SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

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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 Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

20th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (10th), Active Directory Management (10th)

Splunk Observability Cloud

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (6th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th), Container Management (6th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.3%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 2.0%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud	2.0%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.3%
Other	96.7%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

VIVEK PATHAK

Solutions Architect at Airtel

Offering reasonably good dashboarding features but needs to improve the application performance monitoring

My company uses Riverbed for application performance monitoring. I was doing research so that I could understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provide APM capabilities similar to Riverbed, which allows our company to get a packet capture of an entire session, and on the basis of it, we look at the application performance monitoring part. With SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, my company does SNMP polling, so it can drag an entire session, but it focuses more on availability, CPU memory, and server connection status. In Riverbed, my company catches an entire system, so when we deal with two applications, we have end-to-end app visibility. All the application monitoring happens through Riverbed. Our company's main problem is that, as of now, we have two different products in our organization, and we don't want to continue with the multiple products currently. I wanted to understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor already have capabilities like Riverbed, and if they do, then I wanted to figure out why our company should not go with SolarWinds and why we are using products from multiple vendors. My company needs to continue with either Riverbed or SolarWinds. I wanted to see which products are good for the organization and how much I want to continue with Riverbed.

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Taiwo Ige

IT Operations Engineer at ABC Supply Co. Inc.

Alerting improves incident response across teams and enables faster awareness before customer impact

Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved in terms of integrations with more technical add-ons, such as Zoom. Although they have one with Zoom, it's not available in the cloud, so having that feature would be beneficial. Essentially, Splunk should continue expanding to create easier ways to ingest logs from different products. The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders. However, there are aspects that could be improved, such as linking dashboards to one another. While IT leaders may not drill down, it's crucial to create levels of dashboards for technical users to find root causes, making it effective for stakeholders.

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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

"I have found the visibility into server health with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor very beneficial, which we use on a daily basis."

"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."

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."

"The product integrates with Remedy."

"The more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature."

"Monitoring the components on your devices with out of the box monitors or the ability to create new ones (SAM)"

"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"The vibrant dashboards are valuable."

"The features I have found most valuable are log searching and log analytics, both of which are quick features."

"The ability to create custom dashboards is one of the best features and that's typically why most people deploy Splunk. Users can create dashboards for just about anything."

"I manage six tools, but Splunk Observability Cloud is one of my favorites, and I aspire to build my career specializing in it because it has great features, more attention in the market, and is a relatively new tool with promising growth."

"Initially, before Splunk, we had a long time to resolve issues. Now, with Splunk Observability Cloud, we will be able to solve them quickly and know exactly where the issue is."

"Once configured correctly, the analysis reporting the Splunk APM provides is better than that of the other APM tools."

"I have definitely seen a return on investment with Splunk Observability Cloud, particularly through how fast it has grown and how comfortable other teams are in relying on its outputs for monitoring and observability."

"Overall, I would recommend Splunk to anyone seeking a monitoring solution, thanks to its extensive capabilities and features."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pros

Cons

"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."

"The product does not explain why a problem occurred."

"The major concern in the product revolves around application performance monitoring since end-to-end application monitoring is not possible with the tool."

"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."

"The product needs to reduce its price."

"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."

"An additional feature that would improve this solution is the ability to complete root cause analysis."

"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"The RUM part of Splunk Observability Cloud can be improved significantly."

"To improve Splunk Observability Cloud, we need more applications to be included in the observability so that more applications can have agents to monitor them and bring that information to the cloud."

"If a customer utilizes third-party tools and wants to forward data from Splunk Observability Cloud, seamless integration would be beneficial."

"A wide variety of logging makes log onboarding difficult."

"There is not a lot of support for the tool's on-premises version, especially since everything is on the cloud."

"Support from Splunk is not very helpful because Splunk doesn't have a dedicated APM; they only have one APM engineer in Korea."

"The price has room for improvement."

"There's no standard use case available where you can see the utilization of the number of use cases I have."

More Splunk Observability Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."

"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."

"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."

"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."

"Pricing is inexpensive, starting at 2440 euros. For that, you get the ability to monitor a couple of nodes and one year of maintenance and support."

"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"The price of Splunk APM is less than some of its competitors."

"The product is a bit expensive considering the competition but the company may negotiate the price."

"I am not in that circle, but we are currently licensing based on our queries. That is working out for us. Previously, it was by volume of data, and now, we can store as much data as we want."

"This is an expensive solution."

"It appears to be expensive compared to competitors."

"It is expensive."

"The pricing is based on several factors, including the scale of deployment."

"Splunk Observability Cloud is expensive."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

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871,358 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	43

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

The initial cost is quite high, but the renewal cost is reasonable.

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...

What do you like most about SignalFx?

The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.

What needs improvement with SignalFx?

Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and pr...

What is your primary use case for SignalFx?

The solution involves observability in general, such as Application Performance Monitoring, and generally addresses digital applications, web applications, sites, and mobile applications. I worked ...

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Product Reports

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Splunk Observability Cloud

Download Splunk Observability Cloud product report

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring

Overview

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers powerful application and server monitoring capabilities for IT pros, enabling them to diagnose and troubleshoot performance issues faster. Do not let slow applications and downtime impact your end-users and business services. Pinpoint the root cause of application issues across various layers of the IT stack. SolarWinds SAM is affordable and easy to deploy, use, and customize. You can automatically discover your system's environment and start monitoring in about an hour. No professional services or consultation needed.

SolarWinds

Splunk Observability Cloud offers sophisticated log searching, data integration, and customizable dashboards. With rapid deployment and ease of use, this cloud service enhances monitoring capabilities across IT infrastructures for comprehensive end-to-end visibility.

Focused on enhancing performance management and security, Splunk Observability Cloud supports environments through its data visualization and analysis tools. Users appreciate its robust application performance monitoring and troubleshooting insights. However, improvements in integrations, interface customization, scalability, and automation are needed. Users find value in its capabilities for infrastructure and network monitoring, as well as log analytics, albeit cost considerations and better documentation are desired. Enhancements in real-time monitoring and network protection are also noted as areas for development.

What are the key features?

Log Searching: Efficiently search and analyze logs from various sources.
Data Integration: Seamlessly integrate with multiple environments.
Dashboard Customization: Tailor dashboards to specific monitoring needs.
Monitoring Capabilities: Provides comprehensive insights into application performance.
Security Features: Analyze and address security threats across systems.
Visualization Tools: Enhance data analysis and system performance optimization.

Why consider this for ROI?

Comprehensive Visibility: Gain complete insights into IT infrastructure.
Performance Optimization: Improve overall system performance and efficiency.
Rapid Deployment: Quick setup to meet organization demands swiftly.
Enhanced Security: Strengthen security measures through detailed analytics.

In industries, Splunk Observability Cloud is implemented for security management by analyzing logs from detection systems, offering real-time alerts and troubleshooting for cloud-native applications. It is leveraged for machine data analysis, improving infrastructure visibility and supporting network and application performance management efforts.

Splunk

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Observability Cloud