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Dynatrace vs Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Dynatrace is 6.3%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) is 0.9%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.3%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dynatrace6.3%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.3%
Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver)0.9%
Other91.5%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Manish Indupuri - PeerSpot reviewer
senior DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
AI-driven insights have reduced downtime and improved cross-team collaboration
We encountered some challenges while using Dynatrace. Although the initial setup was smooth, fine-tuning alert thresholds and custom metrics took some time. Another challenge was that Dynatrace charges based on host units, so we had to carefully plan our agent deployments. The licensing model is expensive. Additionally, the complexity of setup is an issue. While OneAgent and auto-discover services are powerful, the setup is more complex compared to other tools such as Prometheus and Grafana. These integrations are simple and basic, but Dynatrace setup requires more complexity based on the environment. For new users wanting to use Dynatrace, it is difficult. However, the AI-related solutions and metrics took us to the next level for identifying and fixing things. Dynatrace requires an agent for operation. OneAgent is powerful, but it is also resource-heavy. On lightweight nodes or older systems, the agent can slightly impact performance. If Dynatrace could implement a lightweight agent behavior, we could make things faster. Additionally, if Dynatrace could add a long-term retention policy so that we could store more data and find fine-grained details, that would help us. While Dynatrace managed edition supports on-premises deployment, the SaaS version depends on cloud connectivity. For highly regulated or air-gapped environments, setup and updates can be challenging. Although the initial setup is smooth, if someone wants to fine-tune it and fully understand the tool end-to-end, it could be tricky.
Anand_Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Architect at T-Systems International GmbH
Offers reliable Ops Agent and logging transport feature with easy third-party integrations
As part of our company, we implemented several changes in our log analytics pattern, including the storage and procurement process. Earlier, before implementing the solution, our company was able to procure only one year of data, but later, we came to the three-year mark. Around 15-20% reduction has been witnessed in the total analytic consumption of our company. The aforementioned result was possible because the solution allowed the creation of a dashboard where factors like storage costs, proportion of logs, and logs presence in a storage bucket or Big Query can all be checked. Earlier all logs were stored in a raw storage, but currently our company is able to move logs in table bucket that contributes towards cost savings. It has default integration for all gcp services. recently managed Prometheus support gives more flexibility to organizations to remain connected with their current Prometheus setup. We leveraged integrated FinOps Hub for recommendations for our workloads and server configurations, helpd us lot in order to get maximum TCO.
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

"We like the alerting feature. For example, my applications are going out on some thresholds. So I get alerts, according to the thresholds I set. I get that data via emails as notifications."
"This solution is perfectly stable. The main feature with this solution is that you do not need to do a lot stuff. Everything is being done by the tool itself. Everything is in there for you. There is nothing much needed from your resources; it is all in there."
"It collects and analyses information with AI, which is useful."
"RCA (Root Cause Analysis) and the PurePaths, where you can see the stack trace, are helpful in finding problems."
"The most valuable features for us include problem detection, root cause identification, Smartscape, and integration with cloud infrastructure like AWS, Azure, GCP, etc."
"Quick root cause analysis"
"The linking is very good in Dynatrace. What happens in other monitoring tools is the linking is not proper. In those solutions, a person has to manually link many of the layers and what is happening in them, while in Dynatrace you get that from the very first visit. For example, if a person is visiting your website, from there it will traverse you to the end. If the application is a Java application, it will traverse you there, to the Method level. So that linking and traversing is better in Dynatrace."
"Ease of problem detection and alerting, visual timeline, and user-sessions are some of the best features of Dynatrace."
"I like the monitoring feature."
"Provides visibility into the performance uptime."
"We find the solution to be stable."
"Google's technical support is very good."
"Our company has a corporate account for Google Cloud and so our systems and clusters integrate really well."
"It's easy to use."
"The features that I have found most valuable are its graphs - if I need any statistics, in Kubernetes or Kong level or VPN level, I can quickly get the reports."
"Offers a valuable logging transport feature"
"The graphical interfaces, GUI customizations, and alert configurations are impressive."
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"The solution has good alerts. Notifications are sent via email to technicians. You can filter the kinds of alerts you want to receive as well. It's excellent."
"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."
"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."
"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."
"Management Console - Managing service to each server enrolled in the Solarwinds is much easier. Using a web base console, you can control your service much convenient way. There is no need to login remotely. It save a lot of time and effort."
 

Cons

"Due to the fact that you doing a lot, you have a problem with the learning curve. We're really looking for ways to make this product more accessible."
"We have had to resolve a lot of things and had a lot of issues with the tool.​"
"It requires manual intervention to uninstall the cloud agent from servers you want it removed from."
"The web-based UI needs to be improved."
"This solution would be improved with the addition of annotations for automated custom metrics creation."
"The customer support is not quick and helpful at this stage. We are deploying Dynatrace into our network. I've raised a couple of technical questions with the support team but the response was not fast and didn't cover all my questions at all."
"Cloud monitoring and reporting need improvement, as well as how to manipulate data and export it to share with business executives."
"​Configuring nodes and agents should be more like plug and play."
"This solution could be improved if it offered the ability to analyze charts, such as a solution like Kibana."
"While we are satisfied with the overall performance, in certain cases we must add additional metrics and additional tools like Grafana and Dynatrace."
"It could be even more automated."
"The process of logging analytics can be improved"
"Lacking sufficient operations documentation."
"The product provides minimal metrics that are insufficient."
"If I want to track any round-trip or breakdowns of my response times, I'm not able to get it. My request goes through various levels of the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and comes back to my client machine. Suppose that my request has taken 10 seconds overall, so if I want to break it down, to see where the delay is happening within my architecture, I am not able to find that out using Stackdriver."
"It could be more stable."
"Currently SolarWinds SAM offers AppInsight for modern versions of: IIS, Exchange, SQL Server. They have shown to be powerful and insightful tools. However, AppInsight needs to be offered for more applications: Citrix, SharePoint, AX, etc."
"Downside of the tools is the web console are hung or crash. It need to improve the performance."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"The templates could use improvement. Currently, they are quite complex. They should have drag-and-drop functionality instead. It would make it easier to use."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"They are complex to operate; users need to know what they want during setup."
"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing model is confusing in solutioning clients for the number of hosts needed to deploy."
"The product is pricey, but it is feature-rich, which is why we probably haven't looked away from it."
"The pricing is not bad, but it could be better."
"Price (of the product) is a major concern for all the clients I work with."
"The product is definitely worth taking a look at. Be aware that it is probably more pricey than other options on the market, but there are a lot of capabilities. Dynatrace has an eye toward the future and the computing and monitoring needs that we are gonna need for the cloud. ​"
"Pricing is still too expensive."
"Decodes on less used/popular protocols are available, but they should be included. Additional investment should not be required."
"It's more expensive than other solutions, but worth it. We use full APM monitoring on our primary systems, but only resource monitoring on lesser systems. We shift licenses around our environment when a deeper dive into lesser systems is required."
"The cost of using Stackdriver depends on usage."
"The cost could be lower."
"We have a basic standard license without any additional costs."
"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."
"Nagios XI, WhatsUpGold, Uptime Software, PRTG, Manage Engine, and SpiceWorks are the other tools that have lower pricing and licensing costs. However, they can't compete with SolarWinds when it comes to the features and functionality that SolarWinds can provide."
"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."
"I have always said SolarWinds is very “proud” of their products, meaning they are expensive. I cannot afford to purchase all the licenses I need for all the SolarWinds products."
"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."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business78
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise298
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?
The key is to have a holistic view over the complete infrastructure, the ones you have listed are great for APM if yo...
What cloud monitoring software did you choose and why?
While the environment does matter in the selection of an APM tool, I prefer to use Dynatrace to manage the entire sta...
Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Stackdriver?
As Ops Suite, is a google product which effectively comes at zero setup cost, in order to manage your on-premises log...
What needs improvement with Google Stackdriver?
If the errors are caught early in the interface, it would be easier for users to manage. The process of logging analy...
What is your primary use case for Google Stackdriver?
I use the solution for logging, defining alerts, and monitoring. Our company's Java and Python logging teams mainly u...
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 dash...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Google Stackdriver, Stackdriver Monitoring, Stackdriver Logging, Google Cloud Monitoring
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Audi, Best Buy, LinkedIn, CISCO, Intuit, KRONOS, Scottrade, Wells Fargo, ULTA Beauty, Lenovo, Swarovsk, Nike, Whirlpool, American Express
Uber, Batterii, Q42, Dovetail Games
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability. Updated: February 2026.
881,821 professionals have used our research since 2012.