Groundcover Observability Platform vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

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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

Groundcover Observability P...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

47th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (41st), AI Observability (27th)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

18th

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 July 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 1.1%, 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 (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.1%
Groundcover Observability Platform	0.3%
Other	98.6%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Amir Baum

Full Stack Developer at Augury Inc.

Monitoring microservices has become streamlined and custom dashboards provide clear bug insights

I cannot think of something specific regarding improvements for Groundcover Observability Platform as it is quite effective, especially compared to my previous experience with a Rapid7 platform, which was considerably worse. I think it would be beneficial to see the body and content of API calls in the traces as a possible improvement.

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 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."

"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."

"I am impressed with the tool's AppStack feature which mainly helps us in the identification process. This feature can give an overview of the fault and help us identify the issues for performance degradation. Instead of looking at multiple places, we can look at a single place to identify the issues."

"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"

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

"From a customers point of view, they get a good return on investment because they are not paying a lot of money when you compare to what they used to pay for IBM and other large vendors."

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

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."

"We choose the Solarwinds based on the simplication of managing the tool itself."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"I think it would be beneficial to see the body and content of API calls in the traces as a possible improvement."

"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."

"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."

"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."

"PerfStack can be made more effective."

"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."

"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 technical support is nothing special."

"The technical support team's response time could be improved."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Price can always be lower. It is neither on the expensive side nor on the cheap side. We have worked with them for a lot of years, so we get a discount due to the size of the installation."

"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."

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

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

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

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902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

45%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

13%

University

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Groundcover Observability Platform?

I recently visited their booth and reported a bug, which they demonstrated and logged. They assured me it would be fixed by tomorrow.Regarding future versions of Groundcover Observability Platform,...

What is your primary use case for Groundcover Observability Platform?

My main use cases for Groundcover Observability Platform ( /products/groundcover-observability-platform-reviews ) are as a monitoring tool for debugging and monitoring. I use it to review logs, che...

What advice do you have for others considering Groundcover Observability Platform?

These issues with Groundcover Observability Platform are quick to fix. We have an SRE person at the company who works with them closely and uses Groundcover constantly. He creates amazing graphs, m...

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.

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...

Chronosphere vs Groundcover Observability Platform

Comparisons

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Coralogix vs Groundcover Observability Platform

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Compared 6% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

Opsview vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Download Groundcover Observability Platform product report

Groundcover Observability Platform report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Also Known As

No data available

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

Groundcover Observability Platform empowers teams by providing crucial insights into application performance, ensuring system reliability and aiding proactive decision-making.

Groundcover Observability Platform offers comprehensive observability by harnessing cutting-edge technology. It transforms how teams manage systems by effectively monitoring, identifying issues, and simplifying troubleshooting processes. With a focus on scalability, it enables seamless integrations while ensuring robust analytics and real-time insights.

What are the key features of Groundcover Observability Platform?

Real-Time Monitoring: Instantly tracks application performance, providing up-to-date metrics.
Scalable Architecture: Easily adapts to growing needs, ensuring flexibility.
Advanced Analytics: Offers deep insights into data for informed decision-making.
Seamless Integration: Integrates smoothly with existing tools to enhance workflows.
Error Detection: Quickly identifies and resolves issues to minimize downtime.

What benefits should users look for in Groundcover Observability Platform?

Improved Efficiency: Streamlines operations by automating monitoring tasks.
Cost Reduction: Minimizes overhead by optimizing resource utilization.
Enhanced Reliability: Reduces outage occurrences with proactive management.
Better Decision Making: Data-driven insights enable strategic planning.

Groundcover Observability Platform is utilized across industries such as finance, healthcare, and e-commerce to bolster infrastructure stability. In finance, it enhances transaction monitoring ensuring secure processing. Healthcare organizations leverage it to comply with regulatory standards while e-commerce platforms use it to guarantee seamless user experiences during high traffic events.

groundcover

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

Information Not Available

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability