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Netwrix Auditor 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

Netwrix Auditor
Ranking in Active Directory Management
2nd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
GRC (10th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (24th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (15th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Active Directory Management
10th
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 (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of Netwrix Auditor is 11.8%, down from 14.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.3%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Netwrix Auditor11.8%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.3%
Other86.9%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

RishiPandit - PeerSpot reviewer
Optimizing time and effort through comprehensive auditing features
Netwrix Auditor doesn't have many competitors at the level in which it is placed. All other companies provide auditing solutions but not up to the feature list; it is very broad and robust. The best features include flexibility to interact directly with MS-SQL. Real-time alerts help identify potential security threats. The ability to streamline audits with insights into configuration states is helpful, as the access reviews and audit reports are really insightful. This is a good tool. The search functionality is available, but comparative to other vendors, this is a bit slower. Reports are effective; the compliance reports and all the reports are very insightful. That is good.
VIVEK PATHAK - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

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 Netwrix Auditor are its affordability compared to similar products and its comprehensive monitoring of admin activities."
"Netwrix provides features that no other solution on the market does."
"Netwrix Auditor doesn't have many competitors at the level in which it is placed; all other companies provide auditing solutions but not up to the feature list—it is very broad and robust."
"The most valuable feature is the real-time monitoring."
"What I find the most valuable about Netwrix Auditor is the way it shows risk. The reports are very clear."
"I am impressed with the tool's reporting feature and notifications."
"It maintains audit logs for the duration of time that you wish, as long as you have the storage capacity to do so."
"I have found user behavior analysis and the ability to run risk assessments important features. Additionally, the interface and online documentation are very good."
"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements. The threshold gets configured automatically, so it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."
"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."
"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 most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"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."
"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."
"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvements when it comes to the licensing."
"There is room for improvement with the introduction of AI functionality."
"If you buy direct, there is a minimum of 150 licenses that must be procured. The price point and barrier of entry is a little bit higher than it would be if you purchased the solution from an authorized reseller partner, rather than buying it and managing yourself."
"An improvement would be if there was an another way to manage the logs besides email because it's not so practical."
"The solution lacks self-service on password reset. It also needs to improve its scalability."
"When there are issues I would like remediation to be in one place."
"In the UI, we have to adjust and resize our console many times, and sometimes it appears, sometimes you have to close and open it, and sometimes it does not give a scroll bar to navigate."
"I expect usability features to become more refined over time. I'm interested to see how it evolves and continues to improve."
"The tool's AppStack needs to improve in the storage monitoring part. It should also include an analytics and recommendation approach. If I have found a fault in a server or application, I would like to know what caused it and how do I recover from it."
"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."
"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"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."
"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."
"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."
"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license for this solution and we are on an annual license. The price is reasonable."
"The tool's price is fair."
"This solution is reasonably priced. I would rate it a nine out of ten."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"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."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"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
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Netwrix Auditor?
The most valuable features of Netwrix Auditor are its affordability compared to similar products and its comprehensive monitoring of admin activities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Netwrix Auditor?
The pricing of Netwrix Auditor varies based on the number of users and devices in our environment, but it is generally very cost-effective compared to other solutions. We don't pay for licenses sep...
What needs improvement with Netwrix Auditor?
The solution currently meets my needs, but there is room for improvement with the introduction of AI functionality as suggested by the vendor. Additionally, expanding capabilities like database act...
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

AT&T, SanDisk, Siemens, Verizon, Electrolux, Allianz, Societe Generale
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Netwrix Auditor vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.