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NETSCOUT Network & Application Observability vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

NETSCOUT Network & Applicat...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
46th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (7th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th), Network Troubleshooting (12th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (11th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (7th), Active Directory Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of NETSCOUT Network & Application Observability is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.0%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.0%
NETSCOUT Network & Application Observability0.8%
Other98.2%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

HT
Newwork And Collaboration Supervisor at Nafeza
Monitoring has improved bandwidth insights and application diagnosis but setup and costs still need work
They need room for improvement about the spare parts. There are shortages in Egypt in their stock. We tried to make RMA for specific parts, and it took a long time. Comparing this to a vendor like Cisco, who provides any component next business day, NETSCOUT nGeniusONE took a long time. This needs more improvement. I believe it is expensive. They need to reduce its budget a little bit. Comparing to other solutions, it is very expensive.
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

"It is an easy-to-scale platform."
"Other than those bugs I mentioned, we haven't encountered any issues with stability."
"The speed that you can get from the top of a problem all the way down to the packet layer of troubleshooting analysis."
"For me, the most valuable features are the dashboards which we use to highlight the overall impact to the customers, and being able to drill down into the nitty-gritty of the customer experience."
"This solution provides us with increased visibility while conducting an IT deployment, and when we have any type of outage and we dig into it, we are able to tell what the root cause is instead of having to go through Wireshark, etc."
"I like the single pane of glass view because it presents everything in one window, obviously. You can see it all. With a quick glance, you get a pretty good snapshot of what's going on in a particular situation."
"The solution has cut our overall troubleshooting time and has helped to increase our network uptime."
"When we can get the data into the tool, we absolutely see a decrease in mean time to know and mean time to repair, and similarly for overall troubleshooting time."
"We choose the Solarwinds based on the simplication of managing the tool itself."
"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."
"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 component and cable monitoring are good. SolarWinds is more intuitive and user-friendly than AppDynamics. The AppDynamics console is more complex because it's a more feature-rich solution, so it's not easy for somebody to pick it up."
"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."
"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."
 

Cons

"The solution is not great, but it is not bad."
"The stability is okay, but sometimes we see that the memory on the server is not 100 percent correct and we need to stop and start the software to have it reallocated again."
"The monitoring and reporting tool needs improvement."
"I would like to see improvements made to the user guide."
"The stability depends on who is using the tool, because you only can get as much out of the tool as you put into it. There are a lot of patches for this particular environment, so you have to keep on them. If you lose track of them, then the product is not useful anymore."
"Its initial setup process is complicated."
"While it is good, the single pane of glass view is too high level. It is better for management or someone doing sanity checks. A lot of times, I need to go deeper into the additional screens to get what I want out of it."
"The initial setup was complex. It was hard to know what to tap and how to tap."
"I believe that SolarWinds should spend more effort in reporting."
"AppInsight needs to include more applications, the current list is very limited."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges."
"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"We are looking into other solutions because it is just too expensive to keep scaling."
"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing is quite expensive."
"The tool's price is okay. On a scale of one to ten, I rate it as a five, where one means it is not expensive, and ten means it is the most expensive."
"The price is a little high."
"I rate the price of NETSCOUT nGeniusONE a four out of five."
"Cost is probably the biggest drawback. Compared to some of the newer vendors that have popped up in the space, it's definitely more on the expensive side... [But] it's been able to keep its value, even in the face of the cheaper competition."
"The platform is expensive."
"It can be scalable. It just costs too much. With a company as big as ours, it gets too expensive to accommodate every single site."
"It can be expensive, but if you have a good configuration, based on what you are looking for, it's okay, it's manageable."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"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."
"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 solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"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."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
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 Business26
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise59
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
I would say if it’s an ISP that will build a scrubbing center, Netscout/Arbor is a good solution. In all other solutions, Imperva is a great choice.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NETSCOUT nGeniusONE?
Regarding its high price, I give NETSCOUT nGeniusONE a seven.
What needs improvement with NETSCOUT nGeniusONE?
They need room for improvement about the spare parts. There are shortages in Egypt in their stock. We tried to make RMA for specific parts, and it took a long time. Comparing this to a vendor like ...
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

NETSCOUT nGenius, NETSCOUT nGeniusONE, NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE, NETSCOUT vSTREAM, NETSCOUT InfiniStreamNG, TruView
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cerner Corporation
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about NETSCOUT Network & Application Observability vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.