SolarWinds ipMonitor vs. SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
SolarWinds ipMonitor
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds ipMonitor is a lightweight performance monitoring tool. It enables monitoring from a single console and out-of-the-box visibility, with some automation available.
$1,570
installation
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers application and server monitoring capabilities. SAM allows for self-service for easy setup, 1200+ monitoring templates, and customization options, as well as integrate with other SolarWinds products.N/A
Pricing
SolarWinds ipMonitorSolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Editions & Modules
ipMonitor - 500 Monitors
$1570
installation
ipMonitor - 1000 Monitors
$2620
installation
ipMonitor -2500 Monitors
$5770
installation
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SolarWinds ipMonitorSolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsSAM pricing starts at $2,995.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SolarWinds ipMonitorSolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Considered Both Products
SolarWinds ipMonitor
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
We were trying to evaluate different providers and ipMonitor suited us because we had on-prem and cloud instances and management decided to check the paid tool. The ipMonitor is a very responsive tool and it served the purpose well but as IT is evolving and needs are changing, …
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
LogicMonitor is software with a fast-loading interface, with integrated alerts, so establishing them is simple due to its pre-configurations. However, SolarWinds ipMonitor [has] more complete characteristics because its interface is modern and easy to use. It offers fast and …
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
The way SolarWinds has clubbed the features and capabilities in SolarWinds ipMonitor is not available in other 3rd party or native tools. Even if they are available then they are very costly. I think SolarWinds is positioning ipMonitor so as to test their footprint on SaaS …
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
Both alternatives were great offerings, but were too extensive for our business needs. We needed something that had very low set-up costs, was easily usable, and did all the basics we need; performance metrics analysis, rogue IP detection, network mapping. In the end, along …
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
SolarWinds NPM provides more functionalities than ipMonitor. It is for medium - large enterprise and provides lots of monitoring options.
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
Although there are very less SaaS based tools available in the market, SolarWinds is somewhere in middle as compared to other tools such as LogicMonitor and ScienceLogic. Reason being the timing of the product launch and features enhancement. However current capabilities in …
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
We have run Zabbix in the past and while it is a great and very flexible tool (much more than SolarWinds), it is also an Open Source tool that depends heavily on the community. When it comes to more complex environments and global implementations with business critical …
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
I had some limited exposure to Zabbix that was provided by the client for monitoring the existing network. I found it not as informative as I previously experienced using ipMonitor and we were preparing for a network migration. I ended up setting up remote monitoring using …
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
ipMonitor is easier to set up and is straightforward. The other products seem to require getting a bit more into the weeds to get everything to work correctly. It was more work than I was willing to do and opted to just go with an off-the-shelf solution that could get my …
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
We have been using IPMonitor for over a decade. We have looked at other products in the past, but none of them have provided enough reason to even consider switching.
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
These are only a few of what we looked at, and at the end of the day it came down to cost, low footprint, and ease of use. I have suggested SolarWinds to anyone who asks what we use.
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
I feel that ipMonitor does not provide the granularity or level of configuration we require for our teams. We actually are looking at other means of customizing our monitors using the products listed, which I think will provide my teams with the ability to create better alerts …
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
IpMonitor is easy to set up and has a clear and easy reading interface. It's user-friendly for entry-level technicians. The price is good.
However, for big enterprises, PRTG Network Monitor might be a better solution.
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
There are some great free or low-cost tools out there. It all depends on your budget and size. We have used a wide variety of products over the years but we recently switched our entire monitoring backbone to SolarWinds products only. They cover just about everything and …
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
We have not evaluated other products recently.
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
SolarWinds ipMonitor is well thought out and includes many more advanced capabilities. Spiceworks functions in a more basic manner where the tools feel more entry level rather than for professional use.
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
I've used simple scripted monitoring tools before, used IP monitor until we upgraded the enterprise to one scalable tool that can replace and upgrade per SLA SOX compliance standards. I moved to a larger company (much larger) and we don't use SolarWinds here. We use WUG which …
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
Used ipMonitor for 7 years. Switched recently to Idera because of larger feature set and monitoring capabilities not available on IPmonitor. For tasks that both products can do, I still prefer IPmonitor.
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
SolarWinds ipMonitor is an easier solution and allows for a rapid configuration change without all the extra bells and whistles that you can find in SolarWinds Orion.
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
We used numerous free solutions that provide minimal and focused response. Solar Winds has a much larger scope in the resolutions it provides to us.
Chose SolarWinds ipMonitor
We have used Pasessler PRTG and ManageEngine OpsManager. Both are good products, but aren't really monitoring products, they are more management products with monitoring built in. The smaller footprint of ipMonitor, as well as the historical data storage options, were a better …
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Nagios requires far more manual work to configure than SolarWinds does, though that also encourages customization and perfect-fit solutions. Nagios also requires far, far fewer resources to run than SolarWinds: SolarWinds wants great gobs of memory and disk, while Nagios is …
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
It has been a while since we first purchased SolarWinds, but I looked over several other products that I can't remember now. Many other products tried to scan the network to find computers but given that our computers are located in various places across campus with other …
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is able to provide 90% of the functionality my business requires. SolarWinds is able to scale out functionality by purchasing additional modules to meet the individual needs of its customers. While this functionality provides …
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
We choose SAM instead of Site 24x7 because of the facility to handle API calls. Site 24x7 doesn't have a friendly dashboard as SAM has.
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
SolarWinds is cost-effective, we have a great solution provider that helps us with tool integrations and maintenance, the integration capability and extensive documentation also help a lot in the ability to use it in various monitoring models and scripts.
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
We also evaluated Nagios Core as a free alternative but being free it could not be trusted to be secure, and it was very difficult to add and manage devices.
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Solarwinds Server & Application Monitor is a great comprehensive monitoring solution. It covers all aspects of monitoring your infrastructure via a modular approach. While other applications can be slightly better at asset management or monitoring one specific application or …
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
PRGT Network Monitor seems to be very good, initially, but, in our experience, when we reached close to 100 devices, the system kept crashing and behaving erratic. Prometheus was missing many features and required some CLI scripting and the GUI was years behind SolarWinds. The …
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
SolarWinds Pingdom and AppOptics [are] full-fledged Application Performance Management Tools. [SolarWinds] SAM provides Server and Application Monitoring using [SolarWinds] SAM templates, [but] it does miss out on APM capabilities which other APM solutions offer.
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
In comparison to Spiceworks [Connectivity Dashboard,] SolarWinds [has] way [more] features and [an] easy-to-use system. ManageEngine [Application Control Plus] also provides a good look [at the] dashboard but needs a lot more enhancements when it comes to real-time monitoring. …
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
This is the best look into our system as compared to others. It also allows much more in-depth looks into our system.
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Very user friendly console, very powerful products, ease configuration
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Went straight to SAM as already NPM users
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
In the past, we had tested other monitoring products yet none compared to the features that one fines in Server & Application Monitor (SAM).
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
I have used WhatsUp, Nagios, and Zabbix. Very similar in ease of use to WhatsUp, but missing some features of the Zabbix and Nagios XI on the nix side of the house.
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
We haven't really looked at any competitors. We've been happy Solarwinds customers for 5+ years and continue to leverage this tool today.
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
because of the easy and fast implementation, and easy administration
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
I have only used SolarWinds
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
N/A
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
I can safely say SolarWinds comes up on top versus the individual products we used in the past. SolarWinds was selected because of its ease of use, its visual layout which allows you to easily and quickly browse through the information its currently providing for a monitored …
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Event Sentry was the previous product we relied on for monitoring and alerts. SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor simply has more features, is more comprehensive, has a better use interface, [and] has better support and knowledge base behind it while not being cost …
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Being from the same company it is possible all these modules are compatible with each other
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
I have tried and researched many products including Cacti, Zabbix, Dynatrace, as far as I have read the best crafted product among them is SolarWinds. [Already], SolarWinds company is the most successful company that has proven itself in issues such as monitoring and logging.
Chose SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Solarwinds Server and Application monitor is my first choice of tools preferred for server and application infrastructure monitoring because of the following reasons -
1. Single product to offer on-prem, hosted, cloud monitoring
2. Single Product to offer Server, Database and …
Features
SolarWinds ipMonitorSolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Network Performance Monitoring
Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of Product A and Product B
SolarWinds ipMonitor
6.7
Ratings
20% below category average
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
-
Ratings
Automated network device discovery6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Network monitoring8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Alerts8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Network mapping6.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable reports4.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Application Performance Management
Comparison of Application Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
SolarWinds ipMonitor
-
Ratings
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
8.6
Ratings
12% above category average
Application monitoring00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Database monitoring00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Threshold alerts00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Predictive capabilities00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Application performance management console00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Collaboration tools00 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Out-of-the box templates to monitor applications00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Application dependency mapping and thresholding00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Virtualization monitoring00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Server availability and performance monitoring00 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Server usage monitoring and capacity forecasting00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
IT Asset Discovery00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
SolarWinds ipMonitorSolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Small Businesses
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Score 9.0 out of 10
GitLab
GitLab
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Score 9.0 out of 10
ManageEngine Site24x7
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Score 9.8 out of 10
Enterprises
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
Score 9.0 out of 10
ManageEngine Site24x7
ManageEngine Site24x7
Score 9.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
SolarWinds ipMonitorSolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.2
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
SolarWinds ipMonitorSolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds ipMonitor is very easy to set-up and use, but can be quite slow to execute. Therefore, I don't think it will work in a medium-to-large organisation. Also, the interface is not suited for 100s of devices. The customisibility could also be better, so enterprises that require strict branding rules need to look elsewhere.
Read full review
If you have a large number of users and computers and need a reliable database that will aggregate all of the computers and users into a single database. This allows us to keep track of who has logged into a computer, and log where that computer is located. SolarWinds is a fantastic resource that lets us keep better track of all the devices we have. Even after the device is disposed of we still have a record that this device was once ours so if there is an inventory question we can confirm that the device was ours but it has been disposed of.
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Pros
  • Both network devices and servers may be easily located on the network.
  • It notifies the user whenever any network device undergoes a change in status.
  • Powerful reporting capabilities that provide vital data about your network's devices (uptime, space, utilization of resources on your devices)
Read full review
  • Monitor Azure Cloud Severs- We use SolarWinds SAM to monitor Active Directory and DNS on Several DCs published on Azure Cloud.
  • Monitor Hyper V and VMware - SolarWinds SAM monitors applications on both Hyper V and VMware, while also monitoring the physical host machines.
  • It also helps us monitor Warranty expiration for physical servers.
Read full review
Cons
  • It is a very complete and versatile software, but its price can be somewhat high for small companies.
  • During the analysis of the collected data the process can be somewhat slow, so it takes more time than expected.
  • Its configuration process can be somewhat complex since it requires several configurations so having prior knowledge is helpful.
Read full review
  • The get the best out of it requires a decent amount of knowledge of the product. In saying that, you could absolutely get the basics up and running using their how-to's and built in wizards, and with continual use find your way around and customise it further to your environment to best serve your organisation/objectives.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
I have very few pieces of software, that are specific to IT and IT services, that just work. Honestly, I don't need the support as it never breaks, but I believe in rewarding vendors that make valuable products
Read full review
We are heavily invested in Solarwinds products for a reason. They are generally easy to setup and run with, requiring only some interfacing with support or help articles on rare occasions. They do what we bought them to do and we can't ask for more.
Read full review
Usability
Although SolarWinds ipMonitor is great tool to start the SaaS based monitoring journey with SolarWinds products but it still requires a lot of enhancement and its user base which is primarily using on-premises products of SolarWinds needs to be shifted on SaaS based platform strategically and need to motivate. ipMonitor needs to be interated with infra monitoring products such as On-Premises NAM bundle, SAM, DPA etc
Read full review
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is quite easy to use and super versatile. It allows you to do just about anything you can through premade templates or through scripting. You can use an agent on the servers if you want to, or you can monitor through WMI or SNMP credentials. You can customize thresholds for alerting quickly, and you can configure alerts to be as complex or as simple as you want.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
The tool works and monitors items 24x7, it only requires maintenance a little more frequently due to security fixes in the Windows operating system.
Read full review
Performance
No answers on this topic
The graphical interface and the performance of the database leave a little to be desired, they could be better explored.Some functionality and screens do not work well depending on the browser used. The integrations never had any problems or caused crashes in other systems.
Read full review
Support Rating
Overall experience with SolarWinds support team is good. We never faced any delays or issues with the support team, they are knowledgeable or at least documentation is available to them I guess . Direct phone support is also nice and better than opening a support ticket in the system. Sometimes logs analysis take a lot of time and it seems support team is buying some time to fix the issue or to do more research on the issues but that is fine.
Read full review
The SolarWinds support team is very well educated [on] their product and is very helpful and [patient]. We used the product, SolarWinds [Server and Application Monitor], and twice we encountered serious problems where the support team was very cooperative to help and resolve our issue in [a] timely fashion. Also, the extended support after hours [are] amazing.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
It was sufficient to read their documentation and watch videos.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
I am unfamiliar with other ways to configure it
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
The way SolarWinds has clubbed the features and capabilities in SolarWinds ipMonitor is not available in other 3rd party or native tools. Even if they are available then they are very costly. I think SolarWinds is positioning ipMonitor so as to test their footprint on SaaS world with these small scale monitoring tools such as Loggly, ipmonitor, AppOptics which is a good sign to enter the SaaS based monitoring solution.
Read full review
Nagios requires far more manual work to configure than SolarWinds does, though that also encourages customization and perfect-fit solutions. Nagios also requires far, far fewer resources to run than SolarWinds: SolarWinds wants great gobs of memory and disk, while Nagios is refreshingly humble. Nagios starts working from the first minute, too, whereas SolarWinds needs lots of set-up time.
Read full review
Scalability
No answers on this topic
It is hard to find the recommended SQL setup and convince others that is the way you should configure the server when you set it up
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Cost was much higher than the services
  • ipMonitor was well suited but the costing factor wasn't justified as there are tons of open-source tools available in the market with more functionalities
  • Alerts response was very good and ipMonitor served well with health checks.
Read full review
  • Ability to sunset multiple legacy monitoring platforms.
  • A single pane of glass across global locations (Enterprise Operations Console) simplifies monitoring for junior staff.
  • A single toolset allows staff from across the global environment to share knowledge and quickly set up/modify monitoring.
Read full review
ScreenShots

SolarWinds ipMonitor Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Easy to navigate GUI interfaceScreenshot of Remediation FunctionalityScreenshot of Network Discovery Wizard

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Screenshots

Screenshot of Multi-vendor application performance monitoringScreenshot of Multi-vendor server monitoringScreenshot of Application dependency mapping with AppStack™ dashboardScreenshot of Microsoft Exchange performance monitoring with AppInsight™ templateScreenshot of Microsoft IIS performance monitoring with AppInsight™ templateScreenshot of Server hardware health monitoring