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Grafana 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

Grafana
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds AppOptics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
56th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (62nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (43rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Grafana is 2.6%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Grafana2.6%
SolarWinds AppOptics0.8%
Other96.6%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Unified dashboards have empowered teams and have democratized real-time operational insights
Grafana's snapshot and dashboard sharing features are critical for our remote incident response. During production issues, I generate a public snapshot of a dashboard at a specific point and share the URL in our Slack war room so every engineer can see exactly what the metrics looked like when the error occurred. This helps significantly during the process of finding the root cause in those scenarios. The best features Grafana offers go beyond just pretty charts; it is an integration engine. The fact that I can join data from my SQL database with metrics from Prometheus in the same table is a feature I have not found performed as well elsewhere. My team uses this feature by comparing two different tables from the databases to show one single view, which Grafana is really helping with. In a visualized way, the charts can be displayed on one dashboard, allowing end users who are not familiar with these technical aspects to extract valuable data from it. Grafana has positively impacted our organization by democratizing data within our company. Before using Grafana, only developers could see the system health, but now our product managers and executives have their own high-level dashboards, which has improved cross-departmental transparency and alignment.
John Yuko - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager ICT - Projects at I&M Bank Ltd
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

"It gives us the visibility we need. I like that when we add deployment markers or release markers, we know exactly when an issue arises. For instance, if there is an increased usage of CPU, we can link it directly to the deployment that might have caused the issue. It increases productivity and observability. We can now easily tell when a certain issue arises. It's way easier to debug because it can point you to certain things based on these markers, and we can debug easier."
"We chose this solution because it met the requirements of visualizing and monitoring to make decisions."
"Grafana is a very scalable product. It's a really good product."
"The solution has good features."
"Provides good dashboard visualization."
"Compatibility with Prometheus databases and the Spring Boot application make it the first choice when moving toward an SRE model."
"The main benefits I have seen from using Grafana in my day-to-day activities is the visualization of the metrics, specifically Dora Metrics."
"The solution's application server is easy to use and its overall architecture is better for development."
"With minimal effort on our part, TraceView provides extraordinary visibility into the requests that flow through our SOA applications."
"AppNeta provides a range of products, all based around intelligent network testing algorithms."
"The product has a great dashboard."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
"It's a solid application."
"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."
"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."
"SolarWinds AppOptics does far more than what an individual may realize; it is not just a SIEM tool."
 

Cons

"In the area of documentation, they must do a better job."
"​The security needs to be improved, such as the capacity to add permissions on dashboards.​"
"The technical support has room for improvement."
"Perhaps the display of the trigger limits should be more efficient because it's difficult to see that in a graph."
"Its UI features to create charts can also be improved. Some features could have a link to the documentation."
"There are some areas of network drives that are not showing as expected based on server usage."
"The documentation or training provided by Grafana is limited compared to its competitors, like Splunk."
"I would like the ability to download my results into any format in order to share the information with my clients."
"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."
"I'd like to see the ability to use other internal instrumented applications as filters in the overview/aggregation screen."
"We had a stability issue with a portion of the installation (Sequencer) when it was first introduced and have chosen not to install that specific function."
"Because of its inability to monitor mobile solutions, I would rate this solution as a seven out of ten."
"Does not perform traditional SNMP/CLI/NetFlow/WMI etc monitoring."
"The support is not too bad, but also not very good—it's quite standard."
"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."
"The solution should be more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's free of cost; it operates as an open-source tool."
"Since Grafana is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."
"I give the price an eight out of ten."
"I use the open source model so it is free."
"I am using an open-source version"
"We are using the open-source license."
"The solution is expensive."
"My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."
"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."
"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."
"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
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is very reasonable and has excellent community support.
What needs improvement with Grafana?
Currently, I do not think that any improvement is required, but there are multiple use cases.
What is your primary use case for Grafana?
My main use case for Grafana is to create and design dashboards based on the metrics provided by different exporters via Prometheus. We have different exporters, and we are creating different dashb...
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Also Known As

No data available
AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.
TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista
Find out what your peers are saying about Grafana vs. SolarWinds AppOptics and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.