TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Microsoft System Center vs. SolarWinds Observability

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft System Center

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft System Center is an enterprise-grade IT Operations Management (ITOM) suite designed for the centralized administration of data center infrastructure, virtualized environments, and hybrid cloud workloads. The platform provides unified management across heterogeneous environments, including support for Windows Server, Linux, and Azure Stack HCI. System Center is Microsoft's ITOM stack for organizations that maintain a significant on-premise footprint, vs the company's Azure-based…

    $1,323

    per month

    SolarWinds Observability

    Score8 out of 10
    N/ASolarWinds® Hybrid Cloud Observability aims to provide a comprehensive, integrated, and full-stack solution designed to optimize performance, improve availability, and reduce remediation time by correlating data from across the IT ecosystem, including networks, servers, applications, databases, and more.

    $5

    per month node

    Pricing
    Microsoft System CenterSolarWinds Observability
    Editions & Modules
    Standard Edition
    $1323
    Datacenter Edition
    $3607
    Essentials
    $5
    per month per node
    Advanced
    $9
    per month per node
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft System CenterSolarWinds Observability
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—Pricing is set per node, per month, and billing is annual. The prices listed are base prices that could increase depending on your environment. Please speak to a representative to get a quote.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft System CenterSolarWinds Observability
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    SolarWinds
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    91%
    Would buy again
    31 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    33 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    31 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    95%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    21 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    28 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft System CenterSolarWinds Observability
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon CloudWatch
    Score7.8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    LogicMonitor
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    ManageEngine Site24x7
    Score10 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft System CenterSolarWinds Observability
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.3
    (58 ratings)
    9.0
    (4 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.4
    (5 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (14 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft System CenterSolarWinds Observability
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    For companies with more than 10 Windows devices and needing to standardize the OS, AV, access, share resources, and install software. SCCM is the way to go. This software is unnecessary if the business is all remote users and not in an office-type setting. There are cloud offerings or none to accomplish what a business needs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    - For small teams serving big organizations - it's a really simple tool to install and set up relatively quickly. - the new installer is also great - I don't have to understand what modules need to be installed; it's all streamlined. - The HCO Licensing allows you to run the Additional polling engines at a scale where the previous licensing model didn't. We can deploy APEs in locations now, which would not have been worth the investment in previously as there weren't enough devices in that location/region to spend the $$$$ on an APE License.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Allows the grouping of devices by user.
    • Allows controlling updates being deployed to user devices.
    • Allows for the repurposing of machines by being able to load new or updated software on machines that already are in the system.
    • Allows us the ability to wipe a machine clean and restore it back to the configuration that was assigned the machine.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • Automated dependency mapping is a big hit.
    • High availability is extremely simple to implement.
    • Simple to use and drill into issues.
    • Analysis of growth patterns driving the recommendation engine.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • The product could improve in the area of having better mechanisms in place with how the SCEP client is deployed/installed from the server on the management side. We have run into this firsthand with the client not installing on an endpoint, and then having to take the time to investigate why it was not installing.
    • A second improvement that can be made is to keep trying to improve the products detection rate for finding malware/viruses. The case can be made that there are some products out there that do a better job at this and have a higher detection rate.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • Can be complex to setup
    • Is strongest with network resources
    • Assumes a fairly large amount of base knowledge
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    Microsoft System Center Operations Manager is tightly integrated to Microsoft Windows servers os monitoring with great product support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Microsoft
    It is not user-friendly for the most part. With IT infrastructure, sometimes it cannot handle excess requests. Every few months, you will need an upgrade in terms of server resources to keep up with incoming alerts and requests. This does not happen all of the time, but it does happen when there are too many requests.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    - decent ease of use - good training materials - good documentation - acceptable level of expected knowledge
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    There is a fair amount of documentation out there to help you when you have questions or run into issues with this product as well as tutorials on some of the more common tasks. Between the documentation and the overall ease of use we haven't had to deal with direct Microsoft support for this product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    Easy to install with intuitive interactive interface during the installation process a and integration to MS SQL was smooth
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    We previously used a mix of FOG and Clonezilla to image machines. The biggest issues with these products is that changing one piece of the image required you to rebuild the entire image itself. These pieces of software also did not allow you to manage applications and Windows Updates, causing IT to have to constantly touch machines after they were imaged and update or manage them with a much more hands on approach.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    Solarwinds has the best overlap of the two others I've mentioned - the other two tools (Datadog and Dynatrace) are great in their own way but Solarwinds is just good at everything; if I had to pick one tool of the above, it would be Solarwinds for the compatibility and ease of use, the other tools are more focused on being great at certain things while Solarwinds is the jack of all trades.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • It has allowed the enterprise to standardize on a single platform for monitoring.
    • Easier troubleshooting of issues with Microsoft platforms.
    • Greater visibility of issues across platforms when applications are hosted in a mixed environment.
    • Additional costs for monitoring systems that are not directly supported with additional packs (iSeries, Linux on Power).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • one license requiring 1 PO to be raised
    • sharing costs between departments for monitoring under one platform using APEs
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    SolarWinds Observability Screenshots

    Screenshot of ITOM Executive DashboardScreenshot of Observability MapsScreenshot of Performance Analysis DashboardScreenshot of Application Alerting DashboardScreenshot of Network Path Analysis