SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Zenoss Cloud comparison

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Zenoss Cloud

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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 Server Monitoring

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (22nd), Active Directory Management (8th)

Zenoss Cloud

Ranking in Server Monitoring

25th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (19th), Event Monitoring (14th), Network Monitoring Software (64th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (51st), Container Monitoring (8th), Cloud Monitoring Software (41st), AIOps (28th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 2.9%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zenoss Cloud is 3.1%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor	2.9%
Zenoss Cloud	3.1%
Other	94.0%

Server Monitoring

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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ClaudiaChen

Cloud Architect - Senior Technology Architect at Telstra

Generates close to real-time alerts so users can resolve issues, but needs more integration and public cloud monitoring features

As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor.

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

"SolarWinds SAM is very stable, and we are using it with hundreds or thousands of customers and there are no stability issues."

"Management Console - Managing service to each server enrolled in the Solarwinds is much easier. Using a web base console, you can control your service much convenient way. There is no need to login remotely. It save a lot of time and effort."

"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is the network devices' performance monitor is the best."

"The OOTB (Out of the Box) implementation does have very good node specific pages and can provide a wealth of information."

"The solution is great for monitoring. If something is going wrong, we can immediately find the root cause."

"The solution can be deployed quickly."

"AppInsight for SQL: Enables us to see the relevant error log entries on the same page as performance parameters."

"SolarWinds is one of the best products on the market and if they eventually support the IBM Mainframe then it will be perfect."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pros

"The product offers good documentation that helps with initial training."

"They have also accommodated many state-of-the-art technologies like Docker and ZooKeeper."

"Overall, it's a great solution, and I consider it to be one of the best."

"What I like most about Zenoss Service Dynamics is that it monitors the devices and gives close to real-time alerts. For example, in case the device is not available, Zenoss Service Dynamics generates an alert so my team can resolve the issue."

"Its Docker Container concept is mind blowing. It is the first monitoring tool which comes with Docker features."

"It is very cost-effective compared to the tools I worked with in the past."

"With this solution, they can have one million users at the same time with no crashes."

"Zenoss is more complex than LogicMonitor, but scalable and hugely customizable."

More Zenoss Cloud pros

Cons

"This product has no real downside unless they fail to continue development of its capabilities."

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

"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."

"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."

"The tool's AppStack needs to improve in the storage monitoring part. It should also include an analytics and recommendation approach. If I have found a fault in a server or application, I would like to know what caused it and how do I recover from it."

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

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

"Support for the IBM Mainframe is needed."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor cons

"The inclusion of a feature to show a graphical view of the network would be a helpful improvement."

"As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor."

"It would be ideal if the product offered sound alerts."

"There was a problem with Zenoss and storage monitoring."

"Now it is stable, but they should design threshold parameters in percentage instead of raw values."

"Technical support is 3/10, poor: Incomplete and poor documentation Undocumented processes Inconsistent solutions to problems depending on source"

"This solution is complex for beginners so it takes some time to learn."

"There is room for improvement with the administrative part. They introduced Control Center to manage things in Zenoss 5. The services that Zenoss provides remained the same, but the administrative part, since they introduced Docker, etc., has become a little complex"

More Zenoss Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."

"We pay around $ 2,000 to $ 5,000 yearly for the solution."

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

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

"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."

"I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor pricing and cost advice

"It is very cost-effective compared to the tools I worked with in the past. The company is gaining a lot with respect to the cost factor. It provides agentless monitoring and in a very cheap way."

"It depends on the customer, what he wants."

"The pricing depends on the environment, the number of services, and the size of the data center. It can go from $100,000 to a million dollars."

"There are additional costs you'll have to pay apart from the license fee for Zenoss Service Dynamics. I can't remember exactly how much my company is paying because I don't handle the finance part, but the cost is paid annually. On a scale of one to five, with one being the cheapest and five being the most expensive, I'm rating the solution three out of five."

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915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

13%

University

Financial Services Firm

Outsourcing Company

Comms Service Provider

14%

Construction Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing 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	4
Large Enterprise	5

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.

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 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...

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

In my experience, I worked with many monitoring software, but the one that gave me the most functionalities of a large-scale company is Zenoss, due to its ability to monitor completely hybrid and a...

Splunk AppDynamics vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

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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

Zenoss Cloud

Download Zenoss Cloud product report

Also Known As

SolarWinds SAM

Cloud Monitoring, Zenoss Service Dynamics

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

Zenoss Cloud provides a comprehensive overview of IT environments, supporting cross-cloud functionality, scalability, and robust integrations. It offers dynamic monitoring through its intuitive dashboard and supports hybrid deployments across cloud and on-premises infrastructures.

Zenoss Cloud enables users to monitor network infrastructure and operator platforms efficiently. With features like agentless monitoring and real-time alerts, Zenoss Cloud integrates seamlessly with external systems such as ITSM tools. Its flexible functionality allows for the management of both on-premises and cloud infrastructures like AWS and Azure. Users benefit from easy setup and strong technical support, although they seek enhancements in AI capabilities and simpler installation. The pricing model and complexity for beginners and storage monitoring are areas for improvement.

What are the key features of Zenoss Cloud?

Dynamic Monitoring: Enhances user experience with real-time insights.
Cross-Cloud Functionality: Supports hybrid deployments across AWS and Azure.
Agentless Monitoring: Simplifies deployment with minimal overhead.
Scalability: Grows with your network's demands.
Custom Integration: Supports notifications and alerts tailored to user requirements.

What benefits should users expect from Zenoss Cloud?

Time Efficiency: Quick setup and operation save resources.
Comprehensive Support: Extensive documentation streamlines troubleshooting.
Cost-effective Monitoring: Prevents multiple charges in server monitoring.
Enhanced User Experience: Offers seamless integration with existing IT infrastructures.

Zenoss Cloud is widely used in monitoring solutions for industries including technology and data centers. It supports direct monitoring of systems like vSphere and NetApp, making it ideal for IT operations and managed services. Integration with tools such as ServiceNow and SolarWinds aligns it with diverse IT environments.

Zenoss

Sample Customers

Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite

2degrees, Rackspace, State of North Dakota, El Paso Independent School District, NWN Corporation

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs. Zenoss Cloud