Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Icinga and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Server Monitoring category. Icinga is ranked #15, while SolarWinds is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.0. Icinga holds a 4.0% mindshare in SM, compared to SolarWinds’s 3.0% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Icinga users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Icinga

Read 17 Icinga reviews

7,642 Views
3,286 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

8,214 Views
2,546 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Icinga

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

Icinga and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor are strong contenders in server and application monitoring. Users prefer SolarWinds for its extensive features, though Icinga is noted for its competitive pricing.

Features: Icinga offers flexibility, integrations with numerous plugins, and high customizability. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provides comprehensive monitoring tools, built-in automation, and ease of use.

Room for Improvement: Icinga's setup process can be complex, documentation is lacking, and the learning curve is steep. SolarWinds can be resource-intensive, cause performance lags, and has higher setup costs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Icinga is praised for its open-source nature but criticized for its steep learning curve and limited customer support. SolarWinds offers robust support, easier deployment, and higher user satisfaction.

Pricing and ROI: Icinga has a lower cost and favorable ROI in smaller environments. SolarWinds, despite higher setup costs, provides advanced features and a justified ROI, making it a preferred choice for many organizations.

To learn more, read our detailed Icinga vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Icinga vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

September 2026

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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

Icinga

Ranking in Server Monitoring

15th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (42nd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (49th), Cloud Monitoring Software (34th)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Server Monitoring

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Active Directory Management (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Icinga is 4.0%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 3.0%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	3.0%
Icinga	4.0%
Other	93.0%

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

reviewer2292201

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.

Read full review

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

"I use it for monitoring infrastructure and it was very good for that issue."

"Icinga has multiple automation and integration features. There is an API for everything and a web UI for configurations. The APIs enable you to automate tasks in Icinga. We can also use plugins to talk to the API. The Icinga Director talks to a database in the background, and you can import settings from the CMDB to all systems in Icinga."

"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."

"We have found the solution to be stable."

"An affordable solution for small organizations to do basic network monitoring."

"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."

"Icinga does the job and is fairly stable."

More Icinga pros

"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."

"Having used various other vendors for monitoring over my career, the SolarWinds products give outstanding value for the price."

"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."

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

"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."

"SolarWinds fit the bill because it gave many possibilities in monitoring with a good amount of out of the box capabilities."

"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."

"As I mentioned in one of the other points: "Simplicity at its best"."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"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."

"Scalability is problematic. If you have a stable environment it's good, but if the environment is growing, I had some problems with Icinga."

"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."

"Sometimes, it is very hard to keep an overview of what's happening."

"The tool currently fails to provide notifications to users."

"The connection between Icinga and Icinga Web."

"We have found some problems with Nagios, and support isn't very responsive."

More Icinga cons

"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."

"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"

"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."

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

"The stability, flexibility, and ease of use could be improved."

"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."

"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."

"Mapping interactions between systems."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is free to use."

"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."

"The solution is cheap."

"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."

"This is an open-source solution with paid support."

"We're using the free version of Icinga."

"It's an open-source solution."

"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

14%

Comms Service Provider

13%

University

11%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

13%

University

Financial Services Firm

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	8

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

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

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.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Icinga

September 2026

Download Icinga product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

August 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

Icinga is a robust tool for monitoring IT infrastructure, known for its distributed monitoring capabilities and seamless integration with multiple platforms. It efficiently observes servers, network devices, and environments like Linux and Windows, enabling proactive issue identification and resource management.

With a focus on task delegation and clustering, Icinga offers an intuitive interface through its GUI and Icinga Director, simplifying configuration. The extensive plugin library supports diverse technologies, while the API allows automation with tools like Terraform and Ansible. Despite its strengths, users report challenges with data display in the GUI, a need for improved dashboards, and complex configuration processes. Users benefit from its SNMP alerts, email notifications, and automated incident handling, making it essential for managed service environments and enterprises.

What are the key features of Icinga?

Task Delegation: Streamlines monitoring tasks across distributed systems.
Event Handler: Enables automatic service recovery with minimal intervention.
Plugin Library: Offers extensive support for integrating diverse technologies.
API Accessibility: Facilitates automation with popular tools like Terraform.
Custom Plugins: Allows easy creation and personalization for monitoring needs.

What benefits should you consider in Icinga reviews?

Flexibility: Tailors monitoring to specific requirements with community support.
Scalability: Successfully manages growing infrastructure demands.
Proactivity: Enhances issue identification and resource allocation.
Integration: Seamlessly works with existing IT operations platforms.

Icinga is widely adopted in IT environments for monitoring servers, networks, and applications across industries such as finance, healthcare, and technology. Its ability to integrate with various operating systems and automation platforms makes it a versatile choice for industries prioritizing comprehensive surveillance and proactive management of their infrastructure.

Icinga

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

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

Icinga vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

September 2026

Free Report: Icinga vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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