SolarWinds AppOptics vs Spiceworks comparison

SolarWinds and Spiceworks are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. SolarWinds is ranked #58, while Spiceworks is ranked #42 with an average rating of 8.5. SolarWinds holds a 0.7% mindshare in IM, compared to Spiceworks’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Spiceworks users who would recommend it.

SolarWinds AppOptics

Read 9 SolarWinds AppOptics reviews

1,452 Views
653 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Spiceworks

Read 47 Spiceworks reviews

2,387 Views
931 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

SolarWinds AppOptics

Spiceworks

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Spiceworks and SolarWinds AppOptics compete in the IT management and monitoring category. Spiceworks holds an advantage for SMBs due to its free pricing and user-friendly installation, while AppOptics is superior in offering comprehensive features for enterprise-level monitoring.

Features: Spiceworks is ideal for SMBs with features such as remote monitoring, basic ticketing, and active IT community support. It provides an easy setup that is appealing to companies without an established infrastructure management system. SolarWinds AppOptics offers extensive performance monitoring, topology discovery, and detailed network insights, making it valuable for larger enterprises.

Room for Improvement: Spiceworks faces challenges in scalability and performance, with limited ticketing impacting its use for larger organizations. Its reporting tools need better filtering and analysis capabilities. SolarWinds AppOptics could enhance its implementation process, pricing structures, and integration with other IT tools. Both could improve user interface and usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Spiceworks offers straightforward on-premises deployment and relies on community-driven support. SolarWinds AppOptics provides both on-premises and cloud deployment options, with formal customer service channels for support.

Pricing and ROI: Spiceworks is entirely free, offering remarkable ROI for SMBs with budget constraints. Its no-cost pricing is a significant advantage. SolarWinds AppOptics, with licensing fees based on elements, provides advanced features that justify its cost for enterprises demanding thorough monitoring solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed SolarWinds AppOptics vs. Spiceworks Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds AppOptics vs. Spiceworks

January 2026

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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

SolarWinds AppOptics

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

58th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (55th), Cloud Monitoring Software (47th)

Spiceworks

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

42nd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Help Desk Software (14th), IT Asset Management (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spiceworks is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Spiceworks	0.5%
SolarWinds AppOptics	0.7%
Other	98.8%

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

John Yuko

Assistant Manager ICT - Projects at I&M Bank Ltd

Unique features allow consolidating and combing metrics into a single dashboard, but don't monitor mobile solutions

I would like to see more granular information provided on Unix applications. Also, the integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward in terms having an agent to retrieve your credentials rather than having to enter or save them for SSH on SolarWinds. From the outset, we had to set some commands to log into the search console, and they are saved on the solution, which presents a challenge in terms of exposure. The solution is unable to monitor APK solutions completely because we'd then be forced to break down the APK and provide the APIs or go through the source code. They don't have a module that can analyze an application that is maybe under-used.

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Rohit Samel

Account Manager Enterprise Sales at Navdeep Technologies Pvt.Ltd

Cloud storage with no hardware needed and great comprehensive reports

The software is cloud-based, so I do not need to store any data locally. It is a fully software-based solution, eliminating the need for investment in hardware. We have the capability to create reports as needed. It is good software to use, as there were no incidents where I needed to contact technical support. Additionally, it is free software.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The reporting of the solution is very good."

"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."

"The product has a great dashboard."

"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."

"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."

"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."

"The software is cloud-based, so I do not need to store any data locally."

"The solution can find all asset details automatically, whether it's a Mac address, computer name, IP address, models, etc. It's very helpful."

"It lets us know whether devices are getting out of date and tracked warranties. Spiceworks also gave me visibility in terms of what software was installed on each device and its status."

"Tickets by e-mail, with actions by hastag."

"It shows the users that are currently logged in, which is not something that Active Directory by default will ever let you know up front."

"The solution is easy to use and easy to manage."

"If you're in the market for a low-cost service desk system, Spiceworks is a good software solution to start out with, especially when it comes to startups and those organizations that don't currently have any existing service desk software in place."

"The software is cloud-based, so I do not need to store any data locally."

More Spiceworks pros

Cons

"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."

"The solution should be more user-friendly."

"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."

"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."

"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."

"In terms of the technology, I think they need to put some more advanced troubleshooting into SolarWinds, in terms of AI capabilities. That's the next generation, especially in the cases of APIs which have already adopted AI capabilities into their products."

"They've also tried to integrate it with social logins, like Twitter and LinkedIn, and that type of login authentication has no place in a corporate application."

"The network mapping could be improved. Putting together an actual bonafide network map would be really nice."

"The customer service is okay, however, I would appreciate much more clarity on what I want to know exactly."

"Once a device was recognized on the network, Spiceworks never got rid of it even after you took it off the network. You had to go in and manually remove it."

"I am unable to provide suggestions for improvement at this moment."

"I would like the solution to allow for more direct interaction with computers. I can open tickets and I can see their status, but I can't interact directly with the computers themselves."

"The GUI must be improved."

"One of the biggest ways in which Spiceworks could improve is by developing better and more automated workflows. For example, in another solution called ServiceDesk by ManageEngine, you can have levels of approval in the event that there is a request for new software, or when someone requests a VPN or WiFi connection. This kind of multi-stage approval feature provided by ServiceDesk does not appear to exist in Spiceworks, and it is one of their main shortcomings for me."

More Spiceworks cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."

"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."

"Mostly, it's a perpetual license. We don't have any customers using the subscription right now—it's mostly a perpetual license that the customers purchase. The licensing is based on the number of elements, whereas other solutions are node-based."

"Seeing that it is a low-cost solution, I would advise you to go ahead with Spiceworks and experiment with it to see if you can get things working properly, especially if you currently don't have any existing service desk software in place."

"It might be about $300 annually for a bigger company. If you pay annually, it's better and cheaper."

"The product is free! Get it now."

"It's free."

"The tool is cheap."

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

May 31, 2015

Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor

I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

University

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	10

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Spiceworks?

The solution is easy to use and easy to manage.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Spiceworks?

The tool is cheap.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Spiceworks?

I am unable to provide suggestions for improvement at this moment, however, I can provide feedback later. Currently, there do not seem to be any issues.

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Comparisons

New Relic vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 17% of the time

Dynatrace vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 16% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 9% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Instana Observability vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 5% of the time

More SolarWinds AppOptics Competitors

ServiceNow vs Spiceworks

Compared 17% of the time

Lansweeper vs Spiceworks

Compared 14% of the time

Zabbix vs Spiceworks

Compared 13% of the time

Zoho Desk vs Spiceworks

Compared 9% of the time

Freshdesk vs Spiceworks

Compared 7% of the time

More Spiceworks Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

January 2026

Download SolarWinds AppOptics product report

Buyer's Guide

Spiceworks

December 2025

Download Spiceworks product report

Also Known As

AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato

No data available

Overview

AppOptics is a SaaS-based simple, powerful and affordable Infrastructure & Application monitoring for custom on-premises, cloud, and hybrid systems.

Your business runs on applications, and when they go down or run slowly, it can impact the business in lost productivity, customers, or revenue. To add to the complexity, your IT environment is changing, and workloads can be spread across data centers, and cloud resources. You need to monitor the availability and performance of applications and infrastructure, regardless of where they are, so you can identify potential issues early and address them before they impact users

SolarWinds

From network inventory and network monitoring to help desk software, and mobile device management (MDM) to cloud services detection, Spiceworks helps you manage everything about your IT workday from one easy place.

Spiceworks

Sample Customers

TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista

Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Symantec, Webroot, EMC, Pertino

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds AppOptics vs. Spiceworks

January 2026

Free Report: SolarWinds AppOptics vs. Spiceworks

Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds AppOptics vs. Spiceworks and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.

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