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ServiceNow Discovery vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

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
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (3rd), 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 (20th), Active Directory Management (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 3.5%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.8%, down from 3.1% 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 Monitor2.8%
Other93.7%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Ayobanji Iluyomade - PeerSpot reviewer
Service helps organizations with network discovery and IT infrastructure management but troubleshooting challenges remain
ServiceNow Discovery was adopted by my organization. We use ServiceNow Discovery for discovery and ITSM The most beneficial features of ServiceNow Discovery for maintaining my IT infrastructure are the CMDB top and discovery of network switches. The areas of ServiceNow Discovery that have room…
NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"They have a very good network in the infrastructure of Discovery."
"They provide the ability to see into the Discovery tools I want. They offer the best tool view."
"The best thing about Discovery is maintaining all the CIs in one place. I can sort the data, export it to Excel for manipulation, and build reports like how many computers or servers we have and their capacity."
"The most valuable feature of ServiceNow Discovery is its performance."
"It is a stable solution...The initial setup of the product is straightforward."
"It does a good job of collecting the data that's necessary for data centers, and IT's operations."
"It has been stable since deployment."
"ServiceNow Discovery works better than other products I've used."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
"The initial setup was relatively easy, and we didn't have to install anything. All we had to do was put on the devices we wanted to monitor."
"It is simple to implement and can provide fairly decent Windows-based monitoring, beyond simple SNMP. It is great for monitoring newbies and smaller shops."
"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."
"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 features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
 

Cons

"The product could improve some of the visualization and architecture setups."
"When you switch versions, for example, when you go from Paris to Quebec they will introduce many new things and occasionally things break when they do that."
"Improvements could include implementing chatbots to simplify ticket creation."
"The service mapping component is less developed than it is in other solutions, and is in need of improvement."
"The solution should improve the classes of discovery assets to disregard more junk data."
"It creates quite a bit of duplication, so that needs to be fixed."
"ServiceNow has a constant development environment. Hence they get constant bugs which result in incorrect performance. It should also improve customer service."
"Instead of AI, even GenAI should be introduced in ServiceNow Discovery."
"SAM AppInsight for SQL: The ability to ignore fragmentation of specific indexes."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve by having a cloud version. They have an observability platform but it still needs to be maintained by us."
"The technical support was better in previous years. With the launch of the premium support service, the normal support has declined."
"The stability, flexibility, and ease of use could be improved."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"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."
"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."
"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be better. It's a bit on the pricey side."
"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."
"The product pricing is fair and reasonable for the value it provides."
"If the product is not deployed properly, it can be very expensive."
"There is a need to make payments every quarter of a year towards the licensing costs of the solution. ServiceNow Discovery is an expensive tool."
"It is an expensive product with a price that depends on the models that you wish to purchase."
"This solution is a paid option within the ServiceNow framework."
"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."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"Price can always be lower. It is neither on the expensive side nor on the cheap side. We have worked with them for a lot of years, so we get a discount due to the size of the installation."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Discovery?
The pricing information for ServiceNow Discovery was requested but not provided.
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?
A CMDB debugging tool to give indication about the errors that appear would be appreciated.
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow Discovery vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,778 professionals have used our research since 2012.