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SCOM vs WatchTower Security Management App 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
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (2nd)
WatchTower Security Managem...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
126th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of SCOM is 1.5%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WatchTower Security Management App is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SCOM1.5%
WatchTower Security Management App0.2%
Other98.3%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

AK
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
Have integrated effective monitoring and seamless alerting with improved visualization capabilities
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool. We have implemented and integrated this to create dashboarding of the SCOM monitoring system for the database, SQL, and the Linux servers we have configured in SCOM. We have created separate dashboarding for it, and the monitoring and creating rules and monitors in the management servers and management packs that SCOM provides are very useful for us. The alerting mechanism of SCOM has benefited our operations because we have modified the thresholds as per our internal requirements. We have configured threshold modifications for the CPU, memory, and especially for disk space. For routine disk space usage on the system, we have provided a separate threshold configuration.
AK
Cyber Security Engineer at Mudra Electronics limited
Has efficient firewall features, but its configuration process could be easier
We use the application for network monitoring The product has the best firewall features. It helps protect networks for our customers. The product is not suitable for small businesses. Its price needs improvement. We have been using WatchTower Security Management App for a year. I rate the…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SCOM has improved our organization by simplifying the monitoring process. The system tells you what the bi-weekly or monthly usage was and that enables us to report this information to the manager. It shows if there was a connectivity issue that needs to be fixed and it's easier to concentrate on what needs to get fixed. System errors, therefore, get fixed faster."
"The most valuable features for us are the monitoring, the health explorer, and the console."
"If I have to choose any one product for server monitoring to take care of all aspects of monitoring out of the box, SCOM is number one."
"With Operations Manager, you have extract reporting capabilities and multiple report libraries that you can select from to customize reports to your own granular requirements."
"SCOM features object-based monitoring based on classes and discoveries and it gives you a lot of power and flexibility when you design and implement monitoring."
"This product allows me to measure the level of availability of services and detect errors in them."
"SCOM will allow you to go from firefighting mode to a more proactive stance when finding issues."
"All our environments are automated to automatically install the SCOM agents across different domains which helps us to check the health of the server, to get the server details like IIS, app pools, Performance counters like CPU, Memory, Disk usage, etc."
"The product has the best firewall features."
 

Cons

"Unfortunately, when you need to monitor member servers which are not joined to the same domain as the SCOM servers, you need to go through the certificate route (so that you can have the required trust through the certificate). This is very time consuming and very prone to error."
"In future releases, I would like to see APM solutions and dashboards like Grafana."
"In a future release, they should add email notification alerts."
"Microsoft needs to train more people about how to sell SCOM (and other System Center family products) because there are a lot of emerging technologies that are replacing Microsoft."
"Monitoring non Microsoft products and 3rd party applications."
"In some ways, SCOM is a double-edged sword."
"Super high cost for the 2012 version due to change to a CPU based."
"Reporting could be improved, you get many reports out-of-box but they can be difficult to interpret and drill down into."
"The product is not suitable for small businesses. Its price needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is good, and it's part of their system center suite."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $30 per user, per month."
"If you have a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, then this is part of the agreement."
"It is more expensive than the competition."
"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."
"There is a license needed to use this solution and it is paid annually."
"SCOM's pricing is average."
"It is the cheapest product available in the market."
"WatchTower Security Management App is an expensive product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise54
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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?
We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting. We can work on deploying new ways of viewing things and modifying visualizat...
What is your primary use case for SCOM?
My usual use case for SCOM is as an administrator role where I create reports and provide system configuration for Linux and installation of the SCOM agent. I handle deploying and upgrading the age...
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Also Known As

System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dialog Telekom
Information Not Available
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