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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
16th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (37th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (48th), Cloud Monitoring Software (34th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (17th), Active Directory Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Icinga is 4.2%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.9%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor2.9%
Icinga4.2%
Other92.9%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2292201 - PeerSpot reviewer
Innovation Service Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have but average multi-tenancy aspect
It's supported by the community. We use Icinga, which is not part of the Open-Source platform but is wrapped into a commercial solution from another provider, a local provider in Italy. Icinga is an open-source platform, so it is supported by the community. It's quite easy to use, and it's possible to customize the product as per the needs we may have. So it's not expensive, and it's quite a general purpose. We can easily monitor any kind of infrastructure we encounter. 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 alerting is the same as any other monitoring platform. It's not a "wow" feature that has changed our lives, but it's perfectly adequate.
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

"I like the ability to amend and adjust things really easily, which is useful in a case where you could make it auto-discover and then set a template to say all of these applications or servers under this template have an automatic threshold set that you’d set up manually."
"People should know that it is simple and advanced."
"The value of Icinga is that it has hundreds of plugins, so it's really easy to monitor pretty much anything."
"The most valuable feature is one that not many are even aware of, as Icinga has a self-healing event handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted, and you can configure the handler to take action after the critical alarm without human interaction."
"This solution has a self-healing handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted."
"I would recommend Icinga; it's an open-source solution, it's quite easy and simple to use, and checks can be run with Python code and Shell Script code."
"If you have a small infrastructure or a small number of devices that you want to monitor, then I think it's a good solution."
"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."
"We use the solution as a central monitoring tool. We use it to monitor every transaction that has a relation to the organization’s infrastructure."
"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its real-time node monitoring and Help Desk's feedback."
"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."
"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 more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature."
"The initial setup was relatively easy, and we didn't have to install anything. All we had to do was put on the devices we wanted to monitor."
 

Cons

"One thing that Icinga lacks is the capability to create advanced and customized dashboards within the tool itself."
"At this time, the layout of the website is a bit difficult. It should be more user-friendly for changing the background and logos."
"There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved."
"We have found some problems with Nagios, and support isn't very responsive."
"Sometimes, it is very hard to keep an overview of what's happening."
"Icinga’s automation could be improved."
"The connection between Icinga and Icinga Web."
"The installation and configuration are very complex."
"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."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"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 major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."
 

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."
"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"It's an open-source solution."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"The solution is cheap."
"The solution is free to use."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"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."
"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 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."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
University
9%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

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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

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: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.