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SCOM 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

SCOM
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (4th), Network Monitoring Software (17th)
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

SCOM and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. SCOM is designed for Event Monitoring and holds a mindshare of 8.9%, up 8.6% 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.
Event Monitoring
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

MarcMermuys - PeerSpot reviewer
Has efficient monitoring with robust integration capabilities
We use SCOM to configure different monitors using several management packs. It integrates systems like Active Directory and correlates them, and it is used for monitoring and managing systems SCOM allows integration of several systems, providing correlation between different systems such as…
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 very good at monitoring Microsoft Server."
"The solution's reporting engine has given me detailed information on which applications or services I've either failed or about to fail in terms of the predictive makeup on Azure cloud."
"Alerts notify the server or service owner of problems, allowing quick decisions or actions to keep the service running based on configured thresholds."
"Because it's Windows-based, it actually reports quite well. It reports everything you can think of on the Windows server and allows you to monitor anything. It's excellent for those in the Windows world as it's very good at it."
"They have great integration with the active directory."
"The most valuable features for us are the monitoring, the health explorer, and the console."
"The most valuable feature is the extensibility, as there are really no limits as to what you can do with it."
"It works better than other products I’ve used – namely SolarWinds, which is cumbersome and error prone for web app monitoring. SCOM is not."
"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."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
"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."
"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements. The threshold gets configured automatically, so it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."
"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
"The graphical interfaces, GUI customizations, and alert configurations are impressive."
 

Cons

"SCOM is not as straightforward in terms of user interface or general experience, which could be improved."
"Stability and some performance issues exist and they need improvement."
"I would like to see them improve their network monitoring."
"The solution should have more tools for monitoring the cloud engine versus on-premise."
"The management of the servers could be better."
"They could provide better dashboards, detailed logs, and reports crucial for monitoring services in real-time."
"The GI is difficult to work with and the reporting servers are also difficult."
"The solution can be improved by expanding to cloud usage."
"Currently SolarWinds SAM offers AppInsight for modern versions of: IIS, Exchange, SQL Server. They have shown to be powerful and insightful tools. However, AppInsight needs to be offered for more applications: Citrix, SharePoint, AX, etc."
"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"In terms of the dashboards on offer, they should work to improve them. The types of dashboards that you get in terms of the graphs on offer aren't ideal right now."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."
"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"SCOM is very cheap because it's included in the license for the System Center suite, which is around $8,400 per CAL."
"We have an EA with Microsoft, and it comes as part of the EA."
"It is more expensive than the competition."
"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."
"The pricing and licensing are fair."
"Our Enterprise Agreement includes the price."
"Pricing is inexpensive, starting at 2440 euros. For that, you get the ability to monitor a couple of nodes and one year of maintenance and support."
"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."
"The product is expensive."
"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 solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"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."
"When planning for the number of licenses to purchase, make sure you understand all of the elements within an application required to really understand performance well. In our case, we quickly came to the conclusion that an unlimited license for SAM was the way to go."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
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 do you like most about SCOM?
The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location.
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?
SCOM is likely to be phased out in favor of more compatible tools like Icinga ( /products/icinga-reviews ) for application monitoring or when moving to cloud solutions like CloudWatch and Azure ( /...
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

System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dialog Telekom
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
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