No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Honeycomb Enterprise vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

Honeycomb Enterprise
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
27th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
AI Code Assistants (11th), AI Observability (60th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (8th), Active Directory Management (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Honeycomb Enterprise is 1.2%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.3%, down from 1.6% 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 Monitor1.3%
Honeycomb Enterprise1.2%
Other97.5%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

MukeshSharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Engineer at Qualys
Tracing microservices has exposed gaps in visibility but has provided high-cardinality insights
I have used better tools, I would say. I would not say that I prefer Honeycomb Enterprise as much. I have used Dynatrace, and I found it more comprehensive, and AppDynamics and other tools. These tools can also provide good information, but I find other tools better. Most of the products, I would say, such as Dynatrace or AppDynamics or New Relic, are targeting this microservices market. I think Honeycomb Enterprise can have something very dedicated for microservices because there is an explosion in the migration from monolithic to microservices. If Honeycomb Enterprise can create a stable solution which is easy to use and which gives additional value and helps for faster debugging with microservices, they can certainly gain market share from others. Tracing is already there. I just wish that these tools are a bit less cryptic. These tools sometimes get quite cryptic for new users. The less cryptic they can be made, that can help these tools. Another thing is that for microservices, when you have multiple microservices installed, that is also required. There are tools where you install on a single microservice, but then these microservices interact with multiple microservices. That kind of picture, I have seen that in AppDynamics; they do give a picture showing that a particular request which arrived here had interaction with these other third-party services or microservices and databases. That is what we need. That is what performance engineers and SREs need to see for each request, where it spent the entire time; how many other services or databases it interacted with and what took more or less time, and if there is a sequence, it should highlight that also. Was it parallel or if, for instance, a call to service A and then a call was made to a database, or a call to service A and a database were in parallel, that kind of information.
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

"The solution's most valuable features are the queries for the OpenTelemetry events and all the tracing."
"From a pros perspective, Honeycomb Enterprise could be a better candidate with high cardinality; when there are too many unique values, Honeycomb Enterprise could be more beneficial there."
"The solution's initial setup process was straightforward since we were getting enough support from Honeycomb.io's team."
"Honeycomb Enterprise played a vital role in identifying the problems in the initial calls itself, which has actually saved us a lot of incidents and reduced customer complaints by almost ninety to ninety-two to ninety-three percent as per the data I have."
"It's very scalable since we used it for a really big organization and it worked."
"The approach offers significant benefits in terms of efficiency, consistency, and proactive security management, particularly valuable for organizations with large, distributed development teams."
"Honeycomb Enterprise has positively impacted our organization by providing live alerts."
"From a pros perspective, Honeycomb Enterprise could be a better candidate with high cardinality; when there are too many unique values, Honeycomb Enterprise could be more beneficial there."
"As I mentioned in one of the other points: "Simplicity at its best"."
"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."
"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."
"The component and cable monitoring are good. SolarWinds is more intuitive and user-friendly than AppDynamics. The AppDynamics console is more complex because it's a more feature-rich solution, so it's not easy for somebody to pick it up."
"Manage Groups: The capability to group appropriate devices gives better visibility of sites, categories, or critical regions. The same can be used to represent a dashboard for higher management."
"SolarWinds is one of the best products on the market and if they eventually support the IBM Mainframe then it will be perfect."
"We choose the Solarwinds based on the simplication of managing the tool itself."
"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."
 

Cons

"I rate Honeycomb Enterprise a seven out of ten because I feel a lot of the journeys could be made cleaner."
"The way Grit architecture is designed and how it works, it is and may not become an alternative choice of code security solutions."
"We can make alerts based on static numbers, which may block us from building alerts that could be generic enough or could be serviced."
"However, the reason it's only five is because it's lagging behind in terms of AI-compatible features."
"The process of log scraping gets delayed on Honeycomb.io. At times, it gives false alerts to the application team."
"I have used better tools, I would say. I would not say that I prefer Honeycomb Enterprise as much."
"I have used better tools, I would say. I would not say that I prefer Honeycomb Enterprise as much."
"On the negative side, dashboarding is not that great."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"It lacks a user experience for measuring things like the end-to-end time for which a user waits for a specific response in the system. In the application layer, it has some very basic stuff. You have to build your own with manuscripts and things like that."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
"The templates could use improvement. Currently, they are quite complex. They should have drag-and-drop functionality instead. It would make it easier to use."
"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."
"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"The price is too high."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.
885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Honeycomb.io?
I have used better tools, I would say. I would not say that I prefer Honeycomb Enterprise as much. I have used Dynatrace, and I found it more comprehensive, and AppDynamics and other tools. These t...
What is your primary use case for Honeycomb.io?
I am part of the performance engineering practice, and I lead the performance engineering practice at my current employer. We use Honeycomb Enterprise for tracing, which is application performance ...
What advice do you have for others considering Honeycomb.io?
Another thing is that for microservices, when you have multiple microservices installed, that is also required. There are tools where you install on a single microservice, but then these microservi...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

Grit
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clover Health, Eaze, Intercom, Fender
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Honeycomb Enterprise vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.