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ServiceNow Discovery vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

ServiceNow and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Server Monitoring category. ServiceNow is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.0, while SolarWinds is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.6. ServiceNow holds a 3.5% mindshare in SM, compared to SolarWinds’s 2.9% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of ServiceNow users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.
ServiceNow Discovery
Read 44 ServiceNow Discovery reviews
  • 3,589 Views
  • 1,938 Comparison Views
97% willing to recommend
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews
  • 3,782 Views
  • 870 Comparison Views
89% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and ServiceNow Discovery compete in the IT monitoring and discovery category. SolarWinds holds an edge in monitoring capabilities, whereas ServiceNow excels in comprehensive discovery and integration.

Features: SolarWinds provides advanced monitoring features, deep insights into server performance, and user-friendly design. ServiceNow offers strong discovery features, automatic IT asset detection, and integration across various systems.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest SolarWinds improve its alerting system to reduce false positives, enhance user experience, and refine reporting. ServiceNow could benefit from better documentation, more tutorials for onboarding, and enhancements in its user interface.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds is known for straightforward deployment and responsive customer support. ServiceNow offers powerful automated deployment but has a steeper learning curve. Both receive positive feedback in customer service, with SolarWinds slightly more favorable due to support responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds is viewed as more cost-effective with faster setup and quicker ROI. ServiceNow, while more expensive, is valued for its robust discovery tools and integration capabilities, justifying its higher cost for many users.

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To learn more, read our detailed ServiceNow Discovery vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Report (Updated: November 2025).
Buyer's Guide
ServiceNow Discovery vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
November 2025
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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

ServiceNow Discovery
Ranking in Server Monitoring
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (6th), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (19th), Active Directory Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 3.5%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.9%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ServiceNow Discovery3.5%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor2.9%
Other93.6%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2759271 - PeerSpot reviewer
reviewer2759271
Manager, Solution/Service Delivery at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Has supported enterprise needs well and addresses discovery across environments
Small companies will not be able to afford ServiceNow Discovery from the pricing perspective. Hence, they will not opt for ServiceNow Discovery as a solution, either as an ITSM solution or ITOM solution. It will not be affordable. I am specifically talking about the Middle East and Africa region. ServiceNow ITOM is particularly not very strong in terms of monitoring capabilities. They do not have any monitoring tool. They use event management from getting events from other tools. In that front, they had a roadmap for going for an open-source solution, but I have not seen that materialize. There is a lack of tools perspective for monitoring. Perhaps they do not have a plan because there are hundreds of tools available, and they prefer to focus on integration and event management.
Read full review
NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
NikhilKalwint
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.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Stability-wise, I feel it is a good product."
"ServiceNow's Discovery feature is quite significant because it allows for service mapping and integrates with VIN management. It involves adding a business context to servers, routers, switches, and data centers. This means understanding not only what's installed on these systems and how they function together but also recognizing their significance in terms of business applications from the business's perspective and how they impact business processes and capabilities. So when we delve into these aspects and connect them to the essential components, it can help you engage in more meaningful discussions to enhance capacity management practices. In essence, it contributes to the overall IT portfolio, almost functioning as a business platform. This platform is accessible to users who leverage the data to initiate incidents, implement changes, and resolve problems. Consequently, consolidating all configuration items or assets into a unified platform makes sense, especially considering you already have Discovery in place. If the cost is reasonable, the other two components might not provide much value, except for their user-friendliness, which is often less important to leaders compared to the desired outcomes."
"The product provides great scalability features."
"The workflows are beneficial as they allow tasks to be assigned to respective teams without the need for coding."
"We mostly use the solution's ITSM and ITOM capabilities in most workflows."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"The most valuable feature of ServiceNow Discovery is its performance."
"It's pretty robust, and it's agentless for the most part. So, you don't need to deploy agents, which makes it a lot easier to stand up."
More ServiceNow Discovery pros
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"
"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."
"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
"One of the most valuable features are the reports. They're pretty good. Also, the ease of installation and customization for the client is another feature that we value. SolarWinds has a lot of features but these are the ones I like the most. We also like that the KPIs have the ability to be preset."
"Hardware health: It allows for proactive monitoring of the hardware health and is a game changer."
More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros
 

Cons

"On the Software Asset Management part of it, I expect additional reconciliation and Discovery features there."
"In terms of improvement, I would like for it to be possible to use without coding. I would like a dropdown so that every customer can do it easily for himself and can understand it."
"ServiceNow ITOM is particularly not very strong in terms of monitoring capabilities. They do not have any monitoring tool."
"ServiceNow Discovery should be updated to provide its users with more out-of-the-box information and attributes to support the routers and switches from Cisco."
"Application discovery could be improved. And, right now, ServiceNow needs to be coupled with another solution in order to verify information."
"The product could improve some of the visualization and architecture setups."
"It creates quite a bit of duplication, so that needs to be fixed."
"I am not seeing significant ROI beyond breaking even on what I spend."
More ServiceNow Discovery cons
"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"Downside of the tools is the web console are hung or crash. It need to improve the performance."
"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."
"Nodes in Azure are able to be monitored with the use of agents, but this does not apply to cloud service offerings that are not node based."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"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."
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As per a general discussion I had with the stakeholders, I figured out that it is a costly tool. There is a need to make additional payments apart from the licensing fees for better support services from ServiceNow."
"ROI (Return on Investment) is good. ServiceNow don't disclose the price publicly. They'll assess your organization's needs and then come up with a price."
"This solution is a paid option within the ServiceNow framework."
"It is an expensive product with a price that depends on the models that you wish to purchase."
"There is a subscription for ServiceNow Discovery. It's expensive, but I think it's one of the best solutions on the market, so it's worth it."
"It's a bit expensive compared to other products in the market, but it's worth the money you pay because it's far advanced in terms of features, automation, and capabilities compared to other products."
"ServiceNow Discovery has very broad pricing, so it becomes costly. It would be better if it had a pay-as-you-use licensing model because the total cost of ownership is quite high."
"You need a subscription to ServiceNow Discovery, so you can use its features. You can also use specific plugins with the tool, and some of the plugins are free. I don't have information on how much my company pays for the subscription to ServiceNow Discovery."
More ServiceNow Discovery pricing and cost advice
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"I would advise potential buyers to wait until the end of the quarter, end of year, or other time to place orders. There are actually great deals to be had at those times if your budget cycle can match up."
"The price is too high."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"The product is expensive."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
Educational Organization
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise23
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ServiceNow Discovery?
The solution can prioritize the discovery of IP ranges. The product automatically places all Discovery CIs into the correct class within the CMDB.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Discovery?
The pricing information for ServiceNow Discovery was requested but not provided.
See all answers
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?
A CMDB debugging tool to give indication about the errors that appear would be appreciated.
See all answers
What do you like most about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
Identifying the problem statement is easy.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
The initial cost is quite high, but the renewal cost is reasonable.
See all answers
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 ...
See all answers
 

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
ServiceNow Discovery
December 2025
ServiceNow Discovery reportDownload ServiceNow Discovery product report
Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
December 2025
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reportDownload SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

ServiceNow Discovery finds applications and devices on your network, and then updates the CMDB with the information it finds. Discovery is available as a separate subscription from the rest of the Now Platform.

ServiceNow

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers powerful application and server monitoring capabilities for IT pros, enabling them to diagnose and troubleshoot performance issues faster. Do not let slow applications and downtime impact your end-users and business services. Pinpoint the root cause of application issues across various layers of the IT stack. SolarWinds SAM is affordable and easy to deploy, use, and customize. You can automatically discover your system's environment and start monitoring in about an hour. No professional services or consultation needed.

SolarWinds
 

Sample Customers

York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Buyer's Guide
ServiceNow Discovery vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
November 2025
Free Report: ServiceNow Discovery vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow Discovery vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
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