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Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 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

Icinga
Ranking in Server Monitoring
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (15th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (14th), Cloud Monitoring Software (15th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Active Directory Management (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Icinga is 9.5%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.6%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Harrison Bulley - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable, scalable and cost-effective solution that helps with inbuilt scripts for easy modification
I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built.
Subhajit Nag - PeerSpot reviewer
The component and cable monitoring features are good, but the interface is slow
SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern. Every SolarWinds user complains about the sluggishness. The response is slow. If you browse from one page to another, you have to wait. Our company is a massive user with plenty of licenses, so the performance issues could be due to the load per license. Ten thousand components can be mapped under one license. So SolarWinds needs to take care of the speed problem. It cannot be this slow. That is a huge complaint. Otherwise, the tool is good. It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle. The upgrade time matters because you only install the solution once, but you'll need to upgrade the solution repeatedly over the life of the product. A complex installation isn't an issue, but I mind if the upgrade takes too long because it's already in production.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."
"It is really easy in Icinga to create your own plugin and integrate it without any fuss. And it works just perfectly fine."
"The ability to customize scripts and build your own queries to request information from the infrastructure elements you want to monitor. This level of personalization and customization is highly appreciated."
"The drafts are easy but what I like about Icinga is that there are many add-ons that you can download."
"There's a module called Icinga Director, which helps us configure the product using an intuitive interface through clicks instead of creating a text configuration. It's very helpful for us."
"This solution has a self-healing handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted."
"The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."
"Icinga does the job and is fairly stable."
"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."
"SolarWinds SAM has significantly improved our workflow by allowing us to develop a comprehensive knowledge base of known errors and automate responses to specific alerts."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
"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. We can go in-depth into services and processes."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
 

Cons

"The solution lacks many features important to higher-level IT management and network support."
"Icinga is a complex solution that's hard to learn. It's a powerful product for monitoring, but new users will have a hard time figuring out what to do."
"Icinga’s automation could be improved."
"I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built."
"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."
"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."
"The installation and configuration are very complex."
"In general, the product does not look good. However, it does what it is supposed to do. So, the improvements should focus on usability and UI."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."
"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."
"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"The solution is free to use."
"The solution is cheap."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"It's an open-source solution."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It is just the standard price, but it can vary depending on the current rate of the dollar."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"The product is expensive."
"Pricing is inexpensive, starting at 2440 euros. For that, you get the ability to monitor a couple of nodes and one year of maintenance and support."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
36%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Icinga?
The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Icinga?
It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low. If you want to include this product in the services you offer to your customers, the return on i...
What needs improvement with Icinga?
There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved. For instance, multi-tenancy for monitoring the virtual infrastructur...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor at this time. I have not encountered any missing features or fu...
 

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.