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Cross-Enterprise Application Performance Management vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

Cross-Enterprise Applicatio...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
86th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 Cross-Enterprise Application Performance Management is 0.4%, up from 0.0% 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%
Cross-Enterprise Application Performance Management0.4%
Other98.6%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammed  Shahpoup - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Deputy Manager, ITSM Architect at ICT Misr
Offers a great reporting experience, with much customization and flexibility in extracting reports but it can be more user-friendly
My experience indicates that it needs enhancements in the UI. We are in 2024, and the GUI doesn't meet current expectations for user interfaces or Excel integration. Mainly, CA Service Desk has such a bad user interface. All features and systems, like servers, should have a modern graphical user interface, but CA Service Desk remains classic and still uses a desktop-based interface. It doesn't add features easily; if you need additional functionality, you have to go through many steps. Competitors like ServiceNow, Micro Focus SMAX, and ManageEngine all have better user interfaces. This is the main solution that needs improvement. I am very satisfied with the modeling systems, the grid, and the existing features, except for the graphical user interface.
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

"The documentation and the technical support are both quite good."
"All solutions from Broadcom are very easy to install."
"The product integrates with Remedy."
"The graphical interfaces, GUI customizations, and alert configurations are impressive."
"Monitoring of processes and services is the most valuable feature; it is not necessarily just the server alone in terms of the CPU or the memory, as we can go in-depth into services and processes."
"It is scalable."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
"I have found the visibility into server health with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor very beneficial, which we use on a daily basis."
"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
 

Cons

"They lack support and presence in Egypt."
"There is still a lot of improvement that is needed in terms of stability. We figured out that it was not able to monitor or offer some forms of self-service capabilities."
"The UI could be better. When I look at the dashboard, for example, the information looks cluttered and unorganized."
"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."
"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."
"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"
"Scalability was an issue in the past."
"It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle."
"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the pricing a three out of ten, with ten being expensive. So, it is rather cheap."
"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."
"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."
"The price is too high."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"The licenses start from USD 3000.00 and go up to USD 20,000.00 for the year. It's a perpetual license. Nothing is free in SolarWinds, anything that you need is an additional cost."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

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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

CA Cross-Enterprise Application Performance Management
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NIIT Technologies, Cetip Safeguards
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Cross-Enterprise Application Performance Management vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,948 professionals have used our research since 2012.