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

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

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

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manage...
Ranking in Database Development and Management
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (14th)
SolarWinds Database Perform...
Ranking in Database Development and Management
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server is 3.1%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is 3.3%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer3.3%
IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server3.1%
Other93.6%
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,…
SufiyanAminu - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Operation Center Engineer at Central Bank of Nigeria
Comprehensive monitoring has delivered accurate insights and supports reliable banking operations
In terms of technical support, there was a time we experienced issues, but that has been resolved. We encountered a downtime and attempted to contact technical support, which was quite challenging, but that has improved after we reported the issue and everything is now fine. Therefore, we do not have any issues with technical support currently. Regarding the AI functionality and observability, we tried to understand how the AI functionality works, and I believe there is a gap in our understanding. I do not know if a session can be organized for our team to gain more insight into the AI module or functionality. For now, the only two aspects that caused me some difficulties are support and AI. Aside from that, everything works flawlessly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There are several monitoring tools, but IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager is actually better than other competitors."
"Monitors and alerts on our mission critical instances in real-time on a 24/7 basis."
"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."
"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."
"Baselining our SQL Servers has made a huge impact."
"The ability to go back and look at historical data is the most valuable feature."
"SQL monitoring time has been dramatically reduced and our IT Infrastructure team has improved SQL maintenance and monitoring knowledge over time just by using SQL DM."
"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."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer helped us locate the performance issues quickly."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"DPA, for us, breaches that gap and it gives us a real nice, very concise graphical interface and visibility into the database performance itself."
"Real-time monitoring in SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is very useful for maintaining database performance, as many of our customers have been using multiple instances of this solution."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support for older databases and the ability to manage them in a centralized dashboard."
"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. So, monitoring and learning are the most important features."
"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."
"What I like most about SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is that it's a powerful solution that lets me advise customers about performance, and it also gives a lot of supporting information."
 

Cons

"I'm going to do an upgrade which may resolve my issues, but one area for improvement is its ability to handle the amount of data that we collect with it. We're likely one of the largest installations, with over 300 servers being collected with this product, and sometimes there are gaps. That would really be my only concern, in terms of how the data is collected and stored, for consistency."
"Tech support has been okay, not that great, but they made sure that we got what we were looking for."
"Some more granularity in alerting."
"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."
"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."
"One thing I'd like to see is the ability to view the execution plan and have the system automatically recommend potential query optimizations, especially at the query level."
"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."
"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."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is still lagging for monitoring the cloud instances of databases including Aurora DB and Cloud SQL DB."
"There is room for improvement with the pricing of the platform."
"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."
"It is capable, but I don't believe it has the right value matrix. It also depends on the budget of the company."
"I do not think that SolarWinds support is very good because it just takes too long to solve the problem."
"Technical support for this solution needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The pricing is reasonable, it's comparable with the competitors."
"The pricing is fairly reasonable, and it becomes more cost-effective with larger volumes of instances."
"It could be less expensive."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is a little bit expensive."
"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."
"The pricing of the solution is average."
"There are no extra costs for maintenance or using the solution's support."
"Customers need to pay for the subscription-based license annually."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?
In terms of technical support, there was a time we experienced issues, but that has been resolved. We encountered a downtime and attempted to contact technical support, which was quite challenging,...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer's WPM and SAM modules are what I personally prefer. I am satisfied with the overall performance and how the dashboards are arranged. We are currently using ...
What advice do you have for others considering SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?
For database performance, we have the module, but I would say we are not really consuming it because we are currently using PostgreSQL. We are exploring this module, but we have not yet started con...
 

Also Known As

IDERA SQL DM, IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager
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
GSI Commerce, Liquid Digital Media, ProLogis, Indiana University
Find out what your peers are saying about IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server vs. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.