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SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Tanium comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 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 Server Monitoring
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (16th), Active Directory Management (12th)
Tanium
Ranking in Server Monitoring
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (22nd), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (37th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (26th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.6%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tanium is 6.1%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Subhajit Nag - PeerSpot reviewer
The component and cable monitoring features are good, but the interface is slow
SolarWinds' interface is slow, and this is a global concern. Every SolarWinds user complains about the sluggishness. The response is slow. If you browse from one page to another, you have to wait. Our company is a massive user with plenty of licenses, so the performance issues could be due to the load per license. Ten thousand components can be mapped under one license. So SolarWinds needs to take care of the speed problem. It cannot be this slow. That is a huge complaint. Otherwise, the tool is good. 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. The upgrade time matters because you only install the solution once, but you'll need to upgrade the solution repeatedly over the life of the product. A complex installation isn't an issue, but I mind if the upgrade takes too long because it's already in production.
Ed Jarecki - PeerSpot reviewer
A scalable solution that helps to understand how infrastructure works
We use the tool as an infrastructure operational management solution.  The solution is scalable and helps to understand how infrastructure works. It helps to improve the health of the organization.  Any movement into a SaaS solution has challenges since the processes and data flows are not well…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is end-to-end from the network and the application to the processes. Everything about the enterprise infrastructure is being covered by the solution. It's easy to use and easy to navigate and one of the leaders among monitoring solutions."
"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."
"I am impressed with the tool's AppStack feature which mainly helps us in the identification process. This feature can give an overview of the fault and help us identify the issues for performance degradation. Instead of looking at multiple places, we can look at a single place to identify the issues."
"The application dependency feature identifies issues between applications and servers or within the network where the application is hosted. It highlights related problems, whether related to packet processing or other issues, enabling the creation of alerts and reports accordingly."
"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its powerful monitoring capabilities."
"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."
"I would say Tanium is the best tool for vulnerability management."
"For incident response tasks, all these tasks can get done in minutes with minimal disruption to the end-user."
"I'm not so familiar with the tool but I like the interaction of the console to the picture. Patching is the primary model I have been focusing on for the last couple of weeks. So I have created a proof of concept environment and have been checking the available features."
"When I push a quick update, it's done right away, and I can rescan immediately to confirm completion within minutes."
"I like the tool's incident response and security patching."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the consolidation of all historical data on device endpoints, security drivers, firmware, and Software version gaps."
"Tanium has made the process of detecting threats more proactive with its detection. So, the process is easier and more efficient."
"I find the inventory and compliance features of Tanium to be the most impressive."
 

Cons

"Currently SolarWinds SAM offers AppInsight for modern versions of: IIS, Exchange, SQL Server. They have shown to be powerful and insightful tools. However, AppInsight needs to be offered for more applications: Citrix, SharePoint, AX, etc."
"The tool’s report feature created issues for us. We needed to gain skills to use that feature. The tool’s customization is not easy since you have to reconfigure the whole system."
"Application-based monitoring, such as monitoring within servers like Apache and IIS, has room for improvement."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve by having a cloud version. They have an observability platform but it still needs to be maintained by us."
"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"
"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."
"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."
"The reporting could be improved."
"Tanium required local admin or root rights on Mac devices, which did not comply with our security policies. This made the solution less suitable for our restrictive environment."
"The solution needs to improve the reporting and tracking capabilities."
"The main issues are the network connection because different customers have issues with their networks. It's difficult implementing this type of solution because the network is the main feature in the architecture for these types of solutions. Tanium could improve by creating some network optimization."
"It is not really additional functions, or the features that are needed, rather the complexity would be reduced based on the number of modules required to put together a comprehensive operational security and risk compliance model."
"The solution can give a lot of false positives."
"The solution lacks mobility."
"We had some issues with the solution's OS upgrade."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Understanding the counts of objects to monitor will determine the licensing need. In terms of pricing, it’s not cheap but it’s not expensive as larger vendors whose products don’t have all the features or integrations."
"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 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."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"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."
"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."
"There is an annual license required to use this solution."
"The product's pricing differs from region to region depending on negotiations and the number of endpoints."
"Tanium is a more expensive solution in Latin America than some of the competitors, such as BigFix."
"It's an expensive solution. It would be nice if the cost were lower."
"It is higher than some competitors in the market."
"The solution offers value for money."
"The solution is expensive but it's a good investment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
38%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about Tanium?
Tanium’s linear-chain architecture is valuable.
What needs improvement with Tanium?
When working with Tanium, there are some older devices that haven't been patched for a long time, and certain patches are not included in Tanium. I have to search outside to download patches, creat...
What is your primary use case for Tanium?
We primarily use Tanium for patching, focusing on vulnerabilities. Our major goal with Tanium is to patch based on vulnerabilities detected by our other vulnerability tools.
 

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
JPMorgan Chase, eBay, Amazon, US Bank, MetLife, pwc, Cerner, Delphi, MGM Grand, New York Life
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Tanium and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.