BMC Helix Monitor vs IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server comparison

BMC Helix Monitor vs. IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server

Download the complete report

Helped 859,129 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

BMC Helix Monitor

Ranking in Event Monitoring

7th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manage...

Ranking in Event Monitoring

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database Development and Management (13th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of BMC Helix Monitor is 9.7%, down from 12.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server is 1.5%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Event Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Jijil GHosh

ITSM Solution Architect at CyberMAK Information Systems W.L.L.

An agentless tool that offers great scalability and a straightforward setup phase

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that BMC Helix Monitor is an agentless tool, because of which you don't need to deploy agents on each and every system in your IT environment. If you want to install an agent on each and every system, manpower is needed, while there is no such need when one uses BMC Helix Monitor. BMC Helix Monitor provides you with details on asset relationships. If a particular printer is connected to a core network printer or a particular desktop is connected to the servers, the product scans and gives you a free structure of relationship, which doesn't need any human intervention, making it an automated process. BMC Helix Monitor gives you the entire information about your assets, because of which you can sit in one place and keep track of whether a particular asset is online or offline.

Read full review

reviewer2317098

Assistant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Offers effective monitoring of resources but lacks the ability to connect to an AWS instance and write custom queries.

We use it mainly for monitoring, including CPU, memory, and disk space, and for troubleshooting purposes We've set up alerts to notify us when performance deviates from the baseline we've configured for each resource. So, whenever that happens, we get an alert and can investigate immediately. So,…

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 service operations monitoring features are valuable."

"It is evolving more and more into artificial intelligence."

"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that BMC Helix Monitor is an agentless tool, because of which you don't need to deploy agents on each and every system in your IT environment."

"The product's initial setup phase is easy."

"The most valuable features are disk space projections for planning, and also the Snapshotting ability, to look back in time, to see what was going on the server at a particular time. It's basically the output of an sp_who2."

"Monitors and alerts on our mission critical instances in real-time on a 24/7 basis."

"Memory and CPU utilization features are good."

"The ability to go back and look at historical data is the most valuable feature."

"SQL DM made troubleshooting much easier and allowed multiple people to look into an issue with confidence."

"We're able to diagnose issues prior to their actually becoming issues. Without the alerting, we wouldn't have a clue as to what was going to happen. With the alerting, it gives us a heads-up that a specific threshold has been met, and we need to take specific action."

"The best part of SQL DM is the ability to customize alerts and counters. This allows our team to find an issue then alert on the issue at a granular level."

Cons

"The product must provide more information and dashboards."

"The initial setup of the solution is complex."

"I feel that the tool's stability has some scope for improvement."

"The solution's GUI and some patching-related information are areas with shortcomings where enhancements are needed, though I believe they are areas that fall under BMC's roadmap for the future."

"I'm going to do an upgrade which may resolve my issues, but one area for improvement is its ability to handle the amount of data that we collect with it. We're likely one of the largest installations, with over 300 servers being collected with this product, and sometimes there are gaps. That would really be my only concern, in terms of how the data is collected and stored, for consistency."

"The initial setup gives too many user rights to the server, so you have to put a user that is part administrator's group - that's the preferred way - on each server, which is kind of a risk. You want to do least privilege and you're not doing that."

"One thing I'd like to see is the ability to view the execution plan and have the system automatically recommend potential query optimizations, especially at the query level."

"I would absolutely love to create customized dashboards but, unfortunately, they don't provide me the information that I need to create the report. The report I need is the detail or the transaction detail that's happening on those Snapshots. I'd like to be able to go back through time and search for things. I don't have that functionality, which is very disappointing. That's pretty bad and frustrating because I could query it and find out so much information about what's hitting my environment and when, but instead, they want control over it and to not give me that information. So it's encrypted. I can't pull it out and that is really bothersome."

"It would helpful if SQL DM could mark when changes are made within the program."

"We don't find that it helps us with performance monitoring and diagnostics. We find that SentryOne does that better. Also, in terms of alerts, we had to customize them dramatically so that we didn't get alerted on every little thing."

"They can improve checking the status of the CPU, memory, and IO utilization from each task."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product’s price could be improved."

"We were upgraded to Premium Support without their actually asking us, when we were quoted. Then I asked for Standard Support and that they had to re-quote us that. But they don't do that by default. They upcharge you by default, which I didn't think was very nice, without even asking."

"The pricing is reasonable, it's comparable with the competitors."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Event Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

27%

Computer Software Company

14%

Insurance Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC Helix Monitor?

The service operations monitoring features are valuable.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Helix Monitor?

The product’s price could be improved. The company is quite flexible with pricing. Legacy products need to revise their pricing strategy without losing their position in the market. The legacy mode...

What needs improvement with BMC Helix Monitor?

I feel that the tool's stability has some scope for improvement.

What do you like most about IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server?

The ability to go back and look at historical data is the most valuable feature.

What needs improvement with IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server?

One thing I'd like to see is the ability to view the execution plan and have the system automatically recommend potential query optimizations, especially at the query level. In future releases, I w...

What is your primary use case for IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server?

We use it mainly for monitoring, including CPU, memory, and disk space, and for troubleshooting purposes.

BMC TrueSight Operations Management vs BMC Helix Monitor

Comparisons

Compared 61% of the time

OpsRamp vs BMC Helix Monitor

Compared 16% of the time

OpenText AI Operations Management vs BMC Helix Monitor

Compared 13% of the time

ServiceNow IT Operations Management vs BMC Helix Monitor

Compared 10% of the time

More BMC Helix Monitor Competitors

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer vs IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server

Compared 32% of the time

Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials vs IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server

Compared 26% of the time

SCOM vs IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server

Compared 15% of the time

SQL Sentry vs IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server

Compared 14% of the time

Quest Spotlight vs IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server

Compared 13% of the time

More IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server Competitors

Product Reports

Event Monitoring

Download BMC Helix Monitor product report

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server

Download IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server product report

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server report

Also Known As

Helix Monitor

IDERA SQL DM, IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager

Overview

BMC Helix Monitor is a SaaS solution that combines broad monitoring and event management capabilities with a containerized microservices architecture. Improve performance across complex environments while supporting the agility and speed required by digital businesses.

BMC

SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server helps database administrators to find and fix SQL Server performance problems in physical, virtual, and cloud environments. Unlike its competition, it provides effective scalability, advanced SQL query analysis and optimization, prescriptive analysis with corrective SQL scripts, powerful automated alert responses, broad PowerShell integration, complete customization, and extensive support for current and legacy SQL Server and Windows.

IDERA

Sample Customers

Grupo Moura, Goodman, Aspect, Telefónica Colombia, Fujitsu

Padnos, University of Notre Dame, D4, Infeon Technologies, Chevron, LC Waikiki, Sisters of Saint Francis Health Services, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, CVE, Colorado State University, St. Charles, Chaucer PLC, 1-800-Flowers, Ancoris, Money Management, National Opinion Research Center, California Department of Health, Plexus; Aviva, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, CBS, Comcast, Google, Merck, Regions Financial, Schneider Electric, Tata Consultancy Services, Verizon Communications, Zurich Financial Services

BMC Helix Monitor vs. IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server