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SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs VMware vCenter 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
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Active Directory Management (11th)
VMware vCenter
Ranking in Server Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 VMware vCenter is 0.6%, up from 0.1% 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.
SivaKuppala - PeerSpot reviewer
Performance monitoring tools help track resource usage, identify performance bottlenecks, and optimize the efficiency of virtual environments
It is like a single point of failure. In an environment, vCenter is deployed as a single instance, which represents a single point of failure. The concern here is that tasks such as provisioning, monitoring, and maintenance may be impacted until the server is restored. This only affects management; users are not impacted. But, again, management capabilities will be impacted. The entire system goes down until recovery is completed. You will not be able to provision new VDI. Also, vCenter requires a lot of additional resources for managing capabilities. It uses a significant amount of CPU, memory, and network bandwidth, which can sometimes slow down. Proper sizing is important for vCenter so that it does not impact end-users. vCentre licensing cost is on the higher side as well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's good at monitoring system-specific things like ports, services."
"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."
"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."
"The features like trends, capacity planning, recommendations, and diagnostics are the main items I focus on for added value."
"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."
"The more valuable feature of this solution is the Exchange feature."
"The component and cable monitoring are good. SolarWinds is more intuitive and user-friendly than AppDynamics. The AppDynamics console is more complex because it's a more feature-rich solution, so it's not easy for somebody to pick it up."
"Solarwinds has an open database that allows you to do serious integrations. It doesn't matter which service desk you have, you can implement and integrate it with SolarWinds."
"The most valuable features of the solution are virtualization and ease of backing up the virtual and on-premises servers."
"The user-friendliness and stability are the product’s most valuable features."
"VMware vCenter has significantly improved our infrastructure management by enabling virtualization. We can virtualize our infrastructure, eliminating the need to access servers physically. Everything can be managed remotely."
"The most valuable feature of VMware vCenter is the centralized management that allows us to see resources from different data centers and VMware clusters in a single dashboard."
"The platform is very effective for managing virtual infrastructure. It has improved our virtual infrastructure and virtual machine deployment in several ways."
"It is easier to manage a larger number of nodes per cluster. Currently, if we are managing a minimum of 64 nodes in a single cluster, that capacity can be increased."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of migrating services from one host to another during maintenance."
"It has significantly impacted our organization by facilitating troubleshooting and monitoring processes."
 

Cons

"Reporting is the only thing with which we currently have challenges. They have this in two ways. There is the report writer, which is the backend, and we also have web reports, which are on the console. So, they have removed the report writer for the backend reports, and we are making use of the web console, but most of the users are not finding it very interesting to use the frontend reports. I would like them to bring back the report writer. That's the key area within it to improve on the reporting. If they can bring back the report writer, then most users will actually be comfortable. I have some customers who are trying to export their report to an Excel format, but it is not possible because they said any report that has been done from the web console cannot be exported to Excel, but most of the customers need to export their reports to Excel. That's one area they need to work on."
"One area that could benefit from improvement is its performance"
"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 think they need to make reporting easier and more simple & dynamic."
"The setup was complex. We had local support to assist us."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve the server monitoring and the web application monitoring features are not good. Microsoft SCOM has better server monitoring."
"For each poller, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor can only monitor up to ten thousand components, which restricts scalability."
"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."
"The process of creating VLANs or any similar tasks requires following a specific procedure, which must be executed accurately to ensure successful deployment. That's the main concern."
"One area where VMware vCenter has room for improvement is its transition to Broadcom. The change in licensing structure and pricing, particularly the shift from perpetual licenses to subscription-only models, is a significant drawback."
"VMware vCenter is an expensive product. Its price needs improvement."
"We have to buy more VMware products to leverage the centralized management."
"Consolidating these plugins into a unified environment with customizable options to enable or disable features would be highly beneficial."
"The monitoring features are limited."
"VMware vCenter does not have a centralized security dashboard, and it is pretty tedious to configure."
"The product should improve its storage. It's not necessarily about needing more storage but improving how it handles technology. We believe there could be more effective ways to manage it in our user environment. It should also look into network management."
 

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."
"The tool is available for my company at a good price point."
"The solution is overpriced in terms of application management."
"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 is expensive."
"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."
"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 rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"The product is expensive."
"The platform is highly-priced."
"The platform is expensive."
"The product's three-year license package is inexpensive."
"The platform has reasonable pricing."
"VMware vCenter is not expensive."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"We utilize the basic licenses of the product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
34%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
No data available
 

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 VMware vCenter?
The filtering capabilities also enhance scalability by optimizing resource allocation.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware vCenter?
The pricing and setup cost are rated seven out of ten. It is mentioned that the price might be a little lower to increase customer adoption. The specific details of the financial cost were not prov...
What needs improvement with VMware vCenter?
The performance is well, however, i didnot use different products to say my opinion.
 

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
1. Amazon 2. Apple 3. ATT 4. Bank of America 5. Cisco Systems 6. CocaCola 7. Dell 8. ebay 9. Facebook 10. Google 11. HP 12. IBM 13. Intel 14. JPMorgan Chase 15. LinkedIn 16. Microsoft 17. Netflix 18. Oracle 19. PayPal 20. SAP 21. Siemens 22. Tesla 23. Toyota 24. Twitter 25. Visa 26. Walmart 27. WeWork 28. World Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. VMware vCenter and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,451 professionals have used our research since 2012.