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OpenText Real User Monitoring vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 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

OpenText Real User Monitoring
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
45th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (10th), Active Directory Management (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of OpenText Real User Monitoring is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.3%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.3%
OpenText Real User Monitoring0.4%
Other98.3%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Aphiwat Leetavorn. - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers back-end monitoring, so it can analyze user experience but when customers change the software or version, this tool is quite sensitive
Real User Monitoring tools help proactively identify problems before they become critical by monitoring thresholds. There is a threshold and an SOA threshold. For example, it starts to go yellow, and if it becomes red, the system will crash. When it starts to become yellow (Threshold Approaching), we have to resolve it. This is the same case where we'll know what happened before it's too late. So we can make an early decision to prevent it, maybe by kicking some users off the system before it crashes.
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 reporting feature is good for us."
"The most valuable feature is application performance monitoring."
"Real User Monitor has improved our productivity."
"It is a good product."
"It offers near-real-time analytics, which is helpful."
"Very easy to implement."
"The most useful feature of this solution is tracking. When the application's traffic has been monitored it is taken from that particular application and analyzed. It is then given a live session of that particular user. For example, if you are using your bank application to do some kind of transaction, everything that you do can be tracked by that application."
"The technical support is good at resolving issues."
"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."
"I am impressed with the tool's AppStack feature which mainly helps us in the identification process. This feature can give an overview of the fault and help us identify the issues for performance degradation. Instead of looking at multiple places, we can look at a single place to identify the issues."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
"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."
"Management Console - Managing service to each server enrolled in the Solarwinds is much easier. Using a web base console, you can control your service much convenient way. There is no need to login remotely. It save a lot of time and effort."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
 

Cons

"The solution's technical support presents a lot of issues with too many delays."
"This technology is considered to be older."
"The product needs more R&D to make it easier and more compatible with other software."
"Some issues with login errors."
"We would like to see support for non-Windows environments."
"When we want to monitor our encrypted traffic, this product doesn't work because our cipher is not supported."
"Real User Monitor needs to cover more protocols to provide more in-depth information. It could also be better at monitoring voice-related traffic. There is currently no visibility in that channel."
"One area to improve is the user interface, of course. The second one is their R&D has virtually stopped building a product roadmap."
"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"
"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"One area that could benefit from improvement is its performance"
"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"The tool’s report feature created issues for us. We needed to gain skills to use that feature. The tool’s customization is not easy since you have to reconfigure the whole system."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to other tools, OpenText Real User Monitoring is an expensive solution."
"If I compare with other vendors, other vendors are more expensive"
"The price is approximately €30,000 ($35,500 USD) for the enterprise edition."
"Not expensive."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"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."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"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."
"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 price is too high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Performing Arts
11%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Micro Focus Real User Monitor?
The diagnostics perspective, particularly in terms of the root cause analysis of failures, should be improved. There needs to be more development in this area, as the support and the number of peop...
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus Real User Monitor?
The use case is about user-level monitoring and the availability of a service for a user. It's about whether the service is available, its performance, and the type of errors a user is receiving, f...
What advice do you have for others considering Micro Focus Real User Monitor?
I rate the solution as nine. It is a good product. Everyone should have it as it is essential today, but choose the vendor accordingly. I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.
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

Micro Focus Real User Monitor, Micro Focus RUM, HPE RUM
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Avea, Maccabi Healthcare Services, TEB
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Real User Monitoring vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.