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Elastic Observability vs SolarWinds AppOptics 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

Elastic Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
7th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
11th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (16th), Container Monitoring (4th)
SolarWinds AppOptics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
56th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
58th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
43rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 4.6%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Adelina Craciun - PeerSpot reviewer
Customization enables tailored monitoring and alerting across departments
The possibility to customize it has been quite useful. Whatever the other departments want to dream up, we implement. Whatever they want to monitor, the granularity of it, the changes in the threshold, and the anomalies that they want reported all require some development. So far, every single request has been fulfilled.
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

"The tool's most valuable feature is centralized logging. Elastic Common Search helps us to search for the logs across the organization."
"The price is very less expensive compared to the other solutions."
"I have built a mini business intelligence system based on Elastic Observability."
"The most valuable feature of Elastic Observability is the text search."
"I recommend Elastic Observability for its completeness of vision and wide ecosystem."
"Machine learning is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"I found Elk to be excellent for log analytics, security analytics, application code-level analytics, collaboration with DevOps teams, CI/CD, microservices, and Kubernetes, specifically cloud-native or cloud-specific tasks."
"It's easy to deploy, and it's very flexible."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"The product has a great dashboard."
"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."
"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."
 

Cons

"The price is the only issue in the solution. It can be made better and cheaper."
"I am familiar with Azure Monitor, which I find more user-friendly compared to Elastic, which is a very technical tool."
"Elastic Observability needs to have better standardization, logging, and schema."
"The solution needs to use more AI. Once the product onboards AI, users would more effectively be able to track endpoints for specific messages."
"Improving code insight related to infrastructure and network, particularly focusing on aspects such as firewalls, switches, routers, and testing would be beneficial."
"The solution would be better if it was capable of more automation, especially in a monitoring capacity or for the response to abnormalities."
"Elastic Observability’s price could be improved."
"The cost must be made more transparent."
"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."
"The solution should be more user-friendly."
"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."
"The product’s pricing needs improvement."
"We have been using the open-source version."
"There are two types: cloud and SaaS. They charge based on data ingestion, ingest rate, hard retention, and warm retention. I believe it costs around $25,000 annually to ingest 30GB of data daily. That is the SaaS version. There is also a self-managed license where the customer manages their own infrastructure on-prem. In such cases, there are three license tiers that respectively cost $5,000 annually per node, $7,000 per node, and $12,500 per node."
"We will buy a premium license after POC."
"The product is not that cheap."
"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."
"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."
"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
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 do you like most about Elastic Observability?
Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?
The license for Elastic Observability is the same as for other uses; you pay for Elastic, and you can use it for various cases. Observability is actually cheaper compared to logs because you're not...
What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?
I think they are working on the AI-based features, which are currently in technical preview. The only challenging aspect for new users is often writing the query language. Basic searching is very e...
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Also Known As

No data available
AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. SolarWinds AppOptics and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.