What users are saying about
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring#question3' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>Customer Verified: Read more.</a>
Top Rated
221 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 8.8 out of 100
Based on 221 reviews and ratings
12 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 8.4 out of 100
Based on 12 reviews and ratings
Feature Set Ratings
SQL Performance Monitoring

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
Feature Set Not Supported
N/A
7.7
Spotlight
77%
Spotlight ranks higher in 5/5 features
Spotlight ranks higher in 5/5 features
Performance dashboard

N/A
0 Ratings
8.8
88%
3 Ratings
Intelligent alerting

N/A
0 Ratings
8.0
80%
3 Ratings
Top SQL

N/A
0 Ratings
6.6
66%
2 Ratings
Historical trend data

N/A
0 Ratings
8.0
80%
2 Ratings
Virtualization support

N/A
0 Ratings
7.0
70%
2 Ratings
Attribute Ratings
- SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is rated higher in 2 areas: Likelihood to Recommend, Support Rating
Likelihood to Recommend

9.4
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
94%
112 Ratings
8.4
Spotlight
84%
3 Ratings
Likelihood to Renew

8.6
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
86%
4 Ratings
Spotlight
N/A
0 Ratings
Usability

9.1
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
91%
6 Ratings
Spotlight
N/A
0 Ratings
Availability

9.1
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
91%
1 Rating
Spotlight
N/A
0 Ratings
Performance

9.1
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
91%
1 Rating
Spotlight
N/A
0 Ratings
Support Rating

9.4
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
94%
6 Ratings
8.8
Spotlight
88%
4 Ratings
Implementation Rating

7.7
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
77%
2 Ratings
Spotlight
N/A
0 Ratings
Product Scalability

8.2
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
82%
1 Rating
Spotlight
N/A
0 Ratings
Likelihood to Recommend
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
This is an easy 10 because I actually have recommended this product to multiple clients and colleagues! Any shop that writes its own SQL queries will benefit from the insight provided by SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer, so they know which of their queries is causing a bottleneck. Small shops or databases with only a few tables likely will see far fewer opportunities for optimization.
VP of Development
Spitfire Management, LLCComputer Software, 11-50 employees
Spotlight
Spotlight is great when you need a tool to give a quick look at a SQL server as a whole. It gives you the ability to see a lot of things, which can be vital in diagnosing problems or identifying stressors. Less great is the open-end of some of the diagnoses it makes, and things it identifies as "problems" (unless you love users coming to you and saying something like "Spotlight says there's a problem with our page latch!!!").

Verified User
Manager in Information Technology
Financial Services Company, 201-500 employeesPros
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
- Maintains historical SQL execution data, enabling forensic analysis
- Has the ability to slice and dice the data so that you can drill down to the execution of a single SQL statement being executed by a stored procedure
- Alerts to when the consumption pattern changes
- Shows historical average run times against the current, illustrating problems when they arise
- Provides tuning advice based on best practices

Verified User
Employee in Information Technology
Education Management Company, 1001-5000 employeesSpotlight
- I love the main page that provides a color code list of all the servers so I know very quickly where to focus my attention first.
- I love how easy it is to configure new notifications.
- I love how easy it is to configure a new server to monitor.

Verified User
Professional in Information Technology
Food & Beverages Company, 10,001+ employeesCons
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
- Alerts seem to be lacking in DPA compared to competitor's tools. They can be setup but are not quite as easy or as helpful as some other tools I have used.
- Grooming/pruning the repository database isn't very easy. We don't manage a lot of instances but our repo DB has grown pretty significantly.
- At times when I am drilled-down to a chart, it can be difficult to navigate around from that point to another time range/query/metric.

Verified User
Team Lead in Information Technology
Online Media Company, 501-1000 employeesSpotlight
- Have not found any issues at this point.
Senior Enterprise Oracle DBA
AdventHealthHealth, Wellness and Fitness, 10,001+ employees
Pricing Details
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
General
Free Trial
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
Optional
Starting Price
—Spotlight
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
—Likelihood to Renew
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer 8.6
Based on 4 answers
We have relied on this product for a very long time and it continues to exceed expectations. The product is a vital part of our organization at this point, it would not be very ideal for us to abandon it. We use it almost every day and depend on its alerts for critical parts of our business

Verified User
Team Lead in Information Technology
Information Technology & Services Company, 11-50 employeesSpotlight
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Usability
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer 9.1
Based on 6 answers
I don't want to think about managing clusters of SQL servers in the future without this tool. We have demoed other tools and SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is the gold standard for usability and insight into what your servers are doing. The UI is a bit dated, but everything is laid out in a logical manner and drilling down into queries or timeslices is extremely intuitive.
Database Engineer
Life.ChurchReligious Institutions, 501-1000 employees
Spotlight
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer 9.4
Based on 6 answers
I have had to use their support on a few occasions, for reasons that I am not clear about until recently I have always had problems upgrading the software (although the last 2 updates have gone without issue which I am very pleased to say).On those unfortunate occasions, the support has been brilliant with either excellently documented guides on how to resolve the issue by myself or have been hands-on with calls and screen sharing to remotely fix the issue. Every time the problem was sorted and more importantly, nothing was lost (apart from a bit of time). And as I stated above whatever the problem was that was causing my upgrade issues appears to have been resolved in the last 2 updates.

Verified User
Manager in Information Technology
Retail Company, 201-500 employeesSpotlight
Spotlight 8.8
Based on 4 answers
Though our support needs have been minimal, we have gotten good responses when we have needed it.

Verified User
Manager in Information Technology
Financial Services Company, 201-500 employeesImplementation Rating
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer 7.7
Based on 2 answers
Follow the guidelines for the capacity of the servers. We found that the DPA databases were getting rather large and also that there are ways to reduce their size built into some of the options.

Verified User
Consultant in Information Technology
Non-Profit Organization Management Company, 51-200 employeesSpotlight
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
At the time, we found SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer to be easier to setup and to have a richer feature set than Redgate SQL Monitor, plus, from what I remember, the DPA pricing worked better for us over the course of a year. We're very happy with all the features DPA has to offer.

Verified User
Manager in Information Technology
Retail Company, 51-200 employeesSpotlight
I think Dell is better with its dashboard and ease of use, but SQL Sentry is better at customization. We used Spotlight at my previous company, and SQLSentry at my current company.

Verified User
Professional in Information Technology
Food & Beverages Company, 10,001+ employeesReturn on Investment
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
- It has allowed us to progress as an organization with much less reliance on a direct DBA than would traditionally be required
- Allowed us to be much more proactive in our performance monitoring and responding to issues that would affect users.

Verified User
Manager in Information Technology
Logistics & Supply Chain Company, 501-1000 employeesSpotlight
- We have not encountered any issues and continue to keep Spotlight's version current.
- Very simple to set up and add databases. The only thing that has to happen to the database is that a user ID needs to exist.
Senior Enterprise Oracle DBA
AdventHealthHealth, Wellness and Fitness, 10,001+ employees