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Observer Apex vs SCOM comparison

 

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

Observer Apex
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
107th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SCOM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
25th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Observer Apex is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SCOM is 1.4%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SCOM1.4%
Observer Apex0.3%
Other98.3%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Jeroen-Dubbelman - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Bitrate
Has good network visibility
The primary use case is for monitoring and troubleshooting. We also use it for security.   The correlation of data in Apex helps to get full visibility of the entire enterprise. Apex is where we get the end-user experience score from one to ten. Network visibility is the most valuable feature.…
AK
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
Have integrated effective monitoring and seamless alerting with improved visualization capabilities
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool. We have implemented and integrated this to create dashboarding of the SCOM monitoring system for the database, SQL, and the Linux servers we have configured in SCOM. We have created separate dashboarding for it, and the monitoring and creating rules and monitors in the management servers and management packs that SCOM provides are very useful for us. The alerting mechanism of SCOM has benefited our operations because we have modified the thresholds as per our internal requirements. We have configured threshold modifications for the CPU, memory, and especially for disk space. For routine disk space usage on the system, we have provided a separate threshold configuration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Network visibility is the most valuable feature."
"We have installed SCOM in our Windows Server 2020 system to monitor any issues that might happen in our infrastructure and keep them in good health, including our SQL Servers, web servers, and web interfaces."
"The license is very cheap compared to other products, and with SCOM license you get a license for all system center products."
"SCOM integrates several systems and offers correlation features, like setting up everything around Active Directory or DNS."
"We were supporting a bank infrastructure using SCOM, and their application availability improved a lot as we had the real time monitoring of the applications due to which application issues were fixed before the end user comes up and complains."
"SCOM is a required tool in my job since I am responsible in overseeing multiple virtual and physical servers and services for a bank."
"The ease of deployment, especially on Windows platforms, is valuable."
"We leverage every component of SCOM; we have dashboards up, customized management packs, and monitors for both Windows and Linux, and we use SNMP traps to pull in information from network devices across the enterprise, so we use it for everything."
"The inbuilt management pack that Microsoft provides is really helpful. I know it's a mature product, and they keep upgrading the management pack."
 

Cons

"The pricing and AI can be improved."
"Overall, I find that this is a good solution but the presentation layer is really bad."
"GUI performance is the one aspect where I can see that improvement on it will make customers happy."
"Both SCOM and WhatsUp Gold could use some system enhancements, such as better dashboards."
"We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting."
"It's not straightforward, SCOM is relatively noisy out of the box, so time is required to tailor the alerting, adjusting threshold triggers and over-riding alerts that are not required to ensure alerts captured are relevant and require action."
"The solution should be more user-friendly and offer a better user interface."
"In a future release, they should add email notification alerts."
"I find this product very clunky and not very intuitive to use, it took me a while to find my way around and understand where I needed to go to configure or even get a report is a bit complicated."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's expensive."
"The platform is cost-effective due to our existing Microsoft support."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $30 per user, per month."
"SCOM's pricing is average."
"Two customers bought the enterprise agreement with Microsoft and paid for Software Assurance. But few customers don't buy it for Software Assurance. They just buy it and deploy it, and they think that we will be using it for the next five years."
"It is the cheapest product available in the market."
"The pricing and licensing are fair."
"I don't know the exact cost because it's managed by our sales team, but Microsoft is on the higher side."
"We have to pay for a license and the price is fine for us."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise54
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCOM?
I am not aware of the exact pricing as it is managed by my supervisor. As an academic institution, we receive substantial discounts.
What needs improvement with SCOM?
We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting. We can work on deploying new ways of viewing things and modifying visualizat...
What is your primary use case for SCOM?
My usual use case for SCOM is as an administrator role where I create reports and provide system configuration for Linux and installation of the SCOM agent. I handle deploying and upgrading the age...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Capita
Dialog Telekom
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