SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

SolarWinds and Splunk are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. SolarWinds is ranked #22 with an average rating of 7.6, while Splunk is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.3. SolarWinds holds a 1.3% mindshare in APM, compared to Splunk’s 2.3% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Read 44 SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor reviews

4,410 Views
2,778 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Splunk Observability Cloud

Read 78 Splunk Observability Cloud reviews

8,968 Views
4,753 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Server and Appli...

Splunk Observability Cloud

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Splunk Observability Cloud and SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor compete in the IT monitoring and management space. Splunk holds an advantage with its advanced AI capabilities and comprehensive cloud integration, while SolarWinds offers competitive pricing and strong application-specific monitoring.

Features: Splunk Observability Cloud includes fast log searching, custom dashboard creation, and real-time problem solving. It is adaptable for complex environments, offering advanced AI capabilities. SolarWinds SAM offers robust application monitoring like AppInsight for SQL and Exchange, providing detailed monitoring of popular applications, enhanced data integration, and diagnostics.

Room for Improvement: Splunk faces high costs, complex configuration, and calls for improved documentation and automation. Its endpoint protection needs enhancement. SolarWinds requires better performance speed, cloud integration, and dashboard customization. Users report issues with navigational ease and dependency on Windows Servers. Both can improve third-party integration capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Splunk offers flexible deployments for cloud and hybrid models, with responsive customer support needing better consistency and speed. SolarWinds primarily supports on-premises deployment and has a solid customer service reputation, though there are calls for faster response times. Its deployment process can be slow for larger architectures.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk is seen as expensive, offering robust features that justify its price for complex enterprise needs but raises concerns over scaling and licensing fees. SolarWinds is competitively priced, delivering great value for mid-sized to large organizations focused on specific application monitoring. While both solutions provide ROI, SolarWinds' pricing is more accessible.

To learn more, read our detailed SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Observability Cloud Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

February 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

22nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

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

Splunk Observability Cloud

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

7th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

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

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 Splunk Observability Cloud is 2.3%, up from 1.5% 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	2.3%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	1.3%
Other	96.4%

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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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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We manage SolarWinds ourselves without outsourcing its services."

"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."

"I adore the NTA module that provides deep details on ingress/egress traffic for any interface. With a few clicks, you can correlate who is accessing what and when, beside the bandwidth consuming applications/users."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."

"SolarWinds is a very stable platform compared to others on the market."

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

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"The most valuable features include user time tracking and the ability to analyze application load times."

"The product retains a lot of log data for subsequent analysis."

"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."

"The volume it handles is very good, including the number of metrics, the volume number of traces, and more."

"It's a very easy-to-use solution."

"The features are pretty much ready out of the box."

"The tool is efficient in collecting, monitoring and evaluating logs."

"It is a good tool. It allows you to set alerts for application and infrastructure monitoring, and it allows you to create dashboards."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pros

Cons

"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."

"It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle."

"There is one feature that is a report writer. And they are currently trying to take it out from being a stand-alone application and integrating to the web. This doesn't give us the flexibility and it doesn't expand what we can get when it comes to reporting. So, putting it on the web is going to make it difficult to get some information. Leaving it where it is now will help us a lot."

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

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

"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. In the application layer, it has some very basic stuff. You have to build your own with manuscripts and things like that."

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

"Downside of the tools is the web console are hung or crash. It need to improve the performance."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"The end-to-end visibility is lacking because Splunk cannot directly monitor network devices."

"It's a bit difficult to use. It takes some time to get into it and to get it to do what you would like it to do. It is not straightforward to use it."

"The UI enhancements could be a way to improve the solution in the future."

"The cardinality is pretty low."

"Splunk would be better if some tools were integrated to be able to take action on security or network concerns."

"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 process terms. These categories of dashboards would be very helpful for customers."

"They need more EDR functionalities."

"I would like to see an improvement and some innovation in the customer interface."

More Splunk Observability Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."

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

"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."

"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 product is expensive."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"Splunk APM is expensive."

"The solution's pricing is costly."

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

"Licensing cost is the biggest argument I get from those divesting from Splunk. There are those within our organization who say we are going to go to other tools since Splunk is too expensive."

"This is an expensive solution."

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

"I would rate the price of Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring as an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."

"Splunk offers a 14-day free trial and after that, we have to pay but the cost is reasonable."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

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	20
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	50

Questions from the Community

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

Identifying the problem statement is easy.

See all answers

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 do you like most about SignalFx?

The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Icinga vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

eG Enterprise vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

Compared 3% of the time

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor Competitors

Avantra vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

Observe vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Datadog vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Cribl vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Dynatrace vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

More Splunk Observability Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

January 2026

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor report

Download SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Observability Cloud

January 2026

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

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

February 2026

Free Report: SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

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