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ControlUp vs SolarWinds AppOptics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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

ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
32nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (6th)
SolarWinds AppOptics
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
58th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (56th), Cloud Monitoring Software (43rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Richasvi Tripathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Used to monitor several devices, but most reports do not give information of all the devices
We have approximately 10 to 20 feature requests pending on the vendor side. Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices. In our case, we are monitoring 200000 devices. So, we need details for all those devices, but that is limited to 100, which they have improved to an extent in some reports. I'm thinking of one feature request for ISPs because the dashboard does not provide a detailed list of ISPs, and it provides the wrong list. I feel some firewall issues are blocking that, and the team cannot send that detail. That may be the case. One feature request pending on the vendor side is the data format change. Once you see a detail in the report, it is mentioned in some other format, which is hard to analyze sometimes.
John Yuko - PeerSpot reviewer
Unique features allow consolidating and combing metrics into a single dashboard, but don't monitor mobile solutions
I would like to see more granular information provided on Unix applications. Also, the integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward in terms having an agent to retrieve your credentials rather than having to enter or save them for SSH on SolarWinds. From the outset, we had to set some commands to log into the search console, and they are saved on the solution, which presents a challenge in terms of exposure. The solution is unable to monitor APK solutions completely because we'd then be forced to break down the APK and provide the APIs or go through the source code. They don't have a module that can analyze an application that is maybe under-used.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has a great career time monitoring tool."
"Integration with Netscaler and Scoutbees can provide a proper end-to-end analysis of the user's experience and give us a real ROI."
"The most valuable feature is the granularity of visibility into the resources that are in use by our applications."
"It shows you so many details of what's going on in that log-on that, if there's a problem, you can identify it in five minutes."
"Security, uptime, and reduced capital expenditures are the main reasons we use ControlUp. So basically, the money that we consume is based on the amount of time we are using a service."
"The visual look of the interface is very easy to understand what is happening and somewhat why it's happening."
"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."
"ControlUp is beneficial as it provides a web interface through which you can access all your infrastructure—servers, devices, and VDI infrastructure—all on the same platform. It supports gathering all infrastructure components in a single, unified dashboard. This helps you identify performance issues or high resource utilization, allowing quick troubleshooting. I appreciate the solid interface that ControlUp offers."
"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."
"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."
"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"The product has a great dashboard."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
 

Cons

"There was some lag earlier, and reports pulled from the dashboard would sometimes be half an hour old. But now, the information provides real-time status, which is greatly appreciated. Overall, I've seen improvement in the product."
"It can be improved by including script-based scheduling."
"Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices."
"We'd like to see the mobile app working again so that we can get alerts 24/7. This is especially useful for the person on call."
"The most common complaint that I have heard, at least within our organization, is about reporting. They have their own reporting. It's just that it doesn't yet include everything that you can look at within the application. You can only report on specific metrics or collections."
"Integration is always a problem, and we feel that we are doing our best and the service provider thinks they are doing their best. I guess if ControlUp's system could be more capable or if people could understand the integration part, that would be better."
"Something I would love to see from a partner perspective would be maybe a way to do this in a surface hosting provider."
"This solution be improved by including load throttling tools. For example, I can identify a service where we spend a lot of CPU but I cannot restrict the service from ControlUp. I have to use another tool like AppSense."
"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."
"In terms of the technology, I think they need to put some more advanced troubleshooting into SolarWinds, in terms of AI capabilities. That's the next generation, especially in the cases of APIs which have already adopted AI capabilities into their products."
"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."
"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."
"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."
"The solution should be more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."
"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."
"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."
"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."
"Mostly, it's a perpetual license. We don't have any customers using the subscription right now—it's mostly a perpetual license that the customers purchase. The licensing is based on the number of elements, whereas other solutions are node-based."
"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Healthcare Company
11%
Insurance Company
8%
Government
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?
Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive. It is a cheap tool because it is deployed to many devices where I work.
What needs improvement with ControlUp Real-time?
There is area for improvement, maybe in the reporting. It could use some work in reporting.
What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?
My use cases include everything, and I don't mean that facetiously. I mean everything. We manage the servers, manage user sessions, manage everything. We monitor monitoring and take actual actions,...
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Also Known As

No data available
AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida
TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista
Find out what your peers are saying about ControlUp vs. SolarWinds AppOptics and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.