Grafana vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Grafana Labs and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Grafana Labs is ranked #7 with an average rating of 7.9, while SolarWinds is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.0. Grafana Labs holds a 2.6% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Grafana Labs users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Grafana

Read 50 Grafana reviews

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13,434 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

7,596 Views
4,330 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Grafana

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and Grafana are both competitive solutions in the monitoring sector. Grafana appears to have an edge with its advanced visualization features, while SolarWinds provides superior support and pricing options.

Features: SolarWinds provides comprehensive server and application monitoring with features like automatic application discovery and performance baseline tracking. AppInsight allows for detailed monitoring of SQL and Exchange. Customized dashboards offer diverse monitoring capabilities. Grafana offers extensive visualization capabilities, built-in analytics, customizable dashboards, and real-time monitoring with alert systems. Open-source flexibility allows for integration with numerous data sources.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds can improve its user interface for ease of use and reduce complexity for non-technical staff. Streamlining initial setup processes could enhance user experience. Expanding integration with third-party tools may provide better flexibility. Grafana could benefit from improved configurations for non-expert users and enhanced deployment support. Providing comprehensive customer support to handle complex configurations can be beneficial. Enhancing default dashboard templates for ease of start-up would provide users with immediate value.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds has a robust deployment model with strong integration capabilities and superior customer service support, ensuring a smooth transition. Grafana's open-source nature allows for cloud-based deployments offering flexibility, although it may require more configuration time for customized setups. Support may be limited without in-depth user knowledge of Grafana.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds, while demanding a higher initial cost, offers substantial ROI through its effective automation and robust monitoring features. Grafana provides a cost-effective alternative with its flexible pricing model, maximizing customization without incurring extensive costs. Businesses with tight budgets might find Grafana's pricing model appealing, while those seeking comprehensive support may lean towards SolarWinds.

To learn more, read our detailed Grafana vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Grafana vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

August 2026

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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

Grafana

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

19th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (6th), Active Directory Management (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Grafana is 2.6%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.0%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Grafana	2.6%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.0%
Other	96.4%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Vitthal Gole

Devops Engineer at AIQOD

Proactive monitoring has transformed how our teams detect issues and resolve incidents faster

For improving Grafana, the alert configuration could be more intuitive for new users. Dashboard management becomes complex in large environments. So if we have multiple environments and we have to manage our dashboards for them, sometimes it becomes complicated to manage all the dashboards. The learning curve is steep for beginners. More built-in reporting and analytics features would be helpful. Documentation for advanced features could be more detailed. Role-based access management could be simpler to configure. Performance could be optimized for very large dashboards with high cardinality data sources. Grafana could improve its alert configuration workflow and make advanced dashboard management easier for new users. More built-in reporting features would also be beneficial. A simpler onboarding experience for first-time users and more built-in dashboard templates for common monitoring scenarios would be helpful. Grafana is a powerful monitoring platform, but it could improve dashboard organization in large environments, simplify alert management, provide more built-in reporting capabilities, enhance plugin compatibility during upgrades, and offer better AI-driven insights for fast root cause analysis. For example, if we are hitting a CPU metric of ninety to ninety-five percent or a system load of seventy to eighty percent, we have to act on that. But if Grafana suggests something on that metric, such as an AI suggestion, it would be more helpful. We could get an idea of how to solve that issue. For the Grafana dashboards, they could provide more built-in compliance and audit reporting, enhance AI recommendations with clearer explanations of why an issue was flagged, enhance accessibility and keyboard navigation, add more native integrations with emerging cloud and DevOps tools, and improve scalability for very large enterprise deployments. Grafana is a mature platform, but it could benefit from better dashboard version control, simpler environment migration, enhanced AI explanations, more built-in reporting, and improved performance for large-scale deployments with complex dashboards.

Read full review

NikhilKalwint

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.

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

"Grafana has positively impacted our organization by democratizing data within our company."

"We can write queries in different languages, which is beneficial for visualization."

"Grafana is able to connect with multiple data sources, unlike Elasticsearch."

"The integration between Loki and Tempo is valuable."

"The solution's application server is easy to use and its overall architecture is better for development."

"Kubernetes could help us to better visualize the trend of our data by recording and displaying our history over a chosen duration, such as the last 30 days."

"It provides a graphical representation and it's clear to see what's happening."

"Grafana's best features are live monitoring and alerts."

More Grafana pros

"If you are looking for a single pane of glass to monitor Windows products then SolarWinds is your product."

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

"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, as we can go in-depth into services and processes."

"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."

"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."

"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."

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

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"The main drawback is the necessity for endpoint monitoring."

"Regarding joining between queries, merging between two queries that give the same information could be simple, and there are some ways to do that, but if there was something even easier, it would be great."

"I have a problem with Grafana in the area of documentation."

"I find issues with Grafana. For example, I am unable to open some services there. Then, we have to open ten different tabs to get it fixed. And it's annoying when there's something going on; we want to check Grafana, and it throws four different errors."

"The product's configuration for saving files could be improved."

"It's difficult to see the trends on the graph when the range is too long."

"Lacks in-depth graphs and sufficient AI."

"In the area of documentation, they must do a better job."

More Grafana cons

"SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern."

"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."

"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."

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

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

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

"The product needs to reduce its price."

"As per my view, Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am using an open-source version"

"We use the open-source version of Grafana."

"I use the open source model so it is free."

"Since Grafana is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."

"For me, Grafana is a cheap tool because I don't have to spend much time learning the product since it is a simple solution."

"It's free of cost; it operates as an open-source tool."

"The solution is expensive."

"My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."

More Grafana pricing and cost advice

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

"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."

"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."

"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."

"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."

"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

13%

University

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	27

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana?

We are using the community edition. We have used the community edition, the open-source edition. So, there were no licensing costs. The setup was straightforward, and the main investment was the ti...

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What needs improvement with Grafana?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Grafana?

The main use case for Grafana is that we are using Prometheus to collect the metrics, and primarily use Grafana for infrastructure and application monitoring. It helps me visualize system metrics t...

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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 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 ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

I am doing research as we currently have both solutions, and I am looking to see if we need both or can manage with one. Currently, the outcome indicates that we need both. The focus point is diffe...

See all answers

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Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Grafana

August 2026

Download Grafana product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

July 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

Grafana offers a customizable, user-friendly platform for robust data visualization and integration, enhancing real-time monitoring with extensive alerting and collaboration capabilities supported by an active open-source community.

Grafana stands out for its flexible dashboards and robust visualization options, integrating smoothly with tools like Prometheus. This open-source platform supports diverse environments, aiding in the visualization of IT infrastructure and business analytics. Its alerting system efficiently supports real-time monitoring. While it is praised for its community backing and cost-effectiveness, there is demand for better data aggregation, intuitive interfaces, and enhanced documentation compared to competitors such as Splunk. Simplification of configuration and the interface is sought, alongside improvements in machine learning and reporting features.

What are Grafana's most important features?

Customizable Dashboards: User-friendly, richly customizable dashboards for precise data presentation.
Visualization Capabilities: Strong support for visualizing complex datasets from multiple sources.
Integration Options: Extensive compatibility with data sources and tools like Prometheus.
Alerting System: Efficient real-time monitoring and issue identification.
Open-Source Nature: Supported by a vibrant community, offering a cost-effective solution.

What benefits or ROI should users seek in Grafana reviews?

Adaptability: Supports diverse environments and use cases.
Cost-Effectiveness: Offers valuable features at a competitive price.
Community Support: Backed by an active and vibrant open-source community.
Collaborative Platform: Seamless integration with various data tools refining monitoring and analytics efforts.

Grafana is implemented widely across industries for monitoring IT infrastructure and visualizing business analytics. Companies utilize it to analyze server performance or monitor Kubernetes environments and payment transactions. The platform integrates with AWS services and other data sources to ensure observability and system health tracking, focusing on performance metrics through customized dashboards and alerts. Organizations employ Grafana to bolster observability and optimize infrastructure through robust data insights.

Grafana Labs

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provides comprehensive server, application, and infrastructure monitoring, focusing on integration, application dependency, and network insights through user-friendly interfaces and detailed dashboards.

With AppStack and AppInsight support, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor offers service management, detailed resource dashboards, and integration capabilities. It monitors hardware metrics and performance parameters, facilitating database and network insights for cloud and virtual environments. Robust alerting, predictive analytics, and capacity planning ensure efficient management of server health and application performance.

What are the key features?

Integration: Seamlessly connects with existing tools.
AppStack: Provides a holistic view of applications.
AppInsight: Supports widely-used applications.
SNMP Polling: Efficient network data collection.
Diagnostics: Real-time troubleshooting.
Customizable Dashboards: Tailored monitoring views.

What benefits should users expect?

Comprehensive Monitoring: Extends from servers to databases.
Transparent Control: Enhances visibility into performance metrics.
User-Friendly: Simplifies proactive monitoring with alerts.
Predictive Features: Supports capacity and trend planning.

Industries implement SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor to enhance server utilization reporting, network configuration, and AV equipment performance tracking. They benefit from monitoring critical services across diverse deployment models, improving management efficiency and decision-making.

SolarWinds

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.

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

Grafana vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

August 2026

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