Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 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 Server and Appli...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (10th), Active Directory Management (10th)
Splunk ITSI (IT Service Int...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
IT Alerting and Incident Management (3rd)
 

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 ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is 0.7%, down from 0.8% 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 (%)
Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)0.7%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.3%
Other98.0%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

VIVEK PATHAK - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Ahmed Naguib - PeerSpot reviewer
Identifying complex diagnostics and alert management improvements needed
The best features of Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) are the APM, the Application Performance Monitoring, and the diagnostic capabilities. It is state-of-the-art. The intelligent alerting in Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is very good. The predictive analysis can give you proactive information about potential bottlenecks that can occur on applications, desk, storage, SQL servers, databases, or other systems. It is very effective. The customizable dashboards in Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) facilitate our customers because they are highly adaptable. We have multiple types of dashboards, depending on who will be utilizing them, such as engineering, middle management, IT heads, or NOC teams that will be monitoring systems. The metrics I rely on for monitoring in Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) depend on what kind of asset or CI we are monitoring. For applications, we have the number of concurrent transactions, response time from the database, and write time on the desk. There are multiple parameters and metrics that we utilize in the monitoring part within ITSI.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature."
"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."
"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."
"SSL Certificate Monitoring and Expiry Alerting"
"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."
"Features like monitoring and infrastructure dependency mapping are valuable to us."
"ITSI includes a feature called a glass table."
"I particularly like the preview feature because it provides a prompt experience for impact analysis."
"The flexibility to develop and consolidate many solutions into one platform is great."
"The modeling required to setup ITSI has been very helpful in providing us a better understanding and a logical view of our services. The modeling is flexible and can be as granular or high level as our needs dictate."
"Our mean time to detect is down to five minutes."
"The root cause analysis is very helpful for us."
"What I like the most is the event correlations. It's a file structure, and ITSI has a correlation layer where you can normalize the events from different sources. Once these events are normalized, you set up rules to aggregate them into different or the same attributes. After the rules are defined, you can automate the process to solve the issue automatically."
"Customers have noted the solution helps streamline incident management."
 

Cons

"It would be helpful if the solution could integrate more with the security compliances, like this IDSS, etc."
"A lot of times, we have to do a lot of manual cleanups."
"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."
"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."
"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."
"One area that could benefit from improvement is its performance"
"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."
"While integrating services and KPIs in ITSI is straightforward, I found it challenging to analyze them with the service analyzers; specifically, using the deep dive feature to pinpoint the exact source and time of an issue proved difficult."
"ITSI currently lacks the capability for automated response, mitigation, and remediation."
"Splunk ITSI's UI needs to be more interactive and user-friendly."
"We experience occasional delays in receiving solutions from Splunk technical support. Splunk's support for P3 cases seems inadequate, as they frequently switch support personnel. For instance, in a single P3 case, we had three different technical support representatives assigned. We were ultimately forced to escalate the issue to our account manager to get it resolved. In essence, we never receive complete support from a single point of contact; instead, the support team keeps changing, necessitating us to explain the problem from scratch each time."
"Splunk ITSI lacks out-of-the-box solutions for enterprise users."
"It was an intimidating tool for us to jump into at the beginning."
"After upgrading Splunk ITSI from version 4.11 to 4.13, the analyzer stopped finding values for KPS and services."
"They should make it easier to use. Many people are new to it. It is hard and has a steep learning curve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"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."
"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."
"The price is too high."
"When compared to other licensed models in the market, it stands out as one of the more cost-effective options."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"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."
"Splunk ITSI is expensive; however, with the appropriate use case, it justifies the cost."
"It would have been good if the product cost was much lower."
"It is interesting. I am not involved that much lately, but if I recall correctly, you license primarily on the volume of data that you are using in Splunk ITSI, but there is no way Splunk can ever check if that is true, so that is interesting. We are not doing it, but someone can pretend to just use 10%, and it would be super cheap. It is tricky, but it is more tricky for Splunk than for us."
"I know that it is expensive, but I do not think there is another solution that can do similar things for that price."
"Splunk ITSI is expensive compared to other tools."
"Splunk is pretty expensive, but it gives you a decent insight into the data. It is easy to learn, and ITSI has a great interface. You can run those queries and pass the data. I"
"Pricing was pretty good, and it is possible to just add on the features we want."
"Splunk ITSI is expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.
869,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise32
 

Questions from the Community

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?
Pricing can vary significantly based on the selected modules and deployment choices. Splunk ITSI tends to be more expensive compared to some open-source solutions.
What needs improvement with Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?
Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) can be improved in terms of the service management function, which is the only drawback, and there are some limitations in terms of event correlation, specific...
 

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
TransUnion, Cox Automotive, Carnival Cruises, Leidos, Econocom, National Ignition Factory, Entrust Datacard, Molina Healthcare, United States Census Bureau
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.