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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 (20th), Server Monitoring (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Access Rights Manager is 5.0%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.8%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.8%
SolarWinds Access Rights Manager5.0%
Other93.2%
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

"It's pretty easy to manage, and quite easy to deploy."
"The solution can be used to audit the whole on-premises environment, including Active Directory, file servers, and other Microsoft services."
"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"
"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."
"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."
"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."
"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."
"I adore the NTA module that provides deep details on ingress/egress traffic for any interface. With a few clicks, you can correlate who is accessing what and when, beside the bandwidth consuming applications/users."
"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."
"The most valuable feature is the Access Rights Manager."
 

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 technical support was better in previous years. With the launch of the premium support service, the normal support has declined."
"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."
"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."
"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."
"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"
"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."
"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
 

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."
"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."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It is just the standard price, but it can vary depending on the current rate of the dollar."
"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."
"SAM is not per server so the pricing model can be deceiving. If you have an enterprise environment, you will quickly exceed your licensing quickly. You should know this before going in."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"The product is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Retailer
9%
Performing Arts
8%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Educational Organization
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software 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 ...
 

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: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.