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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

"ServiceNow Discovery has normal discovery of CIs, as well as horizontal discovery for understanding Service Mapping."
"The best part about ServiceNow Discovery is that it is included in the ServiceNow suite."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"ServiceNow Discovery has played a vital role in improving service visibility through automated IT service management processes, including change and problem management."
"The service management and operations management modules are valuable."
"They provide the ability to see into the Discovery tools I want. They offer the best tool view."
"I would rate the stability of ServiceNow Discovery as nine, as we never had downtime."
"We can scale the solution."
More ServiceNow Discovery pros
"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."
"AppInsight. Provides a simple way to get very in-depth monitoring configured for our most popular applications. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint."
"Manage Groups: The capability to group appropriate devices gives better visibility of sites, categories, or critical regions. The same can be used to represent a dashboard for higher management."
"The solution is end-to-end from the network and the application to the processes. Everything about the enterprise infrastructure is being covered by the solution. It's easy to use and easy to navigate and one of the leaders among monitoring solutions."
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
"We use the solution as a central monitoring tool. We use it to monitor every transaction that has a relation to the organization’s infrastructure."
"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."
"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."
More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros
 

Cons

"ServiceNow ITOM is particularly not very strong in terms of monitoring capabilities. They do not have any monitoring tool."
"It is one of the most costly applications in terms of subscription costs."
"It creates quite a bit of duplication, so that needs to be fixed."
"Without improvement in the patters, applications can't be discovered"
"Improvements are required with the scripts used to collect the information from servers."
"I believe there is room for improvement in ServiceNow Discovery, particularly in providing more detailed information about network usage and communication between ServiceNow and the infrastructure."
"We would like more flexibility with the licensing. Discovery is bundled with ServiceNow's ITOM license. It was more affordable when it was sold separately, but we bought a package license to get more functionality out of the CMDB. We'd prefer to buy only the pieces we need instead of taking things we don't want or solutions that aren't yet mature enough to use."
"The current limitation requires having mid servers or discovery servers in each data center for proper discovery, hindering the ability to discover assets across continents such as Asia Pacific and Europe."
More ServiceNow Discovery cons
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"The stability, flexibility, and ease of use could be improved."
"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."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."
"I think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve the server monitoring and the web application monitoring features are not good. Microsoft SCOM has better server monitoring."
"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."
More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It's on a yearly basis. We renew our contract for three years at a time."
"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."
"It is not recommended for smaller companies because of the price."
"ServiceNow Discovery's licensing is not a very small investment, but it definitely pays off."
"I would rate the product's pricing a six out of ten. We had availed some discount from the standard pricing. Even then, the tool's pricing is expensive. You have to pay some vendor service fees for the product's implementation."
"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."
"Setting up and licensing for ServiceNow can be expensive, especially for enterprise service management."
More ServiceNow Discovery pricing and cost advice
"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."
"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."
"Understanding the counts of objects to monitor will determine the licensing need. In terms of pricing, it’s not cheap but it’s not expensive as larger vendors whose products don’t have all the features or integrations."
"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."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
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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Compared 13% of the time
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Compared 11% of the time
Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Logo
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Compared 7% of the time
Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Logo
Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
Compared 5% of the time
SCOM vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Logo
SCOM vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
Compared 3% of the time
More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors
 

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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