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Groundcover Observability Platform vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Groundcover Observability P...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
47th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (41st), AI Observability (25th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
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 Groundcover Observability Platform is 0.3%. 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
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.0%
Groundcover Observability Platform0.3%
Other98.7%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

EO
Software Engineer at FairMoney
Centralized observability has improved transaction monitoring and now reduces errors through faster troubleshooting
Groundcover Observability Platform is already very vast, and improving it requires proper training for even a software developer to be able to use it. A person in tech needs training to navigate the system. The UI is better, but it can be improved to include a more intuitive design that easily explains itself to users so that navigation is simpler. Many features are hidden, and you need someone who is experienced with the platform to direct you on how to view certain information or complete specific tasks and walk you through the process. It would be better if Groundcover focused more on simplifying the user interface and improving human-computer interactions of the dashboard to make it so easy for a new developer or specialist to navigate and get what they need quickly. Querying data from Groundcover is not easy if you do not have specific information. You cannot perform a wildcard search in the text box. If you go to the log and enter an error message, it will not bring any results for you. You must first specify the workload or pods you are looking for, then enter the error. You need to add tags and put in your strings to be able to search for your particular logs or errors. If you just put a wildcard search in the text box, it will not work and will appear as if there are no logs that relate to that search, when in reality the logs exist. Making it easier for developers, users, and specialists using Groundcover to navigate and get what they need without the help of an experienced person walking them through is very important. This improvement is not about functionality but more about making navigation easier.
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 switched to Groundcover Observability Platform primarily because of the difficult query syntax in our previous solution, and we chose Groundcover for their business model as they don't charge based on log storage, they provide the infrastructure, and from a security perspective, the data stays in-house, which wasn't the case with our previous tool."
"Groundcover Observability Platform scales effectively with our organization's growth as we add new environments and everything works great, and the migration from our old product went very smoothly, allowing us to deprecate it rather quickly."
"Troubleshooting is very fast compared to manual investigation or using the other forms of logging that we used to have, and downtime and errors have decreased because we are able to see our performance and workload pods performing better, increase CPU and memory resources as soon as usage goes above the threshold, and make our application more scalable and improve performance metrics, reducing the number of errors in the application by at least 70%."
"Groundcover Observability Platform has impacted my organization positively as it is the primary way we use observability in our company, so it has a significant impact."
"We choose the Solarwinds based on the simplication of managing the tool itself."
"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
"The recommendations are a life saver."
"This feature from Solarwinds SAM helped us to monitor and alert whenever the SSL cert is going to expire on the server to avoid any downtime of the services running on the server specially on ADFS platform where we have Video conference, Webex, Office 365 and single sign-on services."
"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."
"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."
"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."
"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."
 

Cons

"I think it would be beneficial to see the body and content of API calls in the traces as a possible improvement."
"Querying data from Groundcover is not easy if you do not have specific information."
"I would assess the stability and reliability of Groundcover Observability Platform as an eight out of ten; while I haven't experienced issues personally, I am aware they occasionally encounter some challenges."
"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve the server monitoring and the web application monitoring features are not good. Microsoft SCOM has better server monitoring."
"Currently SolarWinds SAM offers AppInsight for modern versions of: IIS, Exchange, SQL Server. They have shown to be powerful and insightful tools. However, AppInsight needs to be offered for more applications: Citrix, SharePoint, AX, etc."
"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"AppInsight needs to include more applications, the current list is very limited."
"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."
"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"The price is too high."
"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."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
37%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Groundcover Observability Platform?
Groundcover Observability Platform is already very vast, and improving it requires proper training for even a software developer to be able to use it. A person in tech needs training to navigate th...
What is your primary use case for Groundcover Observability Platform?
My main use case for Groundcover Observability Platform is for application logs, insights, workload observability, and visibility.
What advice do you have for others considering Groundcover Observability Platform?
Groundcover Observability Platform is a good platform and very good to use. I would rate this review as highly positive.
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 ...
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Groundcover Observability Platform vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: July 2026.
909,948 professionals have used our research since 2012.