitor"

"We encounter some difficulties in monitoring the operating system on its own."

More Azure Monitor cons

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

"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."

"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."

"Downside of the tools is the web console are hung or crash. It need to improve the performance."

"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."

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

"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."

"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive, but it is worth the price."

"The Azure Insight is a little bit expensive."

"Azure Monitor's price is minimal to the point of being almost negligible."

"The solution’s pricing depends on how much logs it collects."

"Azure Monitor is one of the more cost effective solutions on the market."

"Azure Monitor is a competitively priced solution."

"Regarding pricing, Azure Monitor is free with Azure license, so there are no additional costs for using it."

"The cost of Azure Monitor application performance should be less expensive."

More Azure Monitor pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The price is too high."

"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."

"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."

"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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	29

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

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...

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What do you like most about Azure Monitor?

Azure Monitor is a very easy-to-use product in the cloud environment.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Monitor?

The challenges with Azure Monitor are that it's initially complex to set up because you need multiple components. Azure Monitor is one thing, but within Azure Monitor, you need to bring Log Analyti...

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 is definitely room for improvement besides simplifying its setup. As a non-technical person, I believe the dashboards could be improved. Everything we use appears on video walls, and we need ...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Monitor

November 2025

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Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

October 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

Azure Monitor is a comprehensive monitoring solution offered by Microsoft Azure. It provides a centralized platform for monitoring the performance and health of various Azure resources, applications, and infrastructure.

With Azure Monitor, users can gain insights into the availability, performance, and usage of their applications and infrastructure. The key features of Azure Monitor include metrics, logs, alerts, and dashboards. Metrics allow users to collect and analyze performance data from various Azure resources, such as virtual machines, databases, and storage accounts.

Logs enable users to collect and analyze log data from different sources, including Azure resources, applications, and operating systems. Azure Monitor also provides a robust alerting mechanism that allows users to set up alerts based on specific conditions or thresholds. These alerts can be configured to notify users via email, SMS, or other notification channels. Additionally, Azure Monitor offers customizable dashboards that allow users to visualize and analyze their monitoring data in a personalized and intuitive manner.

Azure Monitor integrates seamlessly with other Azure services, such as Azure Automation and Azure Logic Apps, enabling users to automate actions based on monitoring data. It also supports integration with third-party monitoring tools and services, providing flexibility and extensibility.

Overall, Azure Monitor is a powerful and versatile monitoring solution that helps users gain deep insights into the performance and health of their Azure resources and applications. It offers a wide range of features and integrations, making it a comprehensive solution for monitoring and managing Azure environments.

Microsoft

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

Rackspace, First Gas, Allscripts, ABB Group

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

Azure Monitor vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

November 2025

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