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ManageEngine ADAudit Plus vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

ManageEngine ADAudit Plus
Ranking in Active Directory Management
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Active Directory Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (17th), Server Monitoring (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of ManageEngine ADAudit Plus is 7.8%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.9%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ManageEngine ADAudit Plus7.8%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor2.9%
Other89.3%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

Karthik G - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Pre-sales Specialist at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
Has enabled detailed auditing of sensitive changes across directory and file systems
The key functionalities of ManageEngine ADAudit Plus are primarily Active Directory reporting, where we create the whole user life cycle management, such as when users are created, who created them, when users are deleted, what group memberships changed, and not just for users, but for all Active Directory objects, users, computers, groups, and group policies. All changes are recorded immediately in real-time and reported for forensic analysis of incidents including who created them, what exactly changed, and what were the old and new values for the attributes. In case of a ransomware attack on a particular server, we can check what process created the files and what files have changed, even with features such as attack surface analyzer that help administrators see what's happening in their local Active Directory regarding password attacks. ManageEngine ADAudit Plus provides real-time tracking capabilities through agent installation, which works in real-time to collect information and immediately alerts if anything matches the defined conditions in the application.
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

"The monitoring and reporting are extensive and we get all the information we need while they continue to enhance the capabilities of the product."
"We use the product to track events and monitor logs of servers and workstations. I am impressed with the tool's tracking ability. It is intuitive and easy to use."
"ADAudit saves you the expense of hiring an outside auditor for compliance with regulations like PCI DSS or PCA."
"Real-time monitoring of AD changes and logons is valuable."
"We are happy with this product; we use it for multiple purposes and we get a lot of useful information from it."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"I like the user behavior analytics (UBA). It's a machine learning feature that creates a standard profile for each user when you install it. It creates a baseline for every user, so it can detect when anyone deviates from that standard baseline profile. For example, if a user typically logs in at 9:30 am and logs out at 6 pm, ADAudit will flag it as an anomaly when that same logs in after normal hours and alert the admins."
"ManageEngine ADAudit Plus provides real-time tracking capabilities through agent installation, which works in real-time to collect information and immediately alerts if anything matches the defined conditions in the application."
"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."
"SolarWinds SAM is very stable, and we are using it with hundreds or thousands of customers and there are no stability issues."
"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."
"SolarWinds is one of the best products on the market and if they eventually support the IBM Mainframe then it will be perfect."
"The ROI for SolarWinds products is unmatched in the industry."
"The solution can be deployed quickly."
"Having used various other vendors for monitoring over my career, the SolarWinds products give outstanding value for the price."
"The solution has good alerts; notifications are sent via email to technicians, and you can filter the kinds of alerts you want to receive as well, which is excellent."
 

Cons

"I consider the pricing for ADAudit Plus a bit high compared to other software solutions, so I would rate it around two or three on the pricing scale."
"There are so many reports that it sometimes makes it difficult to navigate to what you need."
"Its configuration can be better. There were 44 pages of documented notes of what I had to do to get the product to work during the installation process."
"The initial setup was difficult."
"The initial setup was quite complex and required some research beforehand."
"An area of improvement for ManageEngine ADAudit Plus could be in graphical reporting, as currently, it's limited with old school bar charts, and having more interactive reports with a better graphical user interface would be beneficial."
"One problem with ADAudit is that it has too many configurations to apply to the active directory server, which makes it difficult to use."
"Sometimes the developers in technical support take time."
"MS Azure Service and user experience monitoring is an area in which the SolarWinds tools are lacking; without a doubt, this is the Achilles heel of the Orion monitoring tools, and I am currently reviewing other vendors for Azure service monitoring tools."
"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 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."
"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."
"Scalability was an issue in the past."
"Mapping interactions between systems."
"There is one feature that is a report writer. And they are currently trying to take it out from being a stand-alone application and integrating to the web. This doesn't give us the flexibility and it doesn't expand what we can get when it comes to reporting. So, putting it on the web is going to make it difficult to get some information. Leaving it where it is now will help us a lot."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ADAudit Plus's pricing is affordable and flexible, with very low prices in the market."
"The solution's pricing is acceptable."
"My guess is that it was around $4,000 or $5,000 a year, and we bought a license, and then we have maintenance fees. I'm not 100% sure how that worked out."
"Adding features and other functionality it costs you more. Also, the first installation costs an additional amount."
"It's a medium-priced solution."
"The tool is affordable, and our company is very happy with it. If ten is the most expensive and one is the least expensive, I rate the tool a three or four."
"We are on an annual license to use the solution. The price of the solution is expensive. The price is based on a bunch of factors, such as the number of engines and elements."
"The price is too high."
"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."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ManageEngine ADAudit Plus?
An area of improvement for ManageEngine ADAudit Plus could be in graphical reporting, as currently, it's limited with old school bar charts, and having more interactive reports with a better graphi...
What is your primary use case for ManageEngine ADAudit Plus?
The main use case for ManageEngine ADAudit Plus is primarily focused on auditing, so any changes related to Active Directory or Azure Intra ID or even file servers, such as file monitoring, are imm...
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

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Warsaw City Hall, Acument Global Technologies, Inc., Cosma International, Bank of South Pacific, Life Management Center, Central Bank, UncleBob's Self Storage, Leeds Building Society, California Transplant Donor Network, First Response, Blessing Hospital, Northern Land Council, RMK Marine
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about ManageEngine ADAudit Plus vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.