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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
10th
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
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (16th), Server Monitoring (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Access Rights Manager is 6.7%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.0%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

Rafal-Stas - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Subhajit Nag - PeerSpot reviewer
The component and cable monitoring features are good, but the interface is slow
SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern. Every SolarWinds user complains about the sluggishness. The response is slow. If you browse from one page to another, you have to wait. Our company is a massive user with plenty of licenses, so the performance issues could be due to the load per license. Ten thousand components can be mapped under one license. So SolarWinds needs to take care of the speed problem. It cannot be this slow. That is a huge complaint. Otherwise, the tool is good. It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle. The upgrade time matters because you only install the solution once, but you'll need to upgrade the solution repeatedly over the life of the product. A complex installation isn't an issue, but I mind if the upgrade takes too long because it's already in production.

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 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."
"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."
"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."
"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."
"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"
"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 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."
"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
 

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."
"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."
"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."
"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."
"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."
"Some custom applications cannot be monitored, and a lot more applications need to be included."
"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."
"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."
"It lacks a user experience for measuring things like the end-to-end time for which a user waits for a specific response in the system. In the application layer, it has some very basic stuff. You have to build your own with manuscripts and things like that."
 

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 think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"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."
"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 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."
"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."
"We are on an annual license to use the solution. The price of the solution is expensive. The price is based on a bunch of factors, such as the number of engines and elements."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
10%
Retailer
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
38%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SolarWinds Access Rights Manager?
It's pretty easy to manage, and quite easy to deploy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Access Rights Manager?
The pricing of the solution is fine. I rate the pricing a five out of ten.
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 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

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 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.