No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Broadcom DX Application Performance Management 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

Broadcom DX Application Per...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
162
Ranking in other categories
Container Monitoring (7th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (6th), Active Directory Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is 1.4%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.0%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.0%
Broadcom DX Application Performance Management1.4%
Other97.6%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

EG
Director of Technical Part at NOS SGPS
Dashboards facilitate prompt alerts but discovery feature needs enhancement
I would recommend Broadcom DX Application Performance Management if a customer doesn't have any existing performance solution. However, ten years ago, the solution was better, and now there are many competitive options. My overall rating would be between six and seven. The product rating I would give is 6.5 out of 10.
NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Attribute decoration is a unique and very powerful feature. We can add meaningful meta information based on our internal demand."
"It is a very good product, but it has to fit their needs because it is mainly focused on JAVA/.NET applications, although it has agents for PHP and Node.js."
"This application pulls data in 15 seconds. You can imagine the enormous amount of data which streams through."
"A client claims that they have had better management and administration along with advanced reporting capabilities to the Privacy Authorities of State."
"CA APM is a great product."
"It is a really good, stable, flexible product, but there are no special features when I compare it with the other solutions from the other vendors."
"JVM memory monitoring and connection pool monitoring are valuable features."
"CA APM always helps in finding problems quickly rather than requiring us to check logs to pin-point the issue."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
"It is simple to implement and can provide fairly decent Windows-based monitoring, beyond simple SNMP. It is great for monitoring newbies and smaller shops."
"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."
"SolarWinds fit the bill because it gave many possibilities in monitoring with a good amount of out of the box capabilities."
"The solution has good alerts; notifications are sent via email to technicians, and you can filter the kinds of alerts you want to receive as well, which is excellent."
 

Cons

"Client user interface and user interface dashboard."
"We are constantly adding new technologies to our stack and monitoring those is sometimes a pain because CA APM does not support some of these out of the box."
"I would like to see intelligence, deep intelligence or deep analytics."
"Dynamic instrumentation, at the moment, I think it is a bit clunky to use and it should be available outside the transaction tracer."
"It would be very helpful to have transaction insights with a more transparent configuration."
"It was complex configuring the service transactions from CEM."
"In the past when we've called them it's been really hit or miss. Like on a scale of one to 10, I'd give it a six."
"Technical support is slow to respond and also asks redundant questions."
"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."
"The stability, flexibility, and ease of use could be improved."
"From an integration point of view, if you want to have a manager of manager kind of layer, that is currently lacking in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor."
"The tool's AppStack needs to improve in the storage monitoring part. It should also include an analytics and recommendation approach. If I have found a fault in a server or application, I would like to know what caused it and how do I recover from it."
"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"
"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is some research needed to determine licensing costs, based on the number of DataPower instances for the Nastel agent, for example."
"Althougth it is a bit expensive, it is really worth it"
"Depends on the size of the product you need."
"The pricing structure should be based on memory or CPU usage rather than the number of agents, as it makes the solution more expensive for us."
"The license for Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is annual. The licensing model could improve because there is not any limit to deploying the agent, there should be some limits on it."
"I'm unable to give information on Broadcom DX Application Performance Management licensing costs, but all Application Performance Management products have expensive pricing. This means that it's not only Broadcom that's expensive, and it would be an advantage if the cost would be a little bit cheaper."
"Pricing and licensing are not issues."
"The licensing costs are expensive."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"SAM is not per server so the pricing model can be deceiving. If you have an enterprise environment, you will quickly exceed your licensing quickly. You should know this before going in."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"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."
"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."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"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."
"I would advise potential buyers to wait until the end of the quarter, end of year, or other time to place orders. There are actually great deals to be had at those times if your budget cycle can match up."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise124
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Broadcom DX Application Performance Management?
The initial pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions. The challenge arises during annual renewals, as the price increase can be significant, around twenty percent or more, ...
What needs improvement with Broadcom DX Application Performance Management?
The first area for improvement is the discovery feature, which should be enhanced to collect comprehensive information from applications and services. This includes using agents or scripts to gathe...
What is your primary use case for Broadcom DX Application Performance Management?
Our primary use case involves having a large dashboard with significant information for alerts, alarms, and metrics to summarize the state of critical businesses and applications. When an issue ari...
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 ...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
I am doing research as we currently have both solutions, and I am looking to see if we need both or can manage with one. Currently, the outcome indicates that we need both. The focus point is diffe...
 

Also Known As

DX APM, CA APM, CA NetQoS Performance Center, Wily Introscope, CA Wily APM, CA App Experience Analytics, CA AXA
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lexmark, Intermountain Healthcare, National Australia Bank, BBVA Compass Bank, Innovapost, Dansk Supermarked Group, U.S. Cellular, Orange, Cetip
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom DX Application Performance Management vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.