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

Google Cloud's operations s...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
25th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (24th), Cloud Monitoring Software (18th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (8th), Active Directory Management (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, 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 Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.3%
Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver)0.9%
Other97.8%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

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 find the solution to be stable."
"The most valuable feature is the multi-cloud integration, where there is support for both GCP and AWS."
"Google's technical support is very good."
"It has really been helpful in detecting, identifying, and troubleshooting issues with cloud services used in the organization."
"Google Stackdriver is all about activity."
"Provides visibility into the performance uptime."
"Our company has a corporate account for Google Cloud and so our systems and clusters integrate really well."
"I like the monitoring feature."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."
"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements, so the threshold gets configured automatically, and it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."
"Solarwinds has an open database that allows you to do serious integrations. It doesn't matter which service desk you have, you can implement and integrate it with SolarWinds."
"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."
"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. We can go in-depth into services and processes."
"The solution is end-to-end from the network and the application to the processes, everything about the enterprise infrastructure is being covered by the solution, it's easy to use and easy to navigate and one of the leaders among monitoring solutions."
"The initial setup was relatively easy, and we didn't have to install anything; all we had to do was put on the devices we wanted to monitor."
 

Cons

"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."
"This solution could be improved if it offered the ability to analyze charts, such as a solution like Kibana."
"The product provides minimal metrics that are insufficient."
"The logging functionality could be better."
"It is difficult to estimate in advance how much something is going to cost."
"Operations documentation could be a bit better. It took us some time to get up and running with it."
"It could be more stable."
"It is difficult to estimate in advance how much something is going to cost."
"I believe that SolarWinds should spend more effort in reporting."
"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."
"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."
"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."
"From an integration point of view, if you want to have a manager of manager kind of layer, that is currently lacking in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of using Stackdriver depends on usage."
"We have a basic standard license without any additional costs."
"The cost could be lower."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"The product might cost you $30,000 USD to buy, but scaling this solution requires the purchase of additional polling engines at $20,000 USD each."
"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."
"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."
"The price is too high."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

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 logs on onsite, it involves negligible cost for using ops agent and it also include...
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 analytics can be improved.
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 use it.
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 ...
 

Also Known As

Google Stackdriver, Stackdriver Monitoring, Stackdriver Logging, Google Cloud Monitoring
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Batterii, Q42, Dovetail Games
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.