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One Identity Active Roles 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

One Identity Active Roles
Ranking in Active Directory Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (3rd), Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) (2nd)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Active Directory Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (17th), Server Monitoring (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of One Identity Active Roles is 11.9%, up from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
One Identity Active Roles11.9%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor2.6%
Other85.5%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

Mahesh Malve - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Business Development Executive at DigitalTrack Solutions Ind Pvt Ltd
Automation has transformed user lifecycle tasks and now enforces consistent secure access
While One Identity Active Roles is a strong platform, a few improvements would make it even better. Many users feel the user interface is not very modern or intuitive, and it can take time to get used to navigating the console and workflows. Another improvement area is the learning curve and setup complexity. One Identity Active Roles is very powerful, but initial configuration, especially for policies, workflows, and delegation, can be complex and require experienced resources. From an integration perspective, although it supports multiple systems, organizations would benefit from more out-of-the-box connectors and smoother cloud integrations such as Azure Active Directory and software-as-a-service applications, as some setups currently require customization. In terms of reporting, while auditing is strong, generating business-friendly reports can be challenging. Users have mentioned the need for better dashboards and easier report generation. There are also some performance considerations, especially in large environments, such as slower PowerShell execution or delays in dynamic group processing in certain cases. Overall, improvements in user interface, ease of use, integration, reporting, and performance optimization would significantly enhance the product experience.
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

"One Identity Active Roles has significantly reduced both the complexity and the workload for Active Directory administration in our environment."
"One Identity Active Roles has significantly reduced the complexity and workload of administrative tasks related to Active Directory, as routine tasks like user creation, password resets, and access changes are automated or delegated, saving time and reducing manual efforts while making management more structured and consistent, making overall administration easier and more efficient."
"It gives us attribute-level control and the AD management features work very well."
"Another good feature is the change history. It's centralized in a single place and allows us to manage people's Active Directory domains from a central location. We can also drill down into individual objects in a troubleshooting or even an auditing situation. We can show evidence to auditors by drilling down into the individual history. It gives you all the history of what happened around an individual object. That is something that would be almost impossible to do in Active Directory, or extremely complicated."
"One Identity Active Roles has had a very positive impact on our organization, mainly by improving efficiency and security at the same time."
"One Identity Active Roles has impacted my organization positively by reducing manual work, improving security, saving administrative time, and reducing human errors."
"Overall, the return on investment comes from time savings, reduced errors, better resource utilization, and improved compliance, which together justify the investment."
"It gives us attribute-level control and the AD management features work very well."
"From a customers point of view, they get a good return on investment because they are not paying a lot of money when you compare to what they used to pay for IBM and other large vendors."
"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."
"SolarWinds is one of the best products on the market and if they eventually support the IBM Mainframe then it will be perfect."
"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."
"SAM has altered the way monitoring is being looked at - from just being able to monitor CPU, Mem, Disk and network utilization levels we have moved to the next levels of finding out process related issues, service related issues and specific application related issues to identify root cause of performance issues."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."
"SolarWinds fit the bill because it gave many possibilities in monitoring with a good amount of out of the box capabilities."
"The solution can be deployed quickly."
 

Cons

"We're pulling the identity components out because ARS is not an identity platform. It's not meant to be one. It's not robust enough to handle it all."
"The ability to send logs to a SIEM would be very beneficial."
"The user and group management in Azure AD could be better. Our focus these days is dynamic sharing with several on-prem Microsoft applications like SharePoint."
"The way you can search groups could be better."
"It also has workflows and those are really powerful, but there are no built-in workflows. When it comes to them, it's empty. I would personally love for it to come with ten, 15, or 20 workflows where each achieves a certain task... I could just look at how each is done, clone them, copy them, modify them the way I want them, and be good to go. Right now we have to invent things from scratch."
"The initial setup was quite easy, but it was time-consuming. It took about three months."
"One Identity Active Roles is very useful, though there are a few areas where it could be improved, such as the user interface, policy creation, and reporting; it requires good knowledge of Active Directory."
"I have not seen a return on investment or any relevant metrics and I cannot imagine we would have saved any employees or any full-time equivalents for One Identity Active Roles."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve by having a cloud version. They have an observability platform but it still needs to be maintained by us."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"I had some stability issues. I lost my environment, but with the help of SolarWinds support, I was able to get back to a stable platform."
"There is one feature that is a report writer. And they are currently trying to take it out from being a stand-alone application and integrating to the web. This doesn't give us the flexibility and it doesn't expand what we can get when it comes to reporting. So, putting it on the web is going to make it difficult to get some information. Leaving it where it is now will help us a lot."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is not stable. We have to maintain the platform and it goes down frequently."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve the server monitoring and the web application monitoring features are not good."
"Mapping interactions between systems."
"It lacks a user experience for measuring things like the end-to-end time for which a user waits for a specific response in the system. In the application layer, it has some very basic stuff. You have to build your own with manuscripts and things like that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's fairly priced."
"The licensing model is a simple user-based model, not that much complicated."
"The pricing is high. I have not been involved with the renewal or cost aspect, but I know it is not cheap by any means. However, it is very useful for our environment."
"The pricing is on the higher end."
"The price is reasonable. It costs us about 1 million Danish kroner annually, and we also spend about half as much on consultants."
"The pricing for Active Roles is expensive but not as expensive as other solutions like Okta."
"It's expensive."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"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."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"I would advise potential buyers to wait until the end of the quarter, end of year, or other time to place orders. There are actually great deals to be had at those times if your budget cycle can match up."
"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."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
19%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business63
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise36
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for One Identity Active Roles?
I had a great experience with the setup cost, pricing, and licensing costs because the sales team of the vendor is really helpful during the entire procurement of the solution, and we are grateful ...
What needs improvement with One Identity Active Roles?
I do not see anything that needs to be changed as of now concerning the organization's needs because it is working very well and it is providing great features with great processes. The initial set...
What is your primary use case for One Identity Active Roles?
When a new user is created, predefined rules automatically apply naming standards and assigned groups. This reduces manual tasks while ensuring consistency across all operations. It prevents and av...
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

Quest Active Roles
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

City of Frankfurt, Moore Public Schools, George Washington University, Transavia Airlines, Howard County, MD. See all stories at OneIdentity.com/casestudies
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about One Identity Active Roles vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.