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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Redgate Monitor

    Score8 out of 10
    N/ARedgate’s SQL Monitor helps teams looking after SQL servers be more proactive. SQL Monitor enables monitoring environments custom to the user’s SQL server to recognize issues before they impact users. It supports monitoring on-premises and cloud-based servers from a single interface.

    $1,164

    per year per server

    SolarWinds SQL Sentry

    Score10 out of 10
    N/ASolarWinds SQL Sentry is designed to help data professionals optimize SQL Server database performance in physical, virtual, and cloud environments. SQL Sentry delivers metrics to help users find and fix database performance problems and provides scalability, boasting demonstrated success monitoring 800+ SQL Server instances with one monitoring database. With SQL Sentry, the user can monitor: SQL Server Azure SQL Database SQL Server Analysis…

    $0

    Free

    Pricing
    Redgate MonitorSolarWinds SQL Sentry
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Plan Explorer (SQL Server Query Tuning)
    $0
    Free
    SQL Sentry for Azure SQL Database
    $161
    Per year per database (annual subscription)
    SQL Sentry
    1,450
    Per year per instance (annual subscription)
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Redgate MonitorSolarWinds SQL Sentry
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsAll prices are per server and include one year’s support and upgrades.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Redgate MonitorSolarWinds SQL Sentry
    Considered Both Products
    Redgate
    Chose Redgate Monitor
    I personally prefer SQL Sentry due to the flexibility in the custom metrics/monitoring but this is still a great product!!
    Incentivized
    SolarWinds
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    We chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry because it met more of our requirements than any other single tool. Proactive monitoring, quick collection times (every few seconds vs minutes), flexible custom alerting as well as in-depth data for performance analysis (Top SQL is by far my …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    For our use, SQL Sentry is just a better fit. It's faster to implement and easier to find the data we wanted to see.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    I evaluated both and thought that SQL Sentry was a much more mature and complete product for approximately the same cost.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    I use Toad and SolarWinds. Spotlight used too much of a server's resources. Sequel Pro was not as well-rounded for SQL reviews.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    SQL Sentry gives a more complete view of the environment with the advantage of making recommendations of fixes to performance issues.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    I felt they were all comparable to each other. SolarWinds DPA had the best interface but we chose SQL Sentry due to the difference in cost.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    I found SQL Sentry to be the best bang for the buck by a good margin. Redgate makes great software too, so that is a big compliment in my book.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    SQL Sentry offers more features and is customize-able to fit our business needs. It has more centralized management and support. The company's technical support is also top notch. It is also worth mentioning that SentryOne Team Blog is an excellent source. One can find lots of …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    For me it is it's simplicity. For example, highlight a spike in CPU, right click and view top SQL!!!! Awesome!!!
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    I selected this tool over SQL Monitor as it provided the all round package, it seemed to dig deeper into the server that SQL Monitor and the interface is so much nicer to use,
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    We evaluated couple of product on certain parameters like global view, performance tuning recommendations, analysis, expensive/long running queries, IO information, alerts, dashboard, reports, licensing model and pricing etc. We decided to select SQL Sentry Performance Advisor …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    It came as part of SQL Sentry, otherwise both products are almost the same
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    Sentry is more centralized and wide open. It has abilities to "dive" into deepest SQL aspects providing details that other products are just unable to do. It is not just a quick monitoring, alerting tool. It has the unique ability to "teach" or "remind" you (throughout policies …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    SQL Sentry is more powerful and simpler to use than those products.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    We selected Performance Advisor primarily due to the intuitive primary display, drill-down ability, ease of use and low overhead.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    Everything is bundled into one product.
    The interface is clean.
    There are no services or DLLs that need to be installed on our servers.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    sql sentry is more expensive that some of its other competitors (red gate sql monitor for example) but you do get more for money. if you have experianced database adminstrators and database developers you will certainly get value for what SQL sentry gives you. but if you are …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    PA has the lightest monitoring footprint of any of the other third-party applications out there. The featureset of PA includes things such as virtualization monitoring, top SQL statements, and granular historical trending that other products miss or gloss over. The sheer amount …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry

    The sheer amount of information, ability to tune almost all areas of alerting and thresholds, and the low impact of monitoring as well as transparency into how their monitoring processes may impact performance gives them the advantage over these others. In some cases their …

    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    I have evaluated RedGate SQL Monitor but did not go with that solution because I found the interface to be less intuitive and the tools less mature than SQL Sentry.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    For us, there were 3 big items that swung SQL Sentry.
    1) customization of alerts and notification
    2) polers in other domains allow for a more secure deployment. In addition, the polers allow for redundancy, ensuring we are spending time fighting fires, not fixing the fire …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    The price is good.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    6 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    6 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    6 Answers
    Features
    Redgate MonitorSolarWinds SQL Sentry
    SQL Performance Monitoring
    Comparison of SQL Performance Monitoring features of Redgate Monitor and SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    Feature
    Redgate Monitor
    -
    Ratings
    SolarWinds SQL Sentry
    8.4
    102 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Performance dashboard00 Ratings9.1102 Ratings
    Intelligent alerting00 Ratings7.996 Ratings
    Top SQL00 Ratings8.6102 Ratings
    Historical trend data00 Ratings8.6100 Ratings
    Virtualization support00 Ratings8.764 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Redgate MonitorSolarWinds SQL Sentry
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
    Score5.6 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    Foglight
    Score10 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Redgate MonitorSolarWinds SQL Sentry
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (6 ratings)
    8.6
    (102 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.8
    (16 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (12 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.1
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.1
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.5
    (14 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.8
    (8 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.9
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Redgate MonitorSolarWinds SQL Sentry
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Redgate
    With mission-critical SQL Server instances at multiple physical locations and in the cloud, it's critical for us to know immediately when there are performance issues or outages. The Redgate SQL Monitor provides an intuitive dashboard that allows for detailed resource monitoring. Perhaps not as useful in a 100% managed SQL environment.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    This solution is perfect for a team with a large server count and, at least, moderate experience supporting a SQL Server environment. If the environment is smaller or the team has less experience working with SQL Server performance tuning methodologies, then the tool may be overwhelming for the users.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Redgate
    • It is easy to use and provides very good reporting on the SQL servers being monitored. These reports are used in our monthly customer reports.
    • Redgate does a very good job at improving the product, fixing bugs and adding new features compared to other products I have researched.
    • The insights provided makes it an ideal tool for database administrators and software developers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • The Top SQL functionality has been extremely useful for identifying poorly performing queries by resource consumption.
    • The flexibility of creating your own Advisory Conditions has allowed us to integrate our custom internal alerts into a centralized dashboard and alerting platform.
    • Being able to highlight any chart on the dashboard and then tool-matching that window across all the other charts makes it much easier to correlate the different performance metrics against each other.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Redgate
    • Openness - They are too attached to their Intellectual Property to the detriment of usability, stability and reliability. So once its is installed and working leave it alone. Best run it on a VM as that can be restored quickly for when it breaks.
    • If they exposed an API/SDK that allowed you to leaver their products life would be far sweeter, it would feel less of a battle.
    • Add WebHooks to SQL Monitor to enhance integration to other subsystems.
    • Make it easy to install in default mode. So you are not forced to use TomCat Use as ASP.Core Selfl Hosting options.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • Tuning advice: With all the graphs and data available, it's not always easy to determine the best thing to do. I'd like to see SentryOne provide some best practice analysis based on the historical information collected for the server being looked at.
    • They could add help tips or links to help documents, when you select a graph on the dashboard. Inexperienced users tend to put blinders on and focus on one thing when they see a high counter or something out of the ordinary. It would be very useful to include a link that provides underlying help. The link would provide an explanation of the counter in detail and offer possible explanations as to why the counter is off.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Redgate
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    Absolutely. SQL Sentry is an absolute must have for any company with a SQL Server estate. It provides a force multiplier to effectively manage SQL Server, and the feature sets are second to none. The support and expertise at SentryOne is incredible. They are very supportive of both the platform users and helping your business with the product
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Redgate
    In general, the Redgate dashboard is one of the most thorough yet intuitive products I've had the pleasure of using. Compared to other vendors in different verticals, the Redgate dashboard's deployment, configuration, monitoring, and reporting is second to none
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    I accept that the flexibility of the alerting comes at a price. Other than the alerting SQL Sentry's interface is intuitive. Connecting to a new SQL instance, given that all the needed ports are open in your firewalls is straight forward. Reviewing the performance and queries for an instance is available in with a right click. As you dig in new tabs are created to present the detailed data. I find the ability to filter and rollup metrics on a query very helpful in dealing with the "it's running slow". You can easily compare the metrics of run times for the same query to let the user know, it's probably data your doing a billion reads instead of the usual 100 thousand.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Redgate
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    The system is working perfectly in capturing data, but we do experience issues with SQL Timeout when viewing results in the remote clients. This may be due to the fact that our monitoring service is consuming most of the CPU, and it is the same server that is hosting the SQL Repository. We could probably fix the issue by separating the SQL instance from the monitoring service.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Redgate
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    In most cases the pages load very quickly. In our particular case, we need to do some movement of services to separate our monitoring service to separate infrastructure from the repository. When we first started with SQL Sentry on 5 licenses, we did not have any issues. Since we have now grown that to 25, we are experiencing some challenges. We do not believe this to be a tool problem
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Redgate
    Fast support responses from Redgate
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    From their infancy as a smaller company to now as a global player they have always kept focus on prioritising he customer. They know their product and the technology it supports and are easily accessible for both resolving problems with the product all the way to adding value through additional training and assisting with getting return on investment through utilisation of the many features the product provides.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Redgate
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    sql sentry expert came onsight to review the performance of installation and gave us a good insight to using the tool
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Redgate
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    Was suggested that we install the process monitors on a dev or qa database server, but we found it more useful to create an IT db server and put it there (along with a few other apps that we use for monitoring).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Redgate
    I personally prefer SQL Sentry due to the flexibility in the custom metrics/monitoring but this is still a great product!!
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    SQL Sentry offers more features and is customize-able to fit our business needs. It has more centralized management and support. The company's technical support is also top notch. It is also worth mentioning that SentryOne Team Blog is an excellent source. One can find lots of valuable troubleshooting skills on the blog site - very educational and informational.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Redgate
    No answers on this topic
    SolarWinds
    We are running 25 instances through a single monitoring service and it is able to keep up. We are finding that this many instances in our environment is about as many as can be handled. We will need to deploy additional monitoring services. Luckily, there is no additional licensing costs to deploy additional monitoring services. For us, it's just an additional Azure VM.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Redgate
    • Allows us to proactively fix issues before they happen
    • Allows us to quickly react to issues without having to wait for someone else to notice
    • Cuts down on the amount of time spent doing daily checks
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SolarWinds
    • Better customer service as it alerts me automatically to loss of service issues so I can react and either get things fixed before it impacts the customers or to let my management know as soon as possible
    • It helps me find expensive SQL so our customers get better performance and we make better use of our resources
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Redgate Monitor Screenshots

    Screenshot of the Redgate Monitor dashboard, monitoring an entire database estate from a single pane of glass.Screenshot of where Redgate Monitor automates time-consuming manual tasks, such as identifying long-running queries or tracking blocked processes. Built-in tips and guidance ensure users get the most out of the information provided.Screenshot of where users can manage an entire environment from a single pane of glass.Screenshot of the dashboard where instant problem diagnosis and customizable alerts appear.Screenshot of the evolution of Redgate Monitor.

    SolarWinds SQL Sentry Screenshots

    Screenshot of SQL Sentry DeadlocksScreenshot of SQL Sentry Top SQL