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

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

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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

22nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (8th), Active Directory Management (9th)

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Int...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

11th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Alerting and Incident Management (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 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 Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)	0.8%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.3%
Other	97.9%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

NikhilKalwint

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.

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DhirendraSingh2

Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

Service health has been monitored and visual insights support proactive telecom operations

The installation process is the first aspect I dislike about Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence). If you do not configure it correctly, you will encounter issues in the search head. Because we use a distributed environment where each component has its own specific roles, installation is critical and requires careful attention. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is built with many applications. It is a compressed file, and when you extract the Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) app, you receive approximately 19 apps. Some applications, add-ons, and packages must be installed on specific components. If you do not configure an application correctly, it will not work. Sometimes we encounter issues during installation because of this complexity. I believe the installation process should be more uniform, meaning it could be deployed across all components to avoid post-installation issues. Sometimes after installation, you receive errors, and users cannot access Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence). We have experienced this type of issue due to installation errors. I believe there is currently room for improvement regarding scalability. When we create Glass Tables containing many searches, the Glass Tables sometimes fail due to memory constraints, and we receive error pages. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) should have a lightweight version to address these concerns. I would rate current scalability as medium.

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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 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."

"If you are looking for a single pane of glass to monitor Windows products then SolarWinds is your product."

"It is simple to implement and can provide fairly decent Windows-based monitoring, beyond simple SNMP. It is great for monitoring newbies and smaller shops."

"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."

"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."

"The product integrates with Remedy."

"If a company would really like insight into its database utilization or performance and why their servers are slow or why the database is not giving a proper response, this solution will help."

"SolarWinds SAM has significantly improved our workflow by allowing us to develop a comprehensive knowledge base of known errors and automate responses to specific alerts."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"We can automate routine tasks. We're able to create alerts, reports, scheduled searches, et cetera. It's helping us to save time."

"The most valuable feature of ITSI is the service KPIs. No other tool provides you with the same level of observability and enterprise security or the search and reporting applications."

"It has saved me a lot of money and a lot of time."

"Splunk ITSI can be easily integrated with the incident management platform. You can automate workflows and certain actions can be taken."

"Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) positively impacts my organization by predicting many failures beforehand, helping us save money and preventing business disruptions by allowing us to address issues early."

"The most valuable feature is the Glass Tables. It gives you a nice, good overview of your KPIs. It's really slick and clean."

"The best feature I found in Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is the ability to organize raw data we receive in a very particular manner as per the client's requirement, including the device name and message body."

"The most valuable features are the mapping of the entities, which provides a comprehensive analysis, and the service analyzer for thresholding."

More Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) pros

Cons

"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."

"When you implement SolarWinds on a larger scale my customers complain about the speed."

"The current script monitoring feature has limitations, especially when dealing with custom scripts."

"SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern."

"I had some stability issues. I lost my environment, but with the help of SolarWinds support, I was able to get back to a stable platform."

"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."

"MS Azure Service and user experience monitoring is an area in which the SolarWinds tools are lacking; without a doubt, this is the Achilles heel of the Orion monitoring tools, and I am currently reviewing other vendors for Azure service monitoring tools."

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

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"When configuring a dashboard, we can write search criteria. Based on the search criteria, the dashboard shows all the alerts, including the alert time, creation time, and a summary description of the alert. When you add an extra column, such as the user that triggered the alert, the next time he refreshes the dashboard, he wants to know that the alert is acknowledged. We want to improve that comment feature."

"Splunk ITSI should include ease of integration and more templating."

"There should be entity conflict resolution, specifically regarding duplicate entities. There should be case sensitivity for various keys amongst entities, specifically host names. We need IT metrics-based indexes and more content packs. I know they are coming out with these features"

"The dashboard queries should be improved. More queries should be suggested in order to produce better dashboards."

"The UI could be updated. Some elements of the KPI section aren't where you'd expect. It looks like a website from 2010 or maybe older. You can't change some things, like if it doesn't word-wrap well. For example, if you have a long list of KPIs that exceed a character limit, you need to hover over them and wait for the HTML text to pop up to see which KPI it is."

"Integration is the most critical area to improve in Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI). It wasn't a great experience because you had to do a little back and forth to integrate the solution."

"It was an intimidating tool for us to jump into at the beginning."

More Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is too high."

"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."

"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."

"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."

"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It is just the standard price, but it can vary depending on the current rate of the dollar."

"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."

"Nagios XI, WhatsUpGold, Uptime Software, PRTG, Manage Engine, and SpiceWorks are the other tools that have lower pricing and licensing costs. However, they can't compete with SolarWinds when it comes to the features and functionality that SolarWinds can provide."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"Splunk ITSI is expensive."

"Splunk ITSI is an expensive tool, and we need to purchase the utility license."

"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."

"Its pricing has been changed as per the market. You get a good support service with it as well. They have 24/7 customer support. There is a portal, and if you are having issues, they are available in order to resolve them. So, its pricing isn't too much."

"I would prefer that the price be reduced, as it would be easier to implement it and to sell it."

"Pricing was pretty good, and it is possible to just add on the features we want."

"It depends on how big an organization is. If we have a lot of resources, the licensing needs to be upgraded. If we have a small environment, the licensing cost is definitely going to be less."

"Pricing has some room for improvement."

More Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) 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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885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
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 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 ...

What do you like most about Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?

Our mean time to detect is down to five minutes.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?

Regarding pricing, since Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is a flavor of Splunk, there are no fixed prices as it depends on data volume. It is indeed a premium app within Splunk. The pricing r...

What needs improvement with Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?

As per my analysis of Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence), I do not see much room for improvement. My experience as a mid-level user suggests that deep knowledge is helpful to maximize the tool's...

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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 ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

Download Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) product report

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) report

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM

No data available

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 IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) is a powerful analytics-driven monitoring and analytics solution that provides real-time insights into the health and performance of IT services.

It enables organizations to proactively identify and resolve issues, optimize service delivery, and improve overall IT operations. With its advanced machine learning capabilities, ITSI automatically detects anomalies, predicts future events, and prioritizes alerts based on business impact.

The solution offers a centralized view of IT services, allowing users to visualize and analyze data from multiple sources in a single dashboard. ITSI also provides customizable KPIs, service-level agreements (SLAs), and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure and track service performance.

With its intuitive interface and powerful analytics capabilities, Splunk ITSI empowers IT teams to deliver reliable and efficient services, ensuring maximum uptime and customer satisfaction.

Splunk

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

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