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

Google and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Google is ranked #27 with an average rating of 8.0, while SolarWinds is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.4. Google holds a 1.1% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Google Cloud's operations s...

Read 10 Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) reviews

2,561 Views
2,126 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 42 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

3,776 Views
2,681 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Google Cloud's operations s...

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and Google Cloud’s operations suite are two leading solutions for server and application monitoring. SolarWinds has the upper hand in ease of use and cost-efficiency, while Google Cloud's operations suite offers advanced features and integration capabilities.

Features: Users value SolarWinds for its comprehensive monitoring capabilities, pre-configured alert options, and ease of use. Google Cloud's operations suite is favored for its seamless integration with other Google Cloud services, advanced analytics, and deeper operational insights.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds needs modern and customizable dashboards, better scalability in larger environments, and enhanced user experience. Google Cloud's operations suite could improve multi-cloud support, clarify pricing structures, and simplify the setup process.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds is praised for quick deployment and responsive customer support, resulting in a smooth implementation experience. Google Cloud’s operations suite, with a steeper learning curve and complex setup process, offers comprehensive support and detailed documentation.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds is recognized for competitive pricing and a positive ROI, making it a cost-effective solution. Google Cloud's operations suite, while costlier, is viewed as a justified investment due to its extensive capabilities and superior ROI from sophisticated analytics and integration benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

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

September 2025

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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

27th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (30th), Cloud Monitoring Software (20th)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

20th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (11th), Active Directory Management (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) is 1.1%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.4%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.4%
Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver)	1.1%
Other	97.5%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Anand_Patel

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 BigQuery 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.

Read full review

VIVEK PATHAK

Solutions Architect at Airtel

Offering reasonably good dashboarding features but needs to improve the application performance monitoring

My company uses Riverbed for application performance monitoring. I was doing research so that I could understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provide APM capabilities similar to Riverbed, which allows our company to get a packet capture of an entire session, and on the basis of it, we look at the application performance monitoring part. With SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, my company does SNMP polling, so it can drag an entire session, but it focuses more on availability, CPU memory, and server connection status. In Riverbed, my company catches an entire system, so when we deal with two applications, we have end-to-end app visibility. All the application monitoring happens through Riverbed. Our company's main problem is that, as of now, we have two different products in our organization, and we don't want to continue with the multiple products currently. I wanted to understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor already have capabilities like Riverbed, and if they do, then I wanted to figure out why our company should not go with SolarWinds and why we are using products from multiple vendors. My company needs to continue with either Riverbed or SolarWinds. I wanted to see which products are good for the organization and how much I want to continue with Riverbed.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Our company has a corporate account for Google Cloud and so our systems and clusters integrate really well."

"The cloud login enables us to get our logs from the different platforms that we currently use."

"Offers a valuable logging transport feature"

"I like the monitoring feature."

"We find the solution to be stable."

"It's easy to use."

"Provides visibility into the performance uptime."

"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."

More Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) pros

"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."

"The product integrates with Remedy."

"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."

"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."

"The more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature."

"The solution can be deployed quickly."

"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."

"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"The product provides minimal metrics that are insufficient."

"It could be even more automated."

"The process of logging analytics can be improved"

"It is difficult to estimate in advance how much something is going to cost."

"While we are satisfied with the overall performance, in certain cases we must add additional metrics and additional tools like Grafana and Dynatrace."

"The logging functionality could be better."

"This solution could be improved if it offered the ability to analyze charts, such as a solution like Kibana."

"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."

More Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) cons

"One area that could benefit from improvement is its performance"

"Mapping interactions between systems."

"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."

"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."

"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."

"The stability, flexibility, and ease of use could be improved."

"The tool's AppStack needs to improve in the storage monitoring part. It should also include an analytics and recommendation approach. If I have found a fault in a server or application, I would like to know what caused it and how do I recover from it."

"In terms of the dashboards on offer, they should work to improve them. The types of dashboards that you get in terms of the graphs on offer aren't ideal right now."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of using Stackdriver depends on usage."

"The cost could be lower."

"We have a basic standard license without any additional costs."

"The product is expensive."

"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."

"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 like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."

"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."

"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."

"The price is too high."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

14%

Media Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	20

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Google Stackdriver?

The Ops Agent and logging transport feature of the solution have had a major impact on improving application performance. The solution also allows the transport of logs into log buckets, which is h...

See all answers

What do you like most about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

The initial cost is quite high, but the renewal cost is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor at this time. I have not encountered any missing features or fu...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 26% of the time

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Compared 16% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

Amazon CloudWatch vs Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver)

Compared 5% of the time

Dynatrace vs Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver)

Compared 5% of the time

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Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 17% of the time

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 16% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 9% of the time

Prometheus Group vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

August 2025

Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) report

Download Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

August 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

Google Stackdriver, Stackdriver Monitoring, Stackdriver Logging, Google Cloud Monitoring

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

Real-time log management and analysis

Cloud Logging is a fully managed service that performs at scale and can ingest application and platform log data, as well as custom log data from GKE environments, VMs, and other services inside and outside of Google Cloud. Get advanced performance, troubleshooting, security, and business insights with Log Analytics, integrating the power of BigQuery into Cloud Logging.

Built-in metrics observability at scale

Cloud Monitoring provides visibility into the performance, uptime, and overall health of cloud-powered applications. Collect metrics, events, and metadata from Google Cloud services, hosted uptime probes, application instrumentation, and a variety of common application components. Visualize this data on charts and dashboards and create alerts so you are notified when metrics are outside of expected ranges.

Stand-alone managed service for running and scaling Prometheus

Managed Service for Prometheus is a fully managed Prometheus-compatible monitoring solution, built on top of the same globally scalable data store as Cloud Monitoring. Keep your existing visualization, analysis, and alerting services, as this data can be queried with PromQL or Cloud Monitoring.

Monitor and improve your application's performance

Application Performance Management (APM) combines the monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities of Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring with Cloud Trace and Cloud Profiler to help you reduce latency and cost so you can run more efficient applications.

Google

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers powerful application and server monitoring capabilities for IT pros, enabling them to diagnose and troubleshoot performance issues faster. Do not let slow applications and downtime impact your end-users and business services. Pinpoint the root cause of application issues across various layers of the IT stack. SolarWinds SAM is affordable and easy to deploy, use, and customize. You can automatically discover your system's environment and start monitoring in about an hour. No professional services or consultation needed.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Uber, Batterii, Q42, Dovetail Games

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

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

September 2025

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