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ManageEngine ADManager Plus vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 9, 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

ManageEngine ADManager Plus
Ranking in Active Directory Management
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
16
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 (19th), Server Monitoring (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of ManageEngine ADManager Plus is 13.2%, down from 13.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.6%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ManageEngine ADManager Plus13.2%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.6%
Other85.2%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

MUBDIUL ISLAM - PeerSpot reviewer
Junior System Engineer at Corporate Projukti Limited
User management becomes efficient and installation is straightforward
My primary use case for ADManager is to manage users and groups, perform group policy without logging into Active Directory, and provide easy and secure management and monitoring capabilities. One of my clients uses ADManager for these purposes With ADManager, I can easily complete any Active…
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

"Technical support from ManageEngine is very satisfactory."
"It is a stable solution."
"With ADManager, I can easily complete any Active Directory tasks from anywhere, making it an excellent solution."
"The most valuable feature is the dashboard. They allow me to see everything in real-time and drill down and pick and choose versus running scripts."
"The most valuable feature for me is automation."
"The most valuable features of the solution are vulnerability management and system patching functionalities."
"The scalability is also good. ADManager Plus is being used by seven to eight system administrators right now, and it has been working fine."
"Makes it easy to administer your active directory."
"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."
"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements. The threshold gets configured automatically, so it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."
"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."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."
"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."
"The solution has good alerts. Notifications are sent via email to technicians. You can filter the kinds of alerts you want to receive as well. It's excellent."
"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"
 

Cons

"Scalability, including the ability to add new users, is rated as six out of ten."
"Some of my clients experience issues with the GPO results, which do not always generate the real outcomes."
"It would be nice if the solution offered some sort of brochure with some high-level information that would help sell it to management. If they had details around how much time it saves an engineer, for example, to show the ROI, it would be helpful."
"Some things are not very intuitive."
"Some of my clients experience issues with the GPO results, which do not always generate the real outcomes. This needs to be resolved by technicians."
"The solution is very complex, especially when there's an active directory of more than 1,000 users, which makes it hard to administrate. They need to improve the management of the administrative process."
"This solution is not stable, it wasted my time."
"There is room for improvement in support, they should work on overall competence and turn-around time."
"Nodes in Azure are able to be monitored with the use of agents, but this does not apply to cloud service offerings that are not node based."
"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 tool’s report feature created issues for us. We needed to gain skills to use that feature. The tool’s customization is not easy since you have to reconfigure the whole system."
"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."
"From an integration point of view, if you want to have a manager of manager kind of layer, that is currently lacking in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor."
"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."
"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of this product is a little higher than I would expect for a tool like this."
"The tool's pricing is good."
"I am satisfied with the solution’s pricing."
"I need to pay for the license, and I believe that it could be made cheaper."
"It is not expensive."
"The pricing depends on scope and makes sense for use cases with multiple domains."
"I downloaded the trial version, only."
"Nagios XI, WhatsUpGold, Uptime Software, PRTG, Manage Engine, and SpiceWorks are the other tools that have lower pricing and licensing costs. However, they can't compete with SolarWinds when it comes to the features and functionality that SolarWinds can provide."
"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 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."
"The product is expensive."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"When planning for the number of licenses to purchase, make sure you understand all of the elements within an application required to really understand performance well. In our case, we quickly came to the conclusion that an unlimited license for SAM was the way to go."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
Educational Organization
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ManageEngine ADManager Plus?
While the features in ManageEngine ADManager Plus are very good, not all features are necessary for every organization. Automation is a strong feature within the product but is not currently requir...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about ManageEngine ADManager Plus vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.