Chronosphere vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Chronosphere and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Chronosphere is ranked #35 with an average rating of 8.0, while SolarWinds is ranked #22 with an average rating of 8.0. Chronosphere holds a 0.7% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Chronosphere users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Chronosphere

Read 3 Chronosphere reviews

3,701 Views
2,480 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

8,842 Views
4,952 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Chronosphere

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Chronosphere and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Chronosphere vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Chronosphere vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

September 2026

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Helped 915,341 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

Chronosphere

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

35th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (33rd), AIOps (21st)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

22nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (5th), Active Directory Management (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Chronosphere is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.0%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.0%
Chronosphere	0.7%
Other	98.3%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Karthik Doreswamy

Dev Ops Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Centralized monitoring has unified alerts and dashboards for critical cloud applications

We can improve a bit of UI aspects. The UI could be made more user friendly. Sometimes when identifying the specific logs patterns and identifying what metrics and what logs are coming in, going to a specific log explorer and finding it there is a little difficult. It would be very useful if we could group according to projects and have that UI a little more user friendly. The user interface part was a bit confusing in the beginning. To make it better, I believe we would need some more open sourced or freely available courses on Chronosphere which would help us understand the platform a bit more. The team provides detailed walkthroughs whenever you get into that. However, it would be better if we could have proper video sessions or documentation which would help us understand the tool a bit more.

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

"Integrating Chronosphere was pretty much easy coming from an open source tool and it helped us to streamline our monitoring and alerting setup across our organization, which directly impacted on the streamlining of the process as well as reducing errors and also keeping our environment uptime to a greater extent by those alerts and quick responses."

"Chronosphere has impacted my organization positively as for starters, we brought down the cost drastically since we completely moved to Chronosphere."

"The alerting features are good"

"Having used various other vendors for monitoring over my career, the SolarWinds products give outstanding value for the price."

"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."

"SolarWinds SAM is very stable, and we are using it with hundreds or thousands of customers and there are no stability issues."

"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."

"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."

"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."

"The product integrates with Remedy."

"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"It's not easy for everyone."

"Sometimes when identifying the specific logs patterns and identifying what metrics and what logs are coming in, going to a specific log explorer and finding it there is a little difficult."

"In logging, I would prefer if Chronosphere could do something in the way of a dictionary or a JSON lookup kind of logging, which would be much easier in terms of directly searching for a particular keyword rather than a string match."

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

"There is one feature that is a report writer. And they are currently trying to take it out from being a stand-alone application and integrating to the web. This doesn't give us the flexibility and it doesn't expand what we can get when it comes to reporting. So, putting it on the web is going to make it difficult to get some information. Leaving it where it is now will help us a lot."

"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."

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

"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."

"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."

"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."

"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is not stable. We have to maintain the platform and it goes down frequently."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."

"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."

"When planning for the number of licenses to purchase, make sure you understand all of the elements within an application required to really understand performance well. In our case, we quickly came to the conclusion that an unlimited license for SAM was the way to go."

"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."

"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 is overpriced in terms of application management."

"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."

"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

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915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

12%

Transportation Company

12%

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

13%

University

Financial Services Firm

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Chronosphere?

In logging, I would prefer if Chronosphere could do something in the way of a dictionary or a JSON lookup kind of logging, which would be much easier in terms of directly searching for a particular...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Chronosphere?

My main use case for Chronosphere is logging, metrics, traceability, and raising alerts. A specific example of how I use Chronosphere for logging metrics or raising alerts is that we had a free int...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Chronosphere?

My advice to others looking into using Chronosphere is to go ahead for it. I gave Chronosphere a rating of 8 out of 10.

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

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Datadog vs Chronosphere

Compared 12% of the time

Dynatrace vs Chronosphere

Compared 8% of the time

Honeycomb Enterprise vs Chronosphere

Compared 8% of the time

Groundcover Observability Platform vs Chronosphere

Compared 7% of the time

Splunk Observability Cloud vs Chronosphere

Compared 6% of the time

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Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 4% of the time

Nagios XI vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 3% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Chronosphere

October 2026

Download Chronosphere product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

September 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

Chronosphere provides a robust platform for managing and monitoring cloud-native applications with features like real-time observability, incident management, and capacity planning. It offers scalable, detailed observability across complex systems, an intuitive interface, and cost-efficient resource management. Users report enhanced productivity, improved collaboration, and better decision-making, bolstering operational capabilities and organizational growth.

Chronosphere

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provides comprehensive server, application, and infrastructure monitoring, focusing on integration, application dependency, and network insights through user-friendly interfaces and detailed dashboards.

With AppStack and AppInsight support, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor offers service management, detailed resource dashboards, and integration capabilities. It monitors hardware metrics and performance parameters, facilitating database and network insights for cloud and virtual environments. Robust alerting, predictive analytics, and capacity planning ensure efficient management of server health and application performance.

What are the key features?

Integration: Seamlessly connects with existing tools.
AppStack: Provides a holistic view of applications.
AppInsight: Supports widely-used applications.
SNMP Polling: Efficient network data collection.
Diagnostics: Real-time troubleshooting.
Customizable Dashboards: Tailored monitoring views.

What benefits should users expect?

Comprehensive Monitoring: Extends from servers to databases.
Transparent Control: Enhances visibility into performance metrics.
User-Friendly: Simplifies proactive monitoring with alerts.
Predictive Features: Supports capacity and trend planning.

Industries implement SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor to enhance server utilization reporting, network configuration, and AV equipment performance tracking. They benefit from monitoring critical services across diverse deployment models, improving management efficiency and decision-making.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

Chronosphere vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

September 2026

Free Report: Chronosphere vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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