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OpenText Real User Monitoring vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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
33rd
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
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (6th), Active Directory Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of OpenText Real User Monitoring is 1.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.0%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.0%
OpenText Real User Monitoring1.3%
Other97.7%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

YA
Sr. Solution Architect, Project Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
User-level monitoring with near-real-time analytics boosts service availability
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, from a user perspective The functions that Real User Monitor is intended for, which is to provide the…
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

"This solution is very reliable; it's stable."
"Very easy to implement."
"Real User Monitor has made it easier to drill down and see how users connect to and use our website."
"It is a good product."
"The technical support is good at resolving issues."
"It offers near-real-time analytics, which is helpful."
"Real User Monitoring tools help proactively identify problems before they become critical by monitoring thresholds. There is a threshold and an SOA threshold."
"We use RUM and BSM and so far it has been really good at getting real user transactions from a real user monitor and then tying it to a BSM single view dashboard, where we get the whole realistic picture."
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its real-time node monitoring and Help Desk's feedback."
"This feature from Solarwinds SAM helped us to monitor and alert whenever the SSL cert is going to expire on the server to avoid any downtime of the services running on the server specially on ADFS platform where we have Video conference, Webex, Office 365 and single sign-on services."
"SolarWinds allows network administrators to easily monitor the network by customizing the pages to see what exactly is needed, in addition to the deep statistics shown for nodes and interfaces like response time, packet loss, interface CRC, interface errors, as well as the rich graphs for all network elements."
"I'd rate technical support at eight out of ten. They are helpful and fast."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."
"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"
 

Cons

"The product needs more R&D to make it easier and more compatible with other software."
"Everybody is moving away from traffic and installing agents on the application to do the job, but Micro Focus is using traditional ways to collect the traffic. They should change their architecture completely."
"One area to improve is the user interface, of course. The second one is their R&D has virtually stopped building a product roadmap."
"Customer support needs to improve by bringing in more people who are knowledgeable about the tool, as there are very few left."
"There have been some issues with customers implementing this solution and with login errors, which could be areas for improvement."
"When we want to monitor our encrypted traffic, this product doesn't work because our cipher is not supported."
"I have to say that I am very disappointed with this solution. It's very heavy, and it is a nightmare to deploy and maintain."
"We would like to see support for non-Windows environments."
"It needs time-based functions for monitoring. Some things need to be polled on a specific schedule or only during a specific window."
"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."
"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."
"Having two places to build and manage alerts is not efficient and not all alerting tools are available in the trap manager."
"SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve the server monitoring and the web application monitoring features are not good. Microsoft SCOM has better server monitoring."
"Scalability was an issue in the past."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to other tools, OpenText Real User Monitoring is an expensive solution."
"The price is approximately €30,000 ($35,500 USD) for the enterprise edition."
"If I compare with other vendors, other vendors are more expensive"
"Not expensive."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"Nagios XI, WhatsUpGold, Uptime Software, PRTG, Manage Engine, and SpiceWorks are the other tools that have lower pricing and licensing costs. However, they can't compete with SolarWinds when it comes to the features and functionality that SolarWinds can provide."
"Understanding the counts of objects to monitor will determine the licensing need. In terms of pricing, it’s not cheap but it’s not expensive as larger vendors whose products don’t have all the features or integrations."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
20%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Educational Organization
13%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

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 Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

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 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

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: August 2026.
909,948 professionals have used our research since 2012.