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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
6.8
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (3rd), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Server Monitoring
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (19th), Active Directory Management (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 3.8%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.5%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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…
KhalidOmer - PeerSpot reviewer
Has a good interface used for monitoring devices
I rate the solution's alerting mechanism and its impact on our operations ten out of ten. We have around 600 retail offices, and the solution helps us save costs by preventing shutdowns. I would recommend the solution to other users. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

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."
"It has given us an understanding of each layer from a server application."
"ServiceNow Discovery works better than other products I've used."
"The solution finds public cloud infrastructures globally and updates the integration management database, service catalogs, and asset management details."
"We mostly use the solution's ITSM and ITOM capabilities in most workflows."
"The biggest advantage of ServiceNow is the value that it brings."
"I would rate the stability of ServiceNow Discovery as nine, as we never had downtime."
"The solution can prioritize the discovery of IP ranges. The product automatically places all Discovery CIs into the correct class within the CMDB."
"Identifying the problem statement is easy."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"I am impressed with the tool's AppStack feature which mainly helps us in the identification process. This feature can give an overview of the fault and help us identify the issues for performance degradation. Instead of looking at multiple places, we can look at a single place to identify the issues."
"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 most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."
"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"
"The product integrates with Remedy."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
 

Cons

"On the Software Asset Management part of it, I expect additional reconciliation and Discovery features there."
"ServiceNow Discovery should improve its cloud capabilities."
"It is one of the most costly applications in terms of subscription costs."
"The initial setup could be made easier. We hired professionals to implement it, and they trained our employees for ongoing processes."
"The product could improve some of the visualization and architecture setups."
"What needs improvement in ServiceNow Discovery is the reporting UI because I didn't find it as friendly compared to other tools. Other tools have better reporting UI than what's currently in ServiceNow Discovery. What I'd like to see in the next release of ServiceNow Discovery is more user-friendly out-of-the-box reporting that would be helpful for non-technical users. Some users such as managers would want to just do a few clicks to access the reports and shouldn't be required to do search queries, but right now, reporting in the tool isn't very user-friendly."
"In a few instances, ServiceNow has failed to discover some basic things. Some other tools are better at network discovery than ServiceNow. I'm not talking about database servers or any other infrastructure—only networking. Cloud discovery could also be better."
"The solution is too high priced."
"The technical support was better in previous years. With the launch of the premium support service, the normal support has declined."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"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 team's response time could be improved."
"PerfStack can be made more effective. I am sure SolarWinds already has a plan for the same in coming versions."
"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"The tool's AppStack needs to improve in the storage monitoring part. It should also include an analytics and recommendation approach. If I have found a fault in a server or application, I would like to know what caused it and how do I recover from it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"If the product is not deployed properly, it can be very expensive."
"It is not recommended for smaller companies because of the price."
"This solution is a paid option within the ServiceNow framework."
"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."
"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 is expensive, but it meets our needs."
"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."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"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."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"The price is too high."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
I think the price of ServiceNow Discovery is cheaper than BMC.
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?
The areas of ServiceNow Discovery that have room for improvement are getting custom reports on the relationship between CIs that are not on the same table.
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

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: July 2025.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.