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Microsoft Active Directory 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

Microsoft Active Directory
Ranking in Active Directory Management
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (7th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Active Directory Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Server Monitoring (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Active Directory is 5.7%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.0%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

Rajitha Abhisheka - PeerSpot reviewer
A solution that easily merges with cloud-based ADs and provides superior data security
The interface for logs should be user-friendly and allow for enhanced filtering to drill down to incidents. It is time consuming to get a clear picture and review deviations in conditional policies because you have to check each and every log to find information on malicious attacks, a compromised end-user's account, or phishing emails. The logs for sign-ins and auditing should be available for more than a 30-90 day window. Most logs are displayed in UTC but it would be helpful to include time conversions for tenant regions. Currently, we must do time conversions manually before we contact users to share information and troubleshoot issues.
Subhajit Nag - PeerSpot reviewer
The component and cable monitoring features are good, but the interface is slow
SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern. Every SolarWinds user complains about the sluggishness. The response is slow. If you browse from one page to another, you have to wait. Our company is a massive user with plenty of licenses, so the performance issues could be due to the load per license. Ten thousand components can be mapped under one license. So SolarWinds needs to take care of the speed problem. It cannot be this slow. That is a huge complaint. Otherwise, the tool is good. 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 upgrade time matters because you only install the solution once, but you'll need to upgrade the solution repeatedly over the life of the product. A complex installation isn't an issue, but I mind if the upgrade takes too long because it's already in production.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Microsoft Active Directory are the management of user and group policies."
"It's quite easy to integrate into other directories."
"It is easy to handle, and it gives a hundred percent results with the group policies."
"The most valuable feature is the configured appliance system in Hypervisor."
"It is very user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Active Directory is the ability to search for computers and users. While I do not have administrative privileges to reset passwords, I can view user information such as department, and communicate with someone who can make the changes."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Active Directory is the group policies."
"I think the main reason we are using Active Directory for SSO Office for single time and for intake integrity capability to other services."
"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 significantly improved our workflow by allowing us to develop a comprehensive knowledge base of known errors and automate responses to specific alerts."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."
"Solarwinds has an open database that allows you to do serious integrations. It doesn't matter which service desk you have, you can implement and integrate it with SolarWinds."
"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"It is simple to implement and can provide fairly decent Windows-based monitoring, beyond simple SNMP. It is great for monitoring newbies and smaller shops."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
 

Cons

"We may occasionally experience difficulty integrating some solutions with Microsoft Active Directory, but I am unsure whether the issue lies with Microsoft Active Directory or the other solution."
"The interface hasn't changed much over the years. It's suitable for my tastes, but that doesn't mean everybody likes it."
"It could be more scalable. We still need another software solution to monitor the network in addition to Active Directory and OpManager, our domain controller. We use SolarWinds."
"The technical support team does not give prompt responses."
"Could use more structure in the cloud version."
"Sometimes support takes long to engage and resolve, extending over weeks or even months."
"Short-term fixes are like band-aids."
"In the solution, assigning permissions is complex, making it difficult to grant them at a granular level or to multiple users without templates or alternative tools."
"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."
"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."
"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."
"In terms of the dashboards on offer, they should work to improve them. The types of dashboards that you get in terms of the graphs on offer aren't ideal right now."
"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."
"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."
"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."
"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is not very expensive. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"The version of Microsoft Active Directory I was using was expensive because it was used for large companies."
"Its price is reasonable."
"Active Directory is built-in into Microsoft Windows 10. I'm not an administrator and would not be involved in purchasing decisions for new versions of the software. I have only used the client portion of it, I do not know if there is a cost to using the solution."
"The price of Microsoft Active Directory could improve. We pay annually for the solution."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten."
"We have to purchase a license for the solution."
"The product's premium support services are expensive."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"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."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Educational Organization
8%
Educational Organization
36%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Active Directory?
The solution is easy to install and has good reliability.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Active Directory?
Technology is evolving. AI is offering solutions. However, short-term fixes are like band-aids.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Active Directory?
I utilize it in almost every scenario. I use the Hazer database and meet daily needs across every industry, every time.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor at this time. I have not encountered any missing features or fu...
 

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 Microsoft Active Directory vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.