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Microsoft Configuration Manager vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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 Configuration Man...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (4th), Patch Management (1st)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (19th), Active Directory Management (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 5.3%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.6%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

MikeNelson2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Deployment recovery works well but requires configuration improvements
While I do not use the product frequently, many issues were due to configuration rather than the product itself. I cannot give an exact recommendation as it is not my area of responsibility. The team that uses it finds it adequate. It is presently good enough for us not to investigate other options. Overall, I rate the product a six out of ten.
KhalidOmer - PeerSpot reviewer
Has a good interface used for monitoring devices
I rate the solution's alerting mechanism and its impact on our operations ten out of ten. We have around 600 retail offices, and the solution helps us save costs by preventing shutdowns. I would recommend the solution to other users. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the data collection."
"Software deployment and WSUS are most valuable."
"It's helped us solve problems surrounding patching, installing, and reporting different patches, etc., on the virtual machines."
"The product is suitable for our size, handling 800 devices."
"This solution has made life easy with respect to patching, compliance, and OSD."
"It uses detailed descriptions of the workstations, and that is good for me."
"It does the job and meets our needs. With everybody working remotely these days, we are using this solution to deploy everything. The deployment of PCs is easy."
"Technical support was helpful and responsive."
"I adore the NTA module that provides deep details on ingress/egress traffic for any interface. With a few clicks, you can correlate who is accessing what and when, beside the bandwidth consuming applications/users."
"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."
"Management Console - Managing service to each server enrolled in the Solarwinds is much easier. Using a web base console, you can control your service much convenient way. There is no need to login remotely. It save a lot of time and effort."
"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"The application dependency feature identifies issues between applications and servers or within the network where the application is hosted. It highlights related problems, whether related to packet processing or other issues, enabling the creation of alerts and reports accordingly."
"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."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
 

Cons

"The time the solution takes for updating systems could be quicker. For example, the system information status is not updating as it should. Additionally, the database synchronization querying is slow and could be improved."
"The configuration of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager could be improved, it is a bit complicated."
"SCCM can improve on third-party application support."
"It would be better if automation options were available. For example, in Nexthink or SysTrack, there is an analytical tool. Creating dashboards would be very easy if you implement the same thing in Microsoft. That report will be a daily cost to the customers and good revenue for our organization. The price also could be better. In the next release, we need to include some features like tables, dashboards, surveys, services, and metrics in the dashboard. Whatever we are implementing will be downloaded by a report. Apart from the report, we will telecast from the dashboard. It's very easy to compare, and it will be easy to telecast to the end-users."
"They should improve their anti-malware policies like the SCEP policies. For instance, you can't have different policies for different servers, there is only one policy in all the servers, and everything is covered under that. For example, say you want to scan one group of servers on Saturday, and then you want to scan another group of servers on Sunday, you can't do that. You have to scan all your servers, a regular scan or a full scan, on the same day and at the same time. That's definitely one thing they need to resolve. In the next release, it would actually be nice if they included Apple products. It will also help if you can use Intune again. Their compliance reporting feature could also be better. They can maybe work a bit on that for patching now. It would be better if SCCM came with the functions of Right Click Tools built-in. If SCCM would have all those functions already built-in, we won't have to go and spend $5,000, just as an add-in from another company to get those functions."
"Some of the capabilities aren't fully developed yet. It's an ongoing work in progress. I think they are making some steps in the right direction as far as managing workstations centrally, like Intune."
"In terms of scalability, I believe there's room for improvement. While SCCM is capable of handling our current needs effectively, scalability could be enhanced to accommodate future growth and larger deployments."
"The solution should incorporate AI. It should also incorporate real-time capabilities. If we could get real-time information about challenges or issues, it would allow us to take immediate action. For example, with the recent outage caused by the Windows issue, having a real-time warning system could have helped us avoid or reduce the downtime we experienced."
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
"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."
"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"Solarwinds should come up the same monitoring system for other certificate expiration alert apart from SSL."
"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As far as I know, it is an annual operating expense license."
"We have to pay for a license."
"For enterprises, there is an annual license required to use this solution. The price of the solution could be cheaper. However, this is mostly because of the exchange rate from the dollar to the Nigerian currency."
"Microsoft provides a steep price for their enterprise products, but they offer very competitive pricing for their legacy customers."
"The solution operates on a licensing model that can be expensive."
"The price could be better."
"SCCM comes with its own version of SQL Server. If you use that SQL Server with SCCM and don't use it for another applications than you get an SQL Server for free."
"The license price could be reduced for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager They should make the price more affordable for smaller companies, most companies would be able to use the solution if it was priced better. There are more people on this cloud because you don't have to have either a server room or an on-premise server. You can have one IT person handle this without any local infrastructure."
"The price is too high."
"Understanding the counts of objects to monitor will determine the licensing need. In terms of pricing, it’s not cheap but it’s not expensive as larger vendors whose products don’t have all the features or integrations."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...
How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. What I like most about ManageEngine is that I can log on to every PC very easily a...
What do you like most about SCCM?
One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages efficiently and deploy them to specific groups within our network. This streamlined ...
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

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
863,901 professionals have used our research since 2012.