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IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server vs Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials vs SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server is 3.2%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials is 4.5%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is 3.8%, down from 9.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer3.8%
Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials4.5%
IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server3.2%
Other88.5%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2317098 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Offers effective monitoring of resources but lacks the ability to connect to an AWS instance and write custom queries.
We use it mainly for monitoring, including CPU, memory, and disk space, and for troubleshooting purposes We've set up alerts to notify us when performance deviates from the baseline we've configured for each resource. So, whenever that happens, we get an alert and can investigate immediately. So,…
CS
Director, Enterprise Data Management at Glatfelter Insurance Group
SQL Search and change automation functionality help us manage our code repository and databases
The biggest problem with the Redgate SQL Toolbelt is just how heavy it is; it seems to take a lot of resources. It takes a lot of memory and a lot of processing power to run, and that tends to slow things down a bit. Making it a little more lightweight while still doing the same thing, as much as possible, is what we would like to see in the future. I've noticed that Microsoft SSMS runs much quicker without RedGate installed than it does with it installed. From bootup of the app to opening query windows and connections, SSMS is quicker without Redgate than with, by a significant margin. The other area for improvement is regarding licensing. Every month or two my SSMS loses it's redgate license key and I need to re-enter the key to continue using Red Gate, even though the license is annual.
reviewer2787105 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Deep query analysis has reduced MTTA and MTTR and now safeguards critical customer workloads
In addition to the features SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer offers, I wish it had more robust performance monitoring and analyzing features for PostgreSQL databases. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is very strong when we come to SQL Server, but it is still lagging when it comes to PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL is an upcoming enterprise-level database technology in the market. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is still struggling to have a solid monitoring and performance analyzer in comparison to SQL Server. This is one of the features I am looking to SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer to develop as soon as possible. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer can be improved in two areas. One is more and robust performance monitoring and analyzing features for PostgreSQL databases. Second, SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is still lagging for monitoring the cloud instances of databases including Aurora DB and Cloud SQL DB. These two areas are where SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer needs to work extensively to make this monitoring and performance analyzing robust. From an operational perspective, SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer still has a limitation of 250 licenses per instance. This is really a problem for someone with larger server sizes available and more instances running on the same SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer URL. SolarWinds should look at how they can increase that threshold because there should not be a limit of 250 instances.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall, it has allowed us to do more with database management and run more databases on a given server, because we're able to isolate issues quicker and take the proactive steps necessary to correct them."
"The best part of SQL DM is the ability to customize alerts and counters. This allows our team to find an issue then alert on the issue at a granular level."
"Ability to identify bottlenecks, deadlocks and slow running queries and run monthly and daily reports."
"The most valuable features are disk space projections for planning, and also the Snapshotting ability, to look back in time, to see what was going on the server at a particular time. It's basically the output of an sp_who2."
"One of the things that it is used for is to detect anything that could possibly cause our systems not to function well, and it has helped us to determine that before anything has actually happened."
"We're able to diagnose issues prior to their actually becoming issues. Without the alerting, we wouldn't have a clue as to what was going to happen. With the alerting, it gives us a heads-up that a specific threshold has been met, and we need to take specific action."
"SQL DM made troubleshooting much easier and allowed multiple people to look into an issue with confidence."
"Baselining our SQL Servers has made a huge impact."
"It is easy to track the reports, this is what is most valuable for me."
"The most valuable feature is SQL Search."
"I've had really good luck with this product and I've been happy with it."
"It is easy to track the reports, this is what is most valuable for me."
"The platform solves and prevents delays in receiving answers from databases."
"Monitoring is most valuable, and being able to know that there is an issue or problem and I need to go look is also valuable."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer has positively impacted my organization by monitoring my critical systems serving millions of customers with a couple of hundred licenses of SQL SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer."
"The most valuable features I find in SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer are the granular level of details about database performance and other aspects such as queries—what queries are running and what queries are taking a long time."
"DPA, for us, breaches that gap and it gives us a real nice, very concise graphical interface and visibility into the database performance itself."
"In IT, problems often occur in areas such as applications, web interfaces, or databases. The tool allows users to easily determine the root cause of these issues, whether they stem from the network layer, database layer, or elsewhere."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is anomaly detection. It alerts you when things outside the norm are happening, and the feature that analyzes your indexes informs you if you have wide or overlapping indexes. It also helps identify SQL query bottlenecks, letting you know if something is taking longer than usual, if a query plan has changed, and if you need to update statistics. In terms of usage, it is straightforward to use, learn and understand. The patching process is smooth and explains each feature, including links to external resources for further reading."
 

Cons

"It would helpful if SQL DM could mark when changes are made within the program."
"They can improve checking the status of the CPU, memory, and IO utilization from each task."
"The initial setup gives too many user rights to the server, so you have to put a user that is part administrator's group - that's the preferred way - on each server, which is kind of a risk. You want to do least privilege and you're not doing that."
"With basic SQL training in my history, I've found at times I needed to Google SQL counters, for example, to understand what was occurring or how to configure SQL DM to be useful."
"We don't find that it helps us with performance monitoring and diagnostics. We find that SentryOne does that better. Also, in terms of alerts, we had to customize them dramatically so that we didn't get alerted on every little thing."
"They can improve checking the status of the CPU, memory, and IO utilization from each task."
"Scalability is what I mentioned earlier, regarding room for improvement. It doesn't seem to scale out to an environment as large as ours, with just a single monitoring server."
"I would absolutely love to create customized dashboards but, unfortunately, they don't provide me the information that I need to create the report. The report I need is the detail or the transaction detail that's happening on those Snapshots. I'd like to be able to go back through time and search for things. I don't have that functionality, which is very disappointing. That's pretty bad and frustrating because I could query it and find out so much information about what's hitting my environment and when, but instead, they want control over it and to not give me that information. So it's encrypted. I can't pull it out and that is really bothersome."
"The biggest problem with the Redgate SQL Toolbelt is just how heavy it is; it seems to take a lot of resources."
"I would like to see the bandwidth increase allowing me to easily analyze more data."
"The biggest problem with the Redgate SQL Toolbelt is just how heavy it is; it seems to take a lot of resources."
"Redgate SQL Toolbelt is a reliable solution, but it occasionally hangs when I generate a report with more than two gigabytes of data."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer should be easy to implement and it should have more facilities to make it better."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer should provide customization options allowing users to add different columns."
"I do not think that SolarWinds support is very good because it just takes too long to solve the problem."
"One of things that I'd like to see is when you're dealing with a clustered instance or a rack instance, being able to visualize all the nodes for that one rack instance on a single page, so you can see if a particular node is maybe taking more load, if there's a problem with one of the nodes in your cluster, something like that."
"One area where the tool could improve is by adding support for additional databases. For instance, supporting newer databases like Couchbase or MongoDB would be beneficial."
"The solution should add little details on the server so that an independent team could easily do the implementation."
"Technical support for this solution needs to be improved."
"It is capable, but I don't believe it has the right value matrix."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is reasonable, it's comparable with the competitors."
"We were upgraded to Premium Support without their actually asking us, when we were quoted. Then I asked for Standard Support and that they had to re-quote us that. But they don't do that by default. They upcharge you by default, which I didn't think was very nice, without even asking."
"Our fees are paid on an annual basis."
"The cost is about $3,500 USD per individual to buy, and then it's about 20% per year for renewal."
"Customers need to pay for the subscription-based license annually."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is a little bit expensive."
"The pricing is fairly reasonable, and it becomes more cost-effective with larger volumes of instances."
"I don't remember the exact licensing cost for SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer, but it's within the range of $2,000 to $3,000 a year."
"There are no extra costs for maintenance or using the solution's support."
"It could be less expensive."
"The pricing of the solution is average."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
9%
Government
7%
Healthcare Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise4
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?
In IT, problems often occur in areas such as applications, web interfaces, or databases. The tool allows users to eas...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?
In addition to the features SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer offers, I wish it had more robust performance mo...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?
My main use case for SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is as a database performance monitoring tool. My day-to...
 

Also Known As

IDERA SQL DM, IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager
No data available
Confio, SolarWinds DPA, Ignite8
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Padnos, University of Notre Dame, D4, Infeon Technologies, Chevron, LC Waikiki, Sisters of Saint Francis Health Services, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, CVE, Colorado State University, St. Charles, Chaucer PLC, 1-800-Flowers, Ancoris, Money Management, National Opinion Research Center, California Department of Health, Plexus; Aviva, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, CBS, Comcast, Google, Merck, Regions Financial, Schneider Electric, Tata Consultancy Services, Verizon Communications, Zurich Financial Services
Thinger.fi, Churchill College Univeristy of Cambridge, Margin Business Solutions Ltd., 4Penny.net, Sportinginsider.net, Lockheed Martin, Phillip Securities Pte Ltd, Nmbrs
GSI Commerce, Liquid Digital Media, ProLogis, Indiana University
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix, Quest Software, Oracle and others in Database Development and Management. Updated: March 2026.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.