Microsoft Configuration Manager vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Microsoft and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Server Monitoring category. Microsoft is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.1, while SolarWinds is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.4. Microsoft holds a 5.3% mindshare in SM, compared to SolarWinds’s 2.7% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Configuration Man...

Read 84 Microsoft Configuration Manager reviews

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1,833 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 42 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

3,776 Views
831 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Microsoft Configuration Man...

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2025

Microsoft Configuration Manager and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor are key players in IT management. While both offer robust features, SolarWinds provides unique insights and detailed monitoring, giving it a slight edge in application and system diagnostics.

Features: Microsoft Configuration Manager includes comprehensive management for software deployments, patch management, and hardware inventories, offering centralized IT environment compliance. SolarWinds excels in detailed application monitoring, providing unique capabilities like SSL certificate monitoring and system diagnostics, essential for deep application and network monitoring.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Configuration Manager could enhance performance and integration with non-Microsoft environments. Users desire lower resource consumption, easier setup, improved reporting accuracy, and Linux support. SolarWinds users want improved performance and scalability, interface stability, and better integrated monitoring across environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Microsoft Configuration Manager and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor are typically deployed on-premises. Microsoft offers extensive documentation and a large community for support, though response times vary. SolarWinds also has inconsistent support response times but benefits from frequent updates.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Configuration Manager is a significant investment for larger organizations, offering considerable ROI for productivity and compliance, with flexible pricing based on package negotiations. SolarWinds is seen as cost-effective for its robust monitoring capabilities, though some find it expensive, its detailed monitoring justifies the higher price for businesses focused on extensive system data.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

July 2025

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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

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Distribution (1st), Configuration Management (3rd), Patch Management (1st)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Server Monitoring

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Active Directory Management (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 5.3%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.7%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Configuration Manager	5.3%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	2.7%
Other	92.0%

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

JunedBedrekar

Expert at Tata Consultancy

Have effectively deployed patches and applications while integrating with cloud solutions

The features I find most valuable in Microsoft Configuration Manager are replication and scripting. If I want to get a fetch report for anything, such as hardware-related issues or group policy-related issues, I need to fetch the report by using SCCM's scripting language and remediation part. The inventory collection features of Microsoft Configuration Manager are good because we always prefer the inventory. We do it by using the script language. We use remote management capabilities in Microsoft Configuration Manager. Remote management capabilities are useful if the user is not providing access; we can use the backend users to update the group policy and sync the devices. These are the main features we require.

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VIVEK PATHAK

Solutions Architect at Airtel

Offering reasonably good dashboarding features but needs to improve the application performance monitoring

My company uses Riverbed for application performance monitoring. I was doing research so that I could understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provide APM capabilities similar to Riverbed, which allows our company to get a packet capture of an entire session, and on the basis of it, we look at the application performance monitoring part. With SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, my company does SNMP polling, so it can drag an entire session, but it focuses more on availability, CPU memory, and server connection status. In Riverbed, my company catches an entire system, so when we deal with two applications, we have end-to-end app visibility. All the application monitoring happens through Riverbed. Our company's main problem is that, as of now, we have two different products in our organization, and we don't want to continue with the multiple products currently. I wanted to understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor already have capabilities like Riverbed, and if they do, then I wanted to figure out why our company should not go with SolarWinds and why we are using products from multiple vendors. My company needs to continue with either Riverbed or SolarWinds. I wanted to see which products are good for the organization and how much I want to continue with Riverbed.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's most valuable features are easy patch management and software deployment."

"Provides great insight into the functionalities of the data scope."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is patch management."

"The ease of usability is the most valuable feature. It's user-friendly."

"There is a faster time to rollout. If we get a new PC, it can be ready for productivity right away."

"It is a good choice for deployment that performs very well."

"It's a stable product."

"It's helped us solve problems surrounding patching, installing, and reporting different patches, etc., on the virtual machines."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pros

"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."

"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."

"The more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature."

"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."

"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."

"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 solution can be deployed quickly."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"The solution is crowded with information."

"The tool's deployment is difficult. Microsoft needs to improve documentation with videos."

"Could do with some cosmetic improvements on the user interface."

"The product needs to improve scalability."

"It would be nice to have everything in one place. Now they have Intune for the desktops and SCCM to handle their servers."

"Regarding this, I'd like to mention the agent situation. When the agent on an end-user device is not functioning correctly, it can be quite problematic. It would be highly beneficial if there were a self-healing mechanism in place. Essentially, if the agent becomes corrupted or encounters issues, it should be able to rectify itself autonomously. This is particularly critical because, in order to utilize a tool like MECM (assuming you're referring to Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager), we need to deploy agents, known as AsMs, on all the devices we use, such as Windows 10 or Windows Server. Sometimes, when we deploy configurations or updates, they don't apply properly due to agent issues. This issue has been present since we began using MECM around 23 years ago. Unfortunately, there is currently no built-in mechanism for the agent to detect its own problems and initiate self-repair. Microsoft doesn’t have any feature to scan vulnerabilities and hence, they could include those."

"The solution should be more compatible with different versions of Linux."

"Their compliance reporting is not accurate, and they admitted it on the phone when we had a call with them. We were trying to understand why their numbers didn't match on our compliance reports. It is not accurate and you cannot depend on the compliance reports. The numbers just don't match, and we can't figure out why. We called Microsoft and they said, "Yeah, that's a known issue." But there is no word that they're working on it."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager cons

"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."

"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."

"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."

"The technical support team's response time could be improved."

"The product needs to reduce its price."

"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."

"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve the server monitoring and the web application monitoring features are not good. Microsoft SCOM has better server monitoring."

"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the cost as eight out of ten."

"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."

"Pricing and licensing are a downside of SCCM. It's expensive. I'd have to confirm this, but I think they changed the licensing to core-based instead of socket-based. It's not cheap, because you have to buy the software, you have to buy SQL. Another thing we learned from talking to Microsoft is that they provide you a license for SQL if you run it on the same box as the primary server. If you run it outside that box, you have to buy SQL. Microsoft does recommend you running it on the same box because of performance. But then, in order to run SQL, SCCM, and everything on the same box, you better have some resources. It's an expensive solution. There's no doubt about it."

"As far as I know, it is an annual operating expense license."

"The licensing is good because they have various options, depending on what you are looking for."

"There is an annual license needed to use the solution."

"Pricing and licensing are horrible. You have to not look at dollar value to use SCCM. It's super-duper expensive but it works. The acquisition cost is expensive, it's labor-intensive. But it works."

"The price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is expensive."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing and cost advice

"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."

"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."

"Price can always be lower. It is neither on the expensive side nor on the cheap side. We have worked with them for a lot of years, so we get a discount due to the size of the installation."

"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."

"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."

"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 tool is available for my company at a good price point."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	63

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	20

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...

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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...

See all answers

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 ...

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What do you like most about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

The initial cost is quite high, but the renewal cost is reasonable.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 13% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 10% of the time

Tanium vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 8% of the time

BigFix vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 5% of the time

KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 5% of the time

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Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 17% of the time

Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 16% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 9% of the time

Prometheus Group vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager

August 2025

Download Microsoft Configuration Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

August 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM ), Microsoft SMS

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

Microsoft Configuration Manager streamlines IT management with features such as software deployment, patch management, and automation, centralizing operations for Windows environments. Integration with Microsoft products allows efficient oversight of workstations and servers.

Microsoft Configuration Manager provides comprehensive IT management, offering software deployment, patch management, and application pushing. Automation reduces manual tasks, ensuring consistency across systems. Centralized management enables standardized OS deployments, application updates, and configuration integrity. Integration with Microsoft products facilitates seamless operations, while hardware and software inventory, compliance reporting, and remote control functions enhance IT management. Users seek improvements in application deployment for those without deep scripting knowledge and desire better WSUS control, PowerShell and Intune integration, Linux compatibility, and user interface enhancements. Performance improvements are requested for remote user management and third-party application support.

What features enhance Microsoft Configuration Manager?

Software Deployment: Efficiently distribute software across large networks.
Patch Management: Automate and streamline update processes for security and functionality.
Automation Capabilities: Reduce manual effort and enhance consistency in IT tasks.
Centralized Management: Standardize OS deployments and application updates.
Integration with Microsoft Products: Seamless operation with existing Microsoft infrastructure.
Hardware and Software Inventory: Comprehensive tracking for assets and resources.
Compliance Reporting: Ensure compliance with internal and external standards.
Remote Control Functions: Enhance support and troubleshooting capabilities.

What benefits should users expect when evaluating Microsoft Configuration Manager?

Decreased Manual Work: Automation reduces time spent on repetitive tasks.
Enhanced Security: Automated patch management keeps systems secure.
Consistent Configurations: Centralized updates ensure uniformity across systems.
Improved Integration: Seamless operation within Microsoft ecosystems boosts productivity.
Comprehensive Oversight: Detailed inventory and reporting tools aid in strategic planning.
Streamlined Support: Remote capabilities improve IT support and user satisfaction.

Microsoft Configuration Manager is widely implemented in organizations to manage Windows workstations and servers. It is essential for deploying operating systems and applications, managing software updates, and conducting hardware and software inventories. The tool is crucial for endpoint and configuration management, ensuring compliance, and automating processes like patching and vulnerability management. Industries such as finance, healthcare, and education rely on Microsoft Configuration Manager to keep systems secure and operational, adapting it to address their specific needs and challenges in maintaining diversified IT environments.

Microsoft

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers powerful application and server monitoring capabilities for IT pros, enabling them to diagnose and troubleshoot performance issues faster. Do not let slow applications and downtime impact your end-users and business services. Pinpoint the root cause of application issues across various layers of the IT stack. SolarWinds SAM is affordable and easy to deploy, use, and customize. You can automatically discover your system's environment and start monitoring in about an hour. No professional services or consultation needed.

SolarWinds

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

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

July 2025

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