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PRTG Network Monitor vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor 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

PRTG Network Monitor
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (5th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (18th), Server Monitoring (12th), Active Directory Management (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Systems Management solutions, they serve different purposes. PRTG Network Monitor is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 4.3%, down 4.8% compared to last year.
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, on the other hand, focuses on Server Monitoring, holds 2.5% mindshare, down 3.2% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Noman-Saleem - PeerSpot reviewer
Detects suden changes but significant pricing concerns affect the effectiveness of network traffic troubleshooting
We use PRTG Network Monitor for monitoring traffic on interfaces and the behavior of network traffic. If there are sudden changes in traffic or any configuration issues, we can sort them out using PRTG. It's very helpful for troubleshooting and monitoring traffic utilization on our interfaces…
Carlos Camargo - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides user-friendly API features and has straightforward deployment process
One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules. The misalignment of licensing terms can present commercial challenges when adding new modules or additional pollers. Additionally, the granularity of polling times for specific components could be enhanced to better meet individual customers' needs without impacting the entire polling pool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is user-friendly. It is easy to set up health checks within PRTG and use scans. It is like a self-service tool, and anyone can configure their own settings within PRTG."
"It improves the status of my infrastructure, from networking devices to real-time machines."
"PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational."
"The alerting is the most valuable feature. I also like the iPhone app. I get alerts in an email on the iPhone app."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to span multiple technologies and multiple vendors."
"The most valuable feature of PRTG Network Monitor is the dashboards. We can check to see the resources and the uptime."
"PRTG gives us true visibility of the downtime of particular circuit functions. So if a circuit is up but not routing traffic, I will know with this tool. I can write a customized script for a sensor to detect specific things."
"The most valuable features of PRTG Network Monitor are user-friendly, and the graphical interface is good for all the network devices that are mapped in this organization. It's very easy to find reports for any devices that we are looking for."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
"The application dependency feature identifies issues between applications and servers or within the network where the application is hosted. It highlights related problems, whether related to packet processing or other issues, enabling the creation of alerts and reports accordingly."
"The product integrates with Remedy."
"The solution has good alerts. Notifications are sent via email to technicians. You can filter the kinds of alerts you want to receive as well. It's excellent."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."
"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."
"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."
 

Cons

"More training videos for installing and configuring this software would have been nice, especially when working with a lot of devices."
"PRTG Network Monitor should provide syslog monitoring since it is not available at this time. There are very limited features as compared to other solutions."
"PRTG Network Monitor can improve Layer 2 and Layer 3 network maps and the GUI more user-friendly. Additionally, they should bundle the features so I can monitor everything on one particular device."
"Can be slow in the way it polls the different engines."
"I've encountered a challenge in my functions, particularly in adding and printing."
"If PRTG could help me see the bandwidth for each host I have on my network, either for a wireless or a wired network, that would be very helpful."
"I would like to see a more robust platform and a new dashboard. In addition, the code is good, but it needs improvement."
"I would like to see them take their graphing tools and convert them into a collector so that we can point telemetry to them"
"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."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."
"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."
"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"Downside of the tools is the web console are hung or crash. It need to improve the performance."
"It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of PRTG is reasonable. PRTG's competitors like SolarWinds and ManageEngine charge more for the same functionality."
"We pay for PRTG Network Monitor annually. The price is approximately 10,000 rupees annually."
"I would like better pricing models for smaller businesses. The free version is fantastic, but it's too restrictive. If they could just get up to 200 sensors for a reasonable fee for on-premise, I would give PRTG my credit card right now."
"PRTG Network Monitor is cheap."
"We have unlimited devices and sensors, and it is a bit pricey, but we do have unlimited sensors. With all things considered the price is fine, related to the solution itself. PRTG Network Monitor is good value for money."
"The price of PRTG Network Monitor is reasonable."
"We are licensed for 2500 endpoints."
"The licensing fees are billed annually and there are no costs in addition to this."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"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."
"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."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"The product is expensive."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"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."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
36%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...
What do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?
The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?
The pricing is in the middle. It's not too high, nor too low, but it's reasonable.
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

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: May 2025.
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