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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 (22nd), Server Monitoring (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of ManageEngine ADManager Plus is 8.3%, down from 14.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 3.6%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ManageEngine ADManager Plus8.3%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor3.6%
Other88.1%
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

"The product helps to validate every activity."
"It makes our job easier, especially for managing data for a bulk of users."
"Reporting is the most valuable feature of ManageEngine ADManager Plus and is highly usable."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its ease of use, the ability for us to customize the access privileges for the users, and integration with ServiceDesk Plus."
"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 scalability is also good. ADManager Plus is being used by seven to eight system administrators right now, and it has been working fine."
"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 most valuable feature for me is automation."
"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."
"The OOTB (Out of the Box) implementation does have very good node specific pages and can provide a wealth of information."
"If you are looking for a single pane of glass to monitor Windows products then SolarWinds is your product."
"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."
"Once we got our IT inventory organized and aligned with the business, we were able to leverage our Orion Platform to provide more than just a reactive-based monitoring service to the business."
"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."
"SolarWinds SAM is very stable, and we are using it with hundreds or thousands of customers and there are no stability issues."
"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."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements can be introduced by making it available at a cheaper rate."
"With the number of available integrations these days, it would be beneficial to have more ready-to-integrate technologies in other products as well."
"Other products have more flexibility and integration in managing identities."
"Lacks sufficient integration with management tools."
"All of it needs to be improved. It has corrupted my environment."
"The solution should be made tablet friendly because it works well on iPhones and Android phones, but does not work on tablets."
"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."
"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."
"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."
"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve by having a cloud version. They have an observability platform but it still needs to be maintained by us."
"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."
"AppInsight needs to include more applications, the current list is very limited."
"The technical support was better in previous years. With the launch of the premium support service, the normal support has declined."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not expensive."
"I downloaded the trial version, only."
"The pricing depends on scope and makes sense for use cases with multiple domains."
"The cost of this product is a little higher than I would expect for a tool like this."
"I need to pay for the license, and I believe that it could be made cheaper."
"I am satisfied with the solution’s pricing."
"The tool's pricing is good."
"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."
"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."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"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 like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"Pricing is inexpensive, starting at 2440 euros. For that, you get the ability to monitor a couple of nodes and one year of maintenance and support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
13%
University
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
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.
921,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.