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

SolarWinds and Splunk are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. SolarWinds is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.0, while Splunk is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.6. SolarWinds holds a 1.0% mindshare in APM, compared to Splunk’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

7,596 Views
4,330 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Int...

Read 64 Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) reviews

5,892 Views
3,771 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Int...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor and Splunk ITSI compete in network management and IT service intelligence. SolarWinds has the upper hand in pricing and support, while Splunk ITSI excels in comprehensive service visibility due to its advanced analytics.

Features: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor offers real-time server monitoring, application performance monitoring, and extensive reporting capabilities. It provides a robust alerting system that allows quick identification of system issues. Splunk ITSI features advanced machine learning analytics, predictive and anomaly detection, and business service insights, providing a holistic view of IT operations.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds could improve integration capabilities and scalability in large environments. Additionally, its configuration and maintenance process can be streamlined. Splunk ITSI may benefit from simplifying its deployment, reducing its complexity, and enhancing its application monitoring features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds offers a straightforward deployment process with solid customer service, simplifying setup for IT teams. Its intuitive dashboard eases management tasks. Splunk ITSI presents a more complex deployment requiring technical expertise and longer setup time, yet it compensates with dedicated support helping organizations leverage its analytical capabilities.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor offers a competitive pricing model, delivering favorable ROI for budget-conscious businesses. Splunk ITSI entails a higher setup cost but provides significant long-term value with its advanced analytics, appealing to organizations needing profound IT service insights.

To learn more, read our detailed SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) Report (Updated: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

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

August 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 Server and Appli...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

19th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (6th), Active Directory Management (8th)

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Int...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

10th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Alerting and Incident Management (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.0%, down from 1.5% 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	1.0%
Other	98.2%

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

"SolarWinds allows network administrators to easily monitor the network by customizing the pages to see what exactly is needed, in addition to the deep statistics shown for nodes and interfaces like response time, packet loss, interface CRC, interface errors, as well as the rich graphs for all network elements."

"As I mentioned in one of the other points: "Simplicity at its best"."

"The product integrates with Remedy."

"The solution can be deployed quickly."

"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."

"Identifying the problem statement is easy."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"ITSI includes a feature called a glass table."

"The most valuable features are the service analyzer and Glass Tables."

"Splunk is not only a great product but also, as a company it really supports its users with the customer support program and all of the documentation they have available, all of the conventions that are arranged, meet the experts, case studies, use cases, and the YouTube channel."

"ITSI's KPI and correlation search aspects are powerful, and the service creation suits the project well. It allows for good segregation of the monitoring solution, and up-to-date quick-time monitoring. We're notified quickly when something goes wrong."

"Alerts and episodes are valuable to me."

"The most valuable features of Splunk ITSI are event analytics and service insight."

"Having a structure on how to resolve incidents is the most valuable aspect."

"Splunk's intuitive interface and scalability make it accessible to non-technical users, and its capacity to monitor every millisecond of data across multiple applications is truly impressive."

More Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) pros

Cons

"The technical support was better in previous years. With the launch of the premium support service, the normal support has declined."

"One product area that could benefit from improvement is the synchronization of licensing periods across different modules"

"They should incorporate more artificial intelligence. There should also be more predictive features."

"AppInsight needs to include more applications, the current list is very limited."

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

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

"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."

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

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"The user interface visualization could be improved."

"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."

"We'd like them to show more inputs on the dashboard."

"From my perspective (since I don't have administrator or developer access to Splunk ITSI), we could have a better user interface."

"Currently, Glass tables in ITSI only display metrics related to KPIs."

"I believe the refresh time should be faster."

"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, specifically when correlating between different CIs."

"One area where Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) has room for improvement is the high cost associated with it."

More Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) cons

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."

"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."

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

"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."

"We are on an annual license to use the solution. The price of the solution is expensive. The price is based on a bunch of factors, such as the number of engines and elements."

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

"When planning for the number of licenses to purchase, make sure you understand all of the elements within an application required to really understand performance well. In our case, we quickly came to the conclusion that an unlimited license for SAM was the way to go."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"Splunk ITSI is expensive."

"Splunk pricing is high."

"The cost of the modules is a bit high for non-global companies, making it difficult for them to afford Splunk ITSI."

"The licensing is based on data usage."

"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."

"Splunk ITSI is expensive; however, with the appropriate use case, it justifies the cost."

"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."

"Splunk ITSI is expensive compared to other tools."

More Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

13%

University

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Outsourcing Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Construction Company

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	8
Large Enterprise	46

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?

I am doing research as we currently have both solutions, and I am looking to see if we need both or can manage with one. Currently, the outcome indicates that we need both. The focus point is diffe...

See all answers

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

From a pricing perspective, it is not that bad because we get it from a distributor and do not purchase it directly from Splunk. We get it from a distributor who gives the pricing to a partner and ...

See all answers

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

Training the database could make Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) even better for my work. I sometimes feel a lag with Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence). I gave it a nine out of ten.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?

I have been using Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) for the last two to three years for my data handling. I do IT implementation with strong technical skills. I sometimes use Splunk ITSI (IT Se...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

July 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

July 2026

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) report

Download Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) product report

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM

No data available

Overview

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provides comprehensive server, application, and infrastructure monitoring, focusing on integration, application dependency, and network insights through user-friendly interfaces and detailed dashboards.

With AppStack and AppInsight support, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor offers service management, detailed resource dashboards, and integration capabilities. It monitors hardware metrics and performance parameters, facilitating database and network insights for cloud and virtual environments. Robust alerting, predictive analytics, and capacity planning ensure efficient management of server health and application performance.

What are the key features?

Integration: Seamlessly connects with existing tools.
AppStack: Provides a holistic view of applications.
AppInsight: Supports widely-used applications.
SNMP Polling: Efficient network data collection.
Diagnostics: Real-time troubleshooting.
Customizable Dashboards: Tailored monitoring views.

What benefits should users expect?

Comprehensive Monitoring: Extends from servers to databases.
Transparent Control: Enhances visibility into performance metrics.
User-Friendly: Simplifies proactive monitoring with alerts.
Predictive Features: Supports capacity and trend planning.

Industries implement SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor to enhance server utilization reporting, network configuration, and AV equipment performance tracking. They benefit from monitoring critical services across diverse deployment models, improving management efficiency and decision-making.

SolarWinds

Splunk ITSI offers intelligent alerting, predictive analysis, customizable dashboards, and improves visibility and monitoring through Service Analyzer and Glass Tables. Event correlation enhances incident management, reducing alert fatigue, and improves mean time to resolution.

Splunk ITSI enables businesses to proactively monitor their IT environments by offering functionalities that reduce noise and provide enhanced visibility through sophisticated dashboards. Service Analyzer and Glass Tables facilitate the monitoring of KPIs, allowing for the prompt identification of potential issues. The platform's event correlation capabilities streamline incident management. Its scalability efficiently supports large data volumes, integrating diverse data resources while incorporating AI for predictive insights. Future improvements are sought in integration, documentation, and user-friendly interfaces, with an emphasis on simplifying configurations in expansive deployments.

What are the Key Features of Splunk ITSI?

Intelligent Alerting: Provides proactive monitoring and noise reduction.
Service Analyzer: Enables KPI monitoring and issue identification.
Glass Tables: Allows visual monitoring of crucial metrics.
Event Correlation: Simplifies incident management and reduces alert fatigue.
Scalability: Supports large data volumes and integrates vast data sources.

What Benefits and ROI can Users Expect from Splunk ITSI?

Proactive Monitoring: Enhances ability to foresee and mitigate IT issues.
Improved Resolution Time: Accelerates incident resolution and operational efficiency.
Enhanced Business Resilience: Strengthens IT operations through detailed insights.

Industries leverage Splunk ITSI to monitor infrastructure and applications effectively, employing its Service Analyzer and KPI models. Especially in sectors requiring stringent incident management and predictive analytics, integrations like ServiceNow enable visual health assessments and automated anomaly detection, positioning ITSI as a manager of managers by enhancing IT operations with comprehensive reporting and alert correlations.

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

Buyer's Guide

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

August 2026

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