Skip to main content
TrustRadius
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor

Overview

What is SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor?

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.

Read more
Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is a versatile tool that has been widely used across various industries and departments for …
Continue reading

True Insight

10 out of 10
January 27, 2022
Incentivized
I use SolarWinds Server Application Monitor to monitor my infrastructure as well as applications within that environment. It provides a …
Continue reading
Read all reviews

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 12 features
  • Server availability and performance monitoring (269)
    9.8
    98%
  • Application monitoring (266)
    9.0
    90%
  • Threshold alerts (271)
    9.0
    90%
  • Out-of-the box templates to monitor applications (256)
    7.9
    79%
Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing
N/A
Unavailable

What is SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor?

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.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttp://www.solarwinds.com/products/pric…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Would you like us to let the vendor know that you want pricing?

17 people also want pricing

Alternatives Pricing

What is Azure Monitor?

Microsoft's Azure Monitor is designed to analyze and optimize the performance of web applications and infrastructure, including virtual machines (VMs), Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure Storage, and databases. Monitor Linux and Windows VMs and their health and dependencies—all on a single map.

What is SolarWinds Pingdom?

SolarWinds Pingdom is a website uptime monitoring and alert tool, with additional reporting and Real User Monitoring capabilities. Pingdom is part of SolarWinds’s DevOps package, enabling full-stack monitoring as a service.

Return to navigation

Features

Application Performance Management

Application performance management software monitors software to ensure performance and availability

8.7
Avg 7.6
Return to navigation

Product Details

What is SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor?

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) delivers application and server monitoring capabilities for IT pros enabling them to diagnose and troubleshoot issues faster. The vendor’s value proposition is that this solution prevents slow applications and downtime from impacting end-users and business services. Users can use this tool to pinpoint the root cause of application issues across various layers of the IT stack.

The vendor says SolarWinds SAM is affordable, easy to deploy, use and customize. Users can automatically discover their systems environment and start monitoring in about an hour. No professional services or consultation needed.

SAM is built on SolarWinds Orion® platform enabling native integration with Network Performance Monitor and other IT management software from SolarWinds.

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Features

  • Supported: Single Web interface to monitor multi-vendor applications and server infrastructure.
  • Supported: Out-of-the-box monitoring templates for 200+ enterprise applications.
  • Supported: Easily extend monitoring to virtually any custom or home-grown applications.
  • Supported: Gain contextual visibility of relationships and dependencies between applications and physical and virtual servers.
  • Supported: Monitor server hardware health, perform capacity forecasting, and manage asset inventory. Remediate server issues remotely with built-in management actions.
  • Supported: Monitor VMware and Hyper-V environments to identify problems impacting application performance.
  • Supported: Centrally manage IT asset inventory and keep track of server hardware and software information.
  • Supported: Leverage the wealth of built-in alerts and reports, and easily customize them as needed.
  • Supported: SAM is an agentless monitoring software. Optional agent installation extends monitoring to the cloud.

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Screenshots

Screenshot of Multi-vendor application performance monitoringScreenshot of Multi-vendor server monitoringScreenshot of Application dependency mapping with AppStackâ„¢ dashboardScreenshot of Microsoft Exchange performance monitoring with AppInsightâ„¢ templateScreenshot of Microsoft IIS performance monitoring with AppInsightâ„¢ templateScreenshot of Server hardware health monitoringScreenshot of Built-in virtualization monitoring for VMware and Hyper-V environmentsScreenshot of Easily extend monitoring to any custom or home-grown application

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Videos

An introduction to and a brief overview of SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
In this video, the TrustRadius team is going to take a look at Solarwinds Server and Application Monitor, a powerful tool that can help you monitor your systems and identify issues early. We'll explore the overview, user sentiment, pricing, top features, and use-case, and help...
 Show More

Watch SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Training Videos

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Competitors

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported LanguagesEnglish

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Progress WhatsUp Gold, Nagios Core, and Tivoli Monitoring (legacy) are common alternatives for SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor.

Reviewers rate Server availability and performance monitoring highest, with a score of 9.8.

The most common users of SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

Reviews and Ratings

(650)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is a versatile tool that has been widely used across various industries and departments for monitoring and managing servers, applications, and network infrastructure. Users rely on the software to ensure that critical systems are up and running smoothly. With its ability to monitor servers, applications, and network nodes, customers appreciate the comprehensive insights it provides into their IT environments.

One of the key use cases of SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is its role in proactive monitoring and alerting. Users have praised the software's capability to detect issues such as CPU utilization, memory usage, response time, and low disk space. By setting up corresponding alerts, users can address potential problems before they impact end-users. This proactive approach helps prevent system failures and ensures optimal performance.

Another important use case of SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is its ability to provide detailed insights into server metrics and application performance. Users can monitor various elements such as CPU, memory, and disk usage on servers, as well as track the health of applications like Exchange, SQL, IIS, and SharePoint. The software's integration with other products in the SolarWinds Orion family enhances network management capabilities, allowing for a unified view of segmented networks.

Additionally, SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is valued for its flexibility in monitoring different types of systems and services. It supports Windows, Linux, Unix, and AIX servers both on-premises and in the cloud. Users have leveraged the software to monitor services, processes, URLs, IP addresses, MAC addresses, SMTP devices like networked cameras, and even Linux services such as IPTables. This broad range of monitoring capabilities makes it a valuable tool for organizations with diverse IT infrastructures.

Overall, SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor has proven to be instrumental in maintaining system stability by providing real-time alerts for potential issues and facilitating efficient troubleshooting. Its ease of use and customization options allow different departments and administrators to tailor monitoring and alerts to their specific needs. The software's comprehensive insights, proactive monitoring, and wide range of supported systems make it a valuable asset for organizations looking to ensure optimal performance and availability of their IT infrastructure.

Customizable Dashboard: Users appreciate the fully customizable dashboard in SolarWinds SAM, which allows them to tailor it to their specific requirements. This feature has been mentioned by several reviewers and enables users to easily access the information they need for effective monitoring.

Proactive Alerting: Reviewers have praised SAM's proactive alerting capabilities, with alerts being triggered for offline servers, low disk space, rebooted servers, and critical network device outages. This feature has been highly valued by users as it helps them stay on top of potential issues and address them promptly.

Reporting Capabilities: SAM's reporting capabilities have received positive feedback from users who find the detailed reports provided by the software helpful for meeting regulatory requirements and ensuring system stability and performance. The granularity in alerts and reporting has been mentioned by multiple reviewers as a valuable feature of SAM.

Confusing User Interface: Users have expressed frustration with the user interface of SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor, stating that it is confusing and difficult to navigate. Some users feel that there is a steep learning curve and find it overwhelming, especially for first-time users.

Lack of Comprehensive Documentation: Several users have criticized the documentation provided for SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor, stating that it is spotty and lacking in examples. They believe that more comprehensive and detailed documentation would greatly aid in understanding and troubleshooting the software.

Poor Customer Support: There have been complaints about the customer support provided by SolarWinds. Multiple users have reported that customer support has worsened over time, causing frustration due to delays in reaching the correct support team and resolving issues in a timely manner.

Users have recommended several key actions for users considering SolarWinds based on their experiences. These include:

  • Recommending utilizing the software for internal use, specifically for monitoring servers and applications.
  • Suggesting taking advantage of the free trial to test the software before making a purchase decision.
  • Advising researching and planning before implementation to ensure the software is suitable for one's needs.
  • Encouraging careful design of the environment, especially when using the software in different locations.
  • Recommending purchasing a license that matches the number of components needed for monitoring.
  • Urging cautiousness when it comes to support and potential glitches with the software.
  • Suggesting working with a detail-oriented engineer for proper setup and configuration.
  • Promoting interaction with the user community site to learn from others' experiences and share knowledge.
  • Emphasizing the need to understand the licensing model before signing up and selecting appropriate licensing based on the number of nodes to be monitored.
  • Suggesting exploring other SolarWinds offerings and using them in conjunction with this software.

While users find SolarWinds to be a valuable tool, they also mention that it may not be suitable for beginners due to its learning curve. Overall, it is recommended to carefully consider setup, pricing, and requirements before implementing SolarWinds.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(151-175 of 278)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is utilized by the IT department to monitor Windows scheduled tasks on our automation servers and ensure that the IT team is notified if any tasks fail to run via text and/or email.
Server & Application Monitor is also utilized to monitor NGINX, PM2, and APIs on our Debian Linux web servers, and IIS on our Windows web servers.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is currently being utilized to monitor the status of our physical and virtual servers. It’s also set up to monitor our Wi-Fi usage. If anything goes down, it’s configured to send an alert to our team to investigate.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
This product is currently only being used by the IT Operations department to monitor critical servers and services. We are also using it to monitor our Cisco phone system and it's various components. The business problem that this product addresses is that it automates server and application checks from having to happen on a daily basis.
Francisco Manuel Marrero | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
At my organization, we use SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) across multiple groups. We have customized views for the Windows Team, SQL team, Exchange Team, Unix team, and some individual users. This one platform monitors and alerts across our entire infrastructure.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently have SAM version xxx. We currently use it to monitor our 50 Windows servers, 3 Linux servers, VMware ESXi hosts, IBM fiber switch, HP network equipment and IBM servers for uptime, services, and resources. We also use SAM to monitoring some application on the Windows servers. Those applications are SQL and IIS. We use this product for all of our infrastructures. We really like how you can make custom alerts. E.G. I can make an alert to warn me a server is running a full load for 20mins. Then, I would check it out to see why. The main reason we bought this product is to help users with alerts on the server and application level. E.G. if an IIS website goes down we get an alert.
John Reeve | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use their monitoring services on all of our production servers to monitor server performance and for server notifications when something might be going wrong. We use the graphs and reports to analyze past trends. We have found the server monitoring especially helpful when deploying new software updates and we want to visualize how it impacts our servers.
Lee Anderson II | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds SAM is used within our organization in the IT department. The IP department uses SAM to monitor all servers and their related services to ensure maximum up-time within our organization. SAM is fairly easy to get up and running, which was a reason we selected it. Prior to SAM we used an open source solution that was not as easy to configure and required a little more expertise.
Ryhlen Schoeberl | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor to monitor all of our servers and the applications they run. I will let us know if there is an error with any application we have running and we can set up alerts to notify us that there is an issue via email and MMS message with the details we set up in the alert.
April 23, 2019

My review

Murali Tallapaneni | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As a Database administrator, I use this tool to mainly monitor SQL Server resource utilization of (CPU, RAM, DISK etc ) and also for any database performance related issues. I also use this tool for capacity planning on the H|W resources of the servers.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is used to monitor the health of servers and networks across the organization. Proactive maintenance rather than reactive maintenance is achieved through active monitoring of nodes and networks. Proactive maintenance requires advance knowledge of the servers and networks through active monitoring.
Cristian Bodnarasec | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor for:
- monitoring all the infrastructure(servers, network, applications) for uptime, performance, usage, etc.
- generating reports to analyze the performance, quality, and usage of the datacenter.
- alerting us to error situations: high usage for RAM, CPUs, reaching the limits of the storage, server down, etc.
It is used by the IT department that is responsible for the uptime, availability and quality of our datacenter.
Eric Broz | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor to monitor servers and networking equipment in our two physical and two cloud-based data centers, and remote locations. It lets us know when servers are having hardware issues or network connectivity issues quickly via email alerts and our monitoring dashboards. The notifications are precise and accurate.
Josh Haberman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) allows you monitor and alert on applications at all stages in the AppStack. SAM really comes out to shine when you're invested in other products in the SolarWinds Orion family, by allowing you very thorough integration into multiple different aspects of your network. SAM offers numerous out of the box templates for common applications, along with extensive user created ones available in the SolarWinds "THWACK" user community. If you need to monitor an internally developed application or an application that doesn't have a template, SAM makes it easy to create your own application template using many different metrics, services, and processes.
Derek Calkins | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I have SolarWinds experience at my previous company with the exception of SAM. When I got here, SAM was not even installed but the company had been paying for it for several years. I installed it and discovered several applications. I quickly realized that we did not have nearly enough licenses to monitor all applications so I picked a handful of important ones. We have an 150 license count and with AppInsight, we are only able to monitor SQL on a couple servers, syslog, and AD. This is for IT use only and it is giving us insight into our applications. Recently we came across a DB that was severely fragmented and through SAM we were alerted to it and was able to fix the issue. The issue was probably present for a long time and without SAM, we may not have ever caught it until it was too late.
Alan Kok ITIL v3 | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is currently being used by the entire central organization to monitor all of our enterprise applications. Including, but not limited to, PeopleSoft, Exchange, Degree Works, and Blackboard. Also, with many others. It allows us to see events before they happen, outages before others report them.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server & Application Manager (SAM) is used to monitor and manage our servers worldwide. It provides comprehensive monitoring of not only the core server systems but can also be configured to monitor custom services. It can through resource monitoring, proactively alert to a potential problem before it becomes a major issue. It can also be configured to launch a script or perform an action to attempt to solve the issue without human intervention. For instance purging the log files if a disk becomes full or restarting a service in the event of a failure.
Cody McNeill | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor as a way to monitor critical services for our applications. We may not use it to its fullest, but this was the main reason we purchased it. With SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor, we know within 3 minutes when a service has gone down as we have it set to email us, or our on-call phone after ours. This ensures that our users are unaffected in the morning when they come in to work.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Orion for hardware monitoring, specifically for servers in our environment. It is a very powerful tool that with the appropriate access can provide valuable information about server uptime and utilization without installing agents on every device. We have used it for several years at my current company and have been very happy with the results.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is used by various IT departments across the organization. It provides invaluable insight into the servers and applications that we manage. It helps prevent problems and issues by allowing us to be proactive rather than reactive to problems. We can prevent or react to problems faster so that our client's experience is improved and downtime is reduced or eliminated. The high-level dashboard views in SAM are fantastic for presenting to management and senior leadership. An excellent resource!
Sudhakar B | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is used to monitor the Compute (Servers) in our Datacenter. It monitors our critical servers where just ping check is inadequate. These applications help us monitor the server plus critical applications such as DNS, DHCP, AD. The advantage is that this application can monitor Linux, which can be complicated at times. This also enables us to view the status in a single pane. We use SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor to monitor our multiple SQL databases.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SolarWinds SAM to monitor over 100 servers. Our IT team is able to check on server and service status on all servers across the network. SAM allows us to keep an automated eye on critical and non-critical services. Knowing a service has gone down before the calls come flooding in can keep us ahead of the game. We also have benchmarks to see how those services are performing.
February 01, 2019

Solar-wins in many areas

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
At my company, we use SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor along with many other SolarWinds products in tandem to monitor our SAAS data centers. Having a single pane of glass for monitoring most of our SolarWinds products is essential in keeping confusion for our administrators down and improving up time. Specifically, monitoring Windows services, alerting when they’re down, and immediately restarting them has been very valuable to my team. Additionally valuable has been the general ease-of-use of the product, and the courses and online training that come from the Thwak site have been a great experience for us.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) in IT. It's used to monitor all major servers to ensure minimal downtime for gaming and non-gaming applications, applications that are mission critical. We have SAM set for the entire department to monitor. It makes it pretty easy to put on a TV\Monitor in the office for everyone to see.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) to monitor and support three airports' IT systems. Our operations team uses it to help with system and application availability. SAM keeps track of the physical status of our servers and watches the network traffic generated by the applications running on them. It allows us to know in real time if we have any issues with Windows itself, hardware, services running under Windows, and applications themselves. We can then take steps to solve issues before it becomes a more serious issue.
Return to navigation