Microsoft Configuration Manager vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Zabbix comparison

Microsoft Configuration Man...

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SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Configuration Manager, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, and Zabbix based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, ServiceNow, VMware and others in Server Monitoring.

To learn more, read our detailed Server Monitoring Report (Updated: June 2025).

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Server Monitoring

June 2025

Helped 856,856 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 5.4%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.5%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 28.2%, up from 23.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

MikeNelson2

IT Infrastructure Coordinator at NSW Government

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.

Provides user-friendly API features and has straightforward deployment process

Carlos Camargo

Senior Operations Manager at Sencinet

One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules. The misalignment of licensing terms can present commercial challenges when adding new modules or additional pollers. Additionally, the granularity of polling times for specific components could be enhanced to better meet individual customers' needs without impacting the entire polling pool.

Enables seamless global client monitoring with reliable remote connectivity

B Ahmed

Manager, Information Technology Zara & Inditex at Cenomi

I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients. Many tools that I require for system maintenance are included. I can easily monitor all of my clients throughout the world I did not give much thought to it, however, improvements could be made to Zabbix.…

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pros

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 are Remote Connect, SUP, Cloud functionality, Report, Query, and third-party patching."

"The dashboards have information about our assets."

"The tool's most valuable features include security updates and patch management, which are critical functions for maintaining security. The automated software distribution and the ability to manage deployments are also highly useful. Enforcing compliance with set policies on systems is another key functionality we leverage."

"Microsoft has done a good job with authentication solutions, such as single sign-on, or open authentication."

"Automation of operating system, application, and update deployments massively reduces IT operations effort."

"This has made the management of our environment easier."

"The product is very stable compared to older versions."

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

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

"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance 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."

"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."

"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"

"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."

"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."

"Manage Groups: The capability to group appropriate devices gives better visibility of sites, categories, or critical regions. The same can be used to represent a dashboard for higher management."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"Zabbix is very easy to implement."

"Every new asset placed in the environment can be automatically detected, predicting human failures."

"The features I found most valuable are the user interface and a wide range of network devices that are easy to configure."

"Dashboard and the customization of the items and triggers are the most valuable features."

"We use Zabbix to monitor our organization's IT infrastructure and workstations. We don't use Microsoft Intune since it's expensive. The tool's real-time alerting system has proved crucial for us, particularly when a new device joins a network that is not one of our own devices. It notifies us about the presence of this new device, allowing us to investigate further. Additionally, it alerts us about disk usage, memory usage, and the software installed on the machine."

"We value the auto-host discovery, template import, bulk import/export features. Newer versions also add nice features, such as multi-IP per host."

"The overall functionality of Zabbix is very good. The monitoring of bank applications that Zabbix provides is great. The information is displayed on a dashboard that is easily viewed."

"The resource usage, CPU utilization, disk usage, network monitoring, network performance, and alerting features are invaluable."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"It needs to be able to load faster during deployment."

"In terms of the monitoring, the timeframe it takes to actually report back on the compliance of a device after it has been patched is a bit too long."

"The analysis is something that can be integrated. Their report analysis can be improved a little bit due to the fact that most of the time complaints policies are saved by the admins. It's something that we need to look into and search for."

"The ability to integrate MDM would be great."

"Troubleshooting in general needs improvement. There's just a ton of logs to go through, and so finding the error log that corresponds with that you're doing can sometimes be difficult."

"The main thing is that SCCM has to become an appliance instead of a server. When I say appliance, it has to come preconfigured so that it is drop-shipped into the enterprise and then you activate the feature sets that you want. It should pull down all the latest binaries. Once that is all there, it should have a discovery tool which goes out and discovers the assets within an enterprise. If the server, workstation, and applications are all coming from the same vendor, why not have the vendor do this work for us and automate it as much as it possibly can?"

"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."

"Built in PowerShell cmdlets would be a nice feature because managing clients remotely can be a pain without knowing the WMI calls to run."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager cons

"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."

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

"The tool’s report feature created issues for us. We needed to gain skills to use that feature. The tool’s customization is not easy since you have to reconfigure the whole system."

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

"The product needs to reduce its price."

"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."

"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."

"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"In an upcoming release, there should be automated reports which we are currently doing manually. For example, if we collect a report file every day and want to send it to a moderator for review. We are expecting this feature to come out soon but it would be valuable to have now."

"Its UI needs to be improved a little bit more so that an end-user is also able to handle it. I can handle it, but others should also be able to handle it in a better way. It becomes complex when we are growing and need to add proxies. We need more scalability features and documentation for different use cases. A lot of articles are available, but they need to be in proper documentation. For example, when you have thousands of servers that have to be monitored in different regions of the world, there should be some kind of documentation to describe how you can create proxies and add them. Sometimes, when you are using the database, it can get overloaded. When the network is growing, the number of transactions becomes very high, and the database gets overloaded. There should be information about how to reduce the load on the MySQL database, which is what Zabbix is using. The market is growing a lot, and it should be enhanced for a lot more things. We are currently bringing enhancements at our end for different use cases. For example, when dockerization is going on, how can we check the logs inside the Dockers. We should also be able to monitor and check the number of logins and add features such as SSO login and two-factor authentication as a protocol. These are the security features and concerns that we have to deal with. Currently, we are developing modules to add features to Zabbix, but they should also work on these features."

"The initial setup could be complex if you don't have templates. If creating templates from scratch, it's quite difficult, but if you are using already pre-created templates and setups for your needs, it looks very good."

"I would like for this solution to be more cloud-friendly."

"When it comes to troubleshooting or technical support, there is usually some time lag."

"There are some features of Zabbix that are not good for reporting. The DX Spectrum solution has better reporting."

"I want Zabbix to improve the UX/UI. Zabbix doesn't use a JavaScript chart for images, and I want them to improve this."

"There are areas of improvement. The database grows really fast. So, when you install Zabbix, you have to deal with some issues, like the database. We become pretty big very fast."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"When you compare this solution with other tools in the market you might actually find a lot of variation in the pricing and that's why people opt for the other tools rather than Microsoft tools."

"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."

"Its licensing is quite complicated because we are getting the license not only for SCCM but for the full Microsoft package. We don't need to pay for a separate license. We need to have one license that includes everything we need, such as Windows, Microsoft 365, SCCM, encryption, and so on. So, we don't have a specific price for it. Perhaps, it is good that it includes the full suite of licensing of Microsoft. It is expensive, but we are getting a lot of features."

"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."

"Pricing is negotiable with Microsoft, depending upon which of their packages you choose."

"We use the tool's free license. It is expensive."

"The solution operates on a licensing model that can be expensive."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing and cost advice

"SAM is not per server so the pricing model can be deceiving. If you have an enterprise environment, you will quickly exceed your licensing quickly. You should know this before going in."

"The price is too high."

"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 have always said SolarWinds is very “proud” of their products, meaning they are expensive. I cannot afford to purchase all the licenses I need for all the SolarWinds products."

"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."

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

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

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"There is no license but we need to pay for support."

"The solution is free. However, many open-sourced tools start out free but eventually start charging."

"Its licensing is fair. It seems to be much cheaper than others."

"This is an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"We purchased Zabbix for a good price, including support"

"I was using the free, Community Edition."

"The solution is free to use but they offer support as a paid service. If you can go read the manuals and do the fine-tuning based on your needs, you do not need to pay anything and you will have a full solution."

"There are no licenses."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

May 31, 2015

Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor

I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…

How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

26%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that ...

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. Wh...

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 effi...

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

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

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.

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 App...

What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

We didn't use the commercial version. We used the free version.

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

I think it's the best solution for monitoring. I don't know any better.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

NetXMS vs Zabbix

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Microsoft Configuration Manager

May 2025

Download Microsoft Configuration Manager product report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

May 2025

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Download Zabbix product report

May 2025

Also Known As

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

SolarWinds SAM

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Configuration Manager helps IT manage PCs and servers, keeping software up-to-date, setting configuration and security policies, and monitoring system status while giving employees access to corporate applications on the devices that they choose. When Configuration Manager is integrated with Microsoft Intune, you can manage corporate-connected PCs and Macs along with cloud-based mobile devices running Windows, iOS, and Android, all from a single management console.

New features of Configuration Manager, such as the support of Windows 10 in-place upgrade, co-management with Microsoft Intune, Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise Servicing Dashboard, integration with Windows Update for Business, and more make deploying and managing Windows easier than ever before.

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

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.