New Relic vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

Why PeerSpot?

New Relic and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. New Relic is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3, while SolarWinds is ranked #22 with an average rating of 8.0. New Relic holds a 3.7% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of New Relic users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

New Relic

Read 176 New Relic reviews

27,914 Views
18,144 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

8,842 Views
4,952 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

New Relic

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and New Relic are both key contenders in application performance monitoring, with SolarWinds being praised for its easy deployment and support, while New Relic is preferred for its advanced features which justify its higher cost.

Features: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor excels in comprehensive monitoring capabilities, offering seamless integration with a variety of applications and servers. Its data visualization is intuitive and easy to comprehend, making it quite user-friendly. New Relic shines with its robust APM tools, delivering real-time insights and an extensive range of integrations, especially optimized for cloud environments. The emphasis on detailed real-time analytics provides New Relic with a substantial advantage.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds could enhance its long-term ROI potential by expanding its feature set and leveraging more advanced analytics. Improved cloud integration would also bolster its competitiveness. Refining dashboard customizations could further elevate user experience. New Relic might benefit from enhancing its customer support to offer more personalized service options. Additionally, improving cost transparency and streamlined onboarding processes could address barriers for new users. Offering more flexible pricing models might make advanced features more accessible.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds is recognized for its straightforward on-premise deployment, coupled with reliable support services. This makes it an attractive option for businesses seeking local installations with robust assistance. Conversely, New Relic's SaaS deployment model allows rapid setup and can easily scale, although it offers less personalized customer support compared to its competitor.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds generally offers a more cost-effective entry point to server and application monitoring with lower initial setup costs, yet its long-term ROI might be limited due to narrower feature offerings. On the other hand, New Relic involves higher upfront fees, but its expansive APM functionalities and adaptation to evolving tech landscapes provide substantial long-term ROI potential, making it a more valuable investment despite the higher initial costs.

To learn more, read our detailed New Relic vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

New Relic vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

September 2026

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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

New Relic

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

4th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

176

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (9th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (9th), IT Operations Analytics (3rd), Mobile APM (2nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (3rd), AIOps (5th)

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

22nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (5th), Active Directory Management (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of New Relic is 3.7%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.0%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
New Relic	3.7%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.0%
Other	95.3%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

BasilJiji

System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Real-time alerts have reduced server outage impact and support fast incident response

In the dashboard, if they could show a little more metrics regarding the application and related things, that would be how New Relic could be improved. Currently, there are things showing from the server level and application level, but it can be improved. That is what I felt. Regarding user interface, I do not feel much concern, but for some kind of issues when we are trying to get support from the New Relic team, their SLA seems to be long. They are taking seven to ten working days for resolving some kind of scenario or issue. That is a bit difficult for us. If they could improve the customer support by reducing their SLA within three to five days, if they could remediate everything, that will be so much helpful. When it comes to the customer support part, I felt they need to be a little more improved on that part. The support overall is good, but they can improve. That is the reason I have given it eight out of ten.

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NikhilKalwint

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.

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

"Real-time error monitoring means I can drill down and see what’s happening."

"New Relic has positively impacted my organization regarding my main area of interest, which is performance tests, and by using New Relic, I received a lot of information to improve my systems."

"It helps me to identify root cause on the code level issues."

"We have a standard visibility process for any application that rolls out, and it gives us the ability to train our people and provide a more responsive application."

"Great product which helps in quality and performance assurance of your webapps."

"Reduced the worry in supporting live websites."

"It has a simple initial setup."

"It’s a solid product; they continue to innovate year after year, and they’re a very solid product and a very solid company."

More New Relic pros

"The recommendations are a life saver."

"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."

"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."

"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."

"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."

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

"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 product integrates with Remedy."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

Cons

"There were some settings we had issues with."

"How granular I could go down at looking at certain data, especially related to the operations, is limited."

"Raw transaction didn’t give us data that we needed."

"The solution could improve by having more network monitoring features, such as for all the infrastructure."

"One major issue for me with New Relic is data privacy."

"The one thing I really wanted to see was to getting more granular with the data, which may be coming in Insights."

"I would like better alerting."

"New Relic does enable frontend performance monitoring by default. However, when we are troubleshooting the issue, New Relic is not able to trace back to the service where the issue is. Other solutions, such as Dynatrace are better."

More New Relic cons

"Currently SolarWinds SAM offers AppInsight for modern versions of: IIS, Exchange, SQL Server. They have shown to be powerful and insightful tools. However, AppInsight needs to be offered for more applications: Citrix, SharePoint, AX, etc."

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

"AppInsight needs to include more applications, the current list is very limited."

"Having two places to build and manage alerts is not efficient and not all alerting tools are available in the trap manager."

"They are complex to operate; users need to know what they want during setup."

"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."

"Mapping interactions between systems."

"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing could be better. We did not purchase the full version. Maybe if we applied all the other features of the full version of New Relic, we could get all the features that we feel are missing."

"Because of budget, we are not using the mobile app part of this tool."

"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was easy. The product is easy to deploy and manage, which is why our company purchased through the AWS Marketplace."

"The new licensing model is great, as we pay for what we use (in computational units). However, the pricing is expensive compared to other tools."

"Cost is significant with a lot of extras."

"If it’s the right tool, it doesn’t matter what it costs because you’re going to get it back many-fold from your productivity."

"The solution is cheap, but prices can go up when users grow."

"The price of New Relic APM could be less expensive. We are using the New Relic APM pro account and it is more costly. When compared to competitors the solution's pricing should be much more realistic."

More New Relic pricing and cost advice

"The price is too high."

"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 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."

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

"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."

"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."

"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Outsourcing Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Construction Company

Educational Organization

13%

University

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	65
Midsize Enterprise	52
Large Enterprise	79

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?

There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...

See all answers

What needs improvement with New Relic Insights?

I find New Relic to be somewhat expensive. Our team shares logins, contrasting with other applications where individual team accounts are standard. Pricing is a primary concern since New Relic can ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for New Relic Insights?

As an Application Monitoring Engineer, my primary responsibilities include ensuring the uptime of services, managing infrastructure, and monitoring transactions. I use New Relic to set up incidents...

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 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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Compared 6% of the time

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Dynatrace vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 4% of the time

Nagios XI vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

New Relic

September 2026

Download New Relic product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

September 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Also Known As

New Relic Browser, New Relic Applied Intelligence, New Relic Insights, New Relic Synthetics, New Relic Servers, New Relic APM

SolarWinds SAM

Overview

New Relic offers real-time application monitoring and insight into performance bottlenecks. Its customizable dashboards and APM integration provide efficient operational support, while server performance alerts ensure quick issue detection.

New Relic provides comprehensive monitoring of application performance, tracking bottlenecks across databases and front-end components. Users employ it for server and infrastructure monitoring, as well as analyzing key metrics such as CPU and memory usage. The solution's ability to integrate with tools like PagerDuty enhances incident management capabilities. However, users have expressed a need for improvements in query language simplicity, more detailed historical insights, and better mobile app monitoring support.

What are New Relic's most important features?

Real-Time Monitoring: Provides instant visibility into application performance.
Detailed Transaction Tracing: Identifies specific transaction issues quickly.
Error Rate Tracking: Monitors and reports on error occurrences efficiently.
Customizable Dashboards: Tailors dashboard views for specific needs.
APM Integration: Seamlessly integrates with application performance management tools.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Operational Efficiency: Quick issue detection reduces downtime.
Improved Debugging: Enhanced error analysis supports rapid problem resolution.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Offers a holistic view of application performance and user behavior.
Incident Management: Integration with incident tools helps streamline responses.
Efficient Alerts: Rapid alert systems ensure timely notifications of issues.

In industries like e-commerce and financial services, New Relic supports application performance monitoring to enhance user experience and system reliability. Organizations leverage its insights for optimizing performance, particularly in server operations and infrastructure management. Its ability to monitor API failures through synthetic monitoring is crucial for maintaining high service levels.

New Relic

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provides comprehensive server, application, and infrastructure monitoring, focusing on integration, application dependency, and network insights through user-friendly interfaces and detailed dashboards.

With AppStack and AppInsight support, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor offers service management, detailed resource dashboards, and integration capabilities. It monitors hardware metrics and performance parameters, facilitating database and network insights for cloud and virtual environments. Robust alerting, predictive analytics, and capacity planning ensure efficient management of server health and application performance.

What are the key features?

Integration: Seamlessly connects with existing tools.
AppStack: Provides a holistic view of applications.
AppInsight: Supports widely-used applications.
SNMP Polling: Efficient network data collection.
Diagnostics: Real-time troubleshooting.
Customizable Dashboards: Tailored monitoring views.

What benefits should users expect?

Comprehensive Monitoring: Extends from servers to databases.
Transparent Control: Enhances visibility into performance metrics.
User-Friendly: Simplifies proactive monitoring with alerts.
Predictive Features: Supports capacity and trend planning.

Industries implement SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor to enhance server utilization reporting, network configuration, and AV equipment performance tracking. They benefit from monitoring critical services across diverse deployment models, improving management efficiency and decision-making.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

World Fuel Services, Verizon, FootLocker, McDonald's, Trainline, Mondia Media, Confused, Costa Coffee, Ryanair, Marks & Spencer, William Hill, Delivery Hero, Skyscanner, BASF, DAZN, Veygo, Virtuo, movingimage, talabat, Australia Post, Tokopedia, Seven Network, Virgin Australia, Zomato, BigBasket, Mercado Libre, Lending Club

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Buyer's Guide

New Relic vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

September 2026

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