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SolarWinds Access Rights Manager vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 9, 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

SolarWinds Access Rights Ma...
Ranking in Active Directory Management
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Server and Appli...
Ranking in Active Directory Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (17th), Server Monitoring (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Access Rights Manager is 4.8%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor2.6%
SolarWinds Access Rights Manager4.8%
Other92.6%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

Rafal-Stas - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Greeneris Sp. z o.o.
Has good pricing options and is easy to manage and deploy
It's pretty easy to manage, and quite easy to deploy. It's easy to understand to work, and customers also tell us that there are a lot of options even too many sometimes for them. Sometimes the product is even too big for them at the beginning. The product also has a good payload with pricing. That's why the customers choose this solution. The price and the quality and options have a good ratio.
NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution can be used to audit the whole on-premises environment, including Active Directory, file servers, and other Microsoft services."
"It's pretty easy to manage, and quite easy to deploy."
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements. The threshold gets configured automatically, so it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."
"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."
"SolarWinds SAM has provided us with dynamic thresholds based on historical trends and requirements, so the threshold gets configured automatically, and it's no longer necessary to configure it manually every time."
"Once we got our IT inventory organized and aligned with the business, we were able to leverage our Orion Platform to provide more than just a reactive-based monitoring service to the business."
"The component and cable monitoring are good. SolarWinds is more intuitive and user-friendly than AppDynamics. The AppDynamics console is more complex because it's a more feature-rich solution, so it's not easy for somebody to pick it up."
"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."
"SolarWinds fit the bill because it gave many possibilities in monitoring with a good amount of out of the box capabilities."
 

Cons

"The GUI could be improved because this GUI was invented ten years ago, and now we have a modern user interface. This GUI is a bit older than expected in this market."
"Configuring the solution with online services, like Microsoft Exchange Online, is difficult."
"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."
"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."
"One area that could benefit from improvement is its performance"
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."
"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."
"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."
"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution is fine. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"The pricing of the solution is fine. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"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."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"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 licenses start from USD 3000.00 and go up to USD 20,000.00 for the year. It's a perpetual license. Nothing is free in SolarWinds, anything that you need is an additional cost."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Performing Arts
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Retailer
7%
Educational Organization
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Access Rights Manager?
First configuration may be difficult if you didn't deep dive into documentation. I recommend contacting some partners to help you deploy it in your environment.
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Access Rights Manager?
As an certified expert I'm deploying this solution on my test environment and provide live demo's for our clients. Mainly Solarwinds ARM is used to simplify work for administration by introducing m...
What advice do you have for others considering SolarWinds Access Rights Manager?
Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten. Nothing is perfect :D
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 ...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
I am doing research as we currently have both solutions, and I am looking to see if we need both or can manage with one. Currently, the outcome indicates that we need both. The focus point is diffe...
 

Also Known As

SolarWinds ARM
SolarWinds SAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Accenture, Emerson, Lockheed Martin, Nielsen, NTT
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Access Rights Manager vs. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.