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SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Solarwinds Web Performance Monitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (8th), Active Directory Management (9th)
Solarwinds Web Performance ...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
33rd
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
3.9
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.3%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Solarwinds Web Performance Monitor is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.3%
Solarwinds Web Performance Monitor0.3%
Other98.4%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Yaser_Altwailey - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at General Authority OF ZAKAT & TAX
Reliable monitoring has supported synthetic transactions and improved visibility for government operations
We do not have any issues with Solarwinds Web Performance Monitor, and we do not have any complaints about the performance. Solarwinds Web Performance Monitor is overall good regarding synthetic transaction monitoring and data virtualization. I would rate Solarwinds Web Performance Monitor a 10 out of 10 based on our experience.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Extremely user friendly: Any IT professional can learn how to admin NPM in a short time."
"I have found the visibility into server health with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor very beneficial, which we use on a daily basis."
"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"
"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."
"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
"The graphical interfaces, GUI customizations, and alert configurations are impressive."
"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"
"Everything is functioning well, the interface is intuitive and understandable, easy to read, to access utilization files and reports."
 

Cons

"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."
"The stability, flexibility, and ease of use could be improved."
"The tool’s report feature created issues for us. We needed to gain skills to use that feature. The tool’s customization is not easy since you have to reconfigure the whole system."
"SAM's software-defined network monitoring capability is also low and could be improved."
"The templates could use improvement. Currently, they are quite complex. They should have drag-and-drop functionality instead. It would make it easier to use."
"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."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"Solarwinds Web Performance Monitor needs to improve maintenance and support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I have always said SolarWinds is very “proud” of their products, meaning they are expensive. I cannot afford to purchase all the licenses I need for all the SolarWinds products."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

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 ...
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Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM
Solarwinds WPM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
commscope, COCC,
Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability. Updated: February 2026.
881,928 professionals have used our research since 2012.