No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

ManageEngine ADManager Plus vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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 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 (20th), Server Monitoring (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of ManageEngine ADManager Plus is 8.7%, down from 14.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 3.3%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ManageEngine ADManager Plus8.7%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor3.3%
Other88.0%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

AliImran - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Administrator at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
Reporting features have supported regular user management while some automation capabilities remain unused
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 required due to the organization's environment and needs. There are always possibilities for improvements in the initial setup of ManageEngine ADManager Plus.
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

"Simple with good automation."
"The solution provides oversight, reports, and logs that are easy to understand."
"Almost every feature of the solution is valuable to me, including the importing and exporting to the active directory from the CSC firewall, and the user interface is good."
"The solution is perfect for moving myself from first to second-level support and empowering technicians to handle certain tasks such as resetting passwords, reporting expiring passwords, etc."
"Technical support from ManageEngine is very satisfactory."
"It is a stable solution."
"The most valuable feature of this product is that it makes it easy to administer your active directory."
"Reporting is the most valuable feature of ManageEngine ADManager Plus and is highly usable."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its real-time node monitoring and Help Desk's feedback."
"The solution is end-to-end from the network and the application to the processes. Everything about the enterprise infrastructure is being covered by the solution. It's easy to use and easy to navigate and one of the leaders among monitoring solutions."
"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"
"The product integrates with Remedy."
"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."
"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."
"Monitoring of processes and services is the most valuable feature; it is not necessarily just the server alone in terms of the CPU or the memory, as we can go in-depth into services and processes."
"SolarWinds is one of the best products on the market and if they eventually support the IBM Mainframe then it will be perfect."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"The bulk email ID creation must be improved. I had to create 50 to 60 IDs manually because when I tried the bulk option, it didn't work. I still had to cross-verify because some fields were empty."
"There is room for improvement in support, they should work on overall competence and turn-around time."
"The main downside is that, for my environment, I must have two products to conduct the same purpose."
"The solution should be made tablet friendly because it works well on iPhones and Android phones, but does not work on tablets."
"This solution is not stable, it wasted my time."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"
"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."
"The stability, flexibility, and ease of use could be improved."
"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not expensive."
"I need to pay for the license, and I believe that it could be made cheaper."
"The pricing depends on scope and makes sense for use cases with multiple domains."
"The tool's pricing is good."
"The cost of this product is a little higher than I would expect for a tool like this."
"I am satisfied with the solution’s pricing."
"I downloaded the trial version, only."
"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 price is too high."
"The product is expensive."
"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 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 solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Active Directory Management solutions are best for your needs.
914,262 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

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 is your primary use case for ManageEngine ADManager Plus?
ManageEngine ADManager Plus is used for multiple tasks, especially for reporting purposes that cannot typically be obtained from Active Directory or present difficulties requiring additional expert...
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

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: September 2026.
914,262 professionals have used our research since 2012.