TrustRadius Insights
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is a versatile tool that has been widely used across various industries and departments for …
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.
Recent 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
- Server availability and performance monitoring (269)9.898%
- Application monitoring (266)9.090%
- Threshold alerts (271)9.090%
- Out-of-the box templates to monitor applications (256)7.979%
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.
Features
Return to navigation
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- Downloadables
- FAQs
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
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 Integrations
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Competitors
- Progress WhatsUp Gold
- Nagios Core
- Tivoli Monitoring (legacy)
- Microsoft System Center
- DX Application Performance Management (formerly CA APM)
- SiteScope (formerly HP SiteScope)
- ManageEngine Applications Manager
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows |
| Mobile Application | No |
| Supported Languages | English |
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Downloadables
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).
Comparisons
Compare with
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!
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
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
(126-150 of 278)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
August 21, 2019
Great for an out of box experience.
- Easy to use templates for out of box alerting.
- Easy to integrate and add nodes to monitor.
- Great for identifying issues and remediating.
- Support from Vendor sometimes is lacking.
- Some variables have gone missing in updates and lack of knowledge training for those.
- We would like more integrated application monitoring out of box experiences or ease of use for following community projects.
August 16, 2019
SolarWinds Server and Application Review
- SolarWinds does a great job of alerting us to issues we can address before the end-user experiences any issues.
- The setup and configuration are straightforward and not as time-consuming as other monitoring tools we have worked with.
- The ability to monitor critical services supporting our applications allows us to easily verify the applications are up and running following a server reboot.
- It is difficult to re-add a node to be monitored after deletion.
- It is occasionally difficult to ascertain whether monitoring is occurring or behaving correctly. Enhanced "monitor the monitor" functionality would be helpful.
- Upgrades can be difficult in large environments with several workflows in use.
August 08, 2019
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Review
- Excellent tool to monitor the database health checks.
- I would like to learn how could we able to analyze and understand more on Deadlocks and historical information about resource details and deep analysis on the same.
August 07, 2019
SolarWinds SAM. Valued and cost effective monitoring.
- Custom Monitoring support with Powershell, VBScript, Bash SSH as examples
- Out of the box monitors for Active Directory, Exchange, SQL, and IIS are very extensive
- SAM is a module of the SolarWinds Orion suite, integration is seamless with the other modules in the suite
- Easy to use dashboards and custom GUI configuration
- Integrated full monitoring of event logs. Log monitoring is available but it is limited to searching for specific error codes. Full event log monitoring requires another module purchase.
- Better End User Experience Monitoring would be appreciated. Integrate WPM (Web and Performance Monitor) into SAM as a single unit.
- Enhance Azure Cloud monitoring support. Some cloud monitoring is supported but we would like much more investment in this category. Custom Proprieties and better API support to get all cloud asset information.
August 07, 2019
Great for small and medium-size data centers
- Set up is quick and easy.
- Lots of included application and infra templates.
- AppStack infrastructure mapping feature is cool.
- Not really for huge environments.
- Upgrades are a hassle and are VERY time consuming.
August 07, 2019
A set of tools that you will WANT in your enviroment.
- Monitoring server performance and up-time.
- Diagnosing issues with applications.
- Tracking down issues with applications.
- Preventing outages, you know when an issue has occurred rapidly.
- Offer professional services for new installations.
- Offer training on the product, some companies would need training.
- Include Netpath/Netflow.
August 03, 2019
Save time and money with SAM!
- It's very helpful for identifying DBA type issues before they become a larger problem (SQL Server).
- It's flexible, and the sensors work with many different platforms.
- It's straightforward to set up and deploy.
- It's not necessarily a bad thing, but there is an overload of information once you deploy, so it can be overwhelming to know where to start.
August 02, 2019
SolarWINS (Solarwinds) allows us to be more efficient
- It is a quick and easy install
- Easy to monitor built-in Windows services
- Gives the ability to monitor custom services
- Ties seamlessly with the rest of the Orion platform
- Basic monitoring requires many licenses
- Alerting and monitoring can be very chatty
- Lots of configuration is required to reduce false-positives
July 30, 2019
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Review
- Customizable alerts
- Scalability
- Very good UI
- Excellent community
- Speed up web server
- More templates
- More examples for configurations
July 27, 2019
Not what you hoped for
- Switches off line during various construction phases.
- Ability to monitor just about anything on the network with an IP address.
- The ability to make heat maps to see your wifi network.
- Tracking devices that use DHCP addressing needs a lot of improvement.
- Network atlas needs a face lift and stability needs to be addressed.
July 20, 2019
Does exactly what you need it to!
- Classification of data and default displays.
- Datacenter dashboard.
- Remotely restart services that have failed.
- Non Microsoft SQL support (On Prem).
- Lack of in-program recommendations. (This option is performance heavy).
- Appliances for VMware.
- Alerting: Not only can you alert on apps/services/components/system resources, but SAM also addresses over-alerting if a system/application goes off-line by using a parent/child system relationship. If the parent system goes off-line and you have alerting setup on the components, SAM is smart enough to recognize the parent is down and not inundate you with all child resources that went off-line.
- Integration into the Orion product: SolarWinds does a great job integrating SAM into not only Orion but Orion's other products that monitor systems.
- The breadth of what can be monitored: SAM's extensive list of what it can monitor on top of adding whatever system/component that's not included in Orion's provided pre-made list of choices made it an easy sell to us.
- All the issues we had have been addressed by past SAM versions.
June 26, 2019
SolarWinds alerts and monitoring.
- Reports and alerts
- IP SLA
- Config push from SolarWinds Orion.
- Netflow/SFlow can improvise.
- The scripting for reports
- Nodes and its related object specification
- Easy of installation and configuration
- Great logging capabilities
- Makes troubleshooting application related issues simpler
- Trial and error is required to get the right logging template.
- Standard template needs customization to remove alerts that are not relevant to your organization (for example, the Active Directory Template includes DNS. If you have a separate DNS appliance and you don't remove this alert, the system thinks DNS is down)
June 11, 2019
SAM I am, that SAM I am, I DO like full-stack monitoring from SolarWinds Orion with SAM!
- Extremely short time-to-value with out-of-the-box monitors.
- Shared data model with other SolarWinds Orion-based products makes complex alerting a breeze.
- Custom scripts on both Windows and Linux make your imagination (or business need!) the only limit.
- SNMP monitors: you can do it quite easily, but it is for a single value and you can't transform the data.
- Custom properties on templates: you can assign custom properties once the template is applied (a monitor) but not to the template itself.
- "Salt to taste": reminding users that the out-of-the-box templates are examples NOT best practice and that they should "salt to taste."
June 05, 2019
Now starting off on the SolarWinds path
- Network configuration management.
- Server monitoring.
- Predictive analysis.
- Out of the box monitoring structure example.
- Process best practices would be helpful to get more use of the vast capabilities.
May 25, 2019
A Concise view of SolarWinds SAM
- Provides notification of service\system faults.
- Provides system performance metrics.
- Provides in-depth analytical data for troubleshooting.
- The reporting interface needs more Crystal/MsSQL SSRS like report building tools.
- Better ability to narrow down multiples of same name services (possibly by root service id) on systems like web servers.
- Cleaner Setup/Upgrade processes, and containerized (docker) setups would be great.
May 18, 2019
SolarWinds provides seamless discovery
- We are able to dial in on services that are important to us on specific servers and monitor if these services are running, and should they go down, SolarWinds can be configured to restart the services. This is a great help if this type of issue occurs during off hours.
- I don't believe we are experiencing any issues or lack of functionality at this time.
May 18, 2019
Solarwinds: The Pro's and Con's
- Allows us to stay on top of issues, such as drive space issues.
- We can monitor power outages and see when stores go down by monitoring the network equipment.
- Able to see when applications have issues.
- When you upgrade, certain applications are not as quick to reconfigure.
- Tells you when a web service goes down.
- Tells you when a threshold has been exceeded.
- You can get very granular in the settings.
- It wants to auto-add everything. It's so annoying to add new machines and make sure it doesn't use SAM.
- It's way too expensive to monitor all but the most critical things. You can burn all the sensors for the lowest tier on one server.
- SAM provides built in templates for monitoring common applications.
- SAM provides a framework to easily write custom monitors for third party applications.
- For built in templates SAM gives guidance for what an alert means and often how to resolve it.
- I believe the pricing of SAM is a bit on the high side.
May 15, 2019
Infrastructure monitoring
- Up/Down alerts, memory, and CPU utilization alerting.
- Ease of use.
- Hardware monitoring.
- Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnect and Chassis monitoring.
- Alert testing to see which servers would be impacted.
- No additional ability to have monitors based on scripts.
May 15, 2019
Great for a lean IT Team!
- Within the VM environment, we are able to highlight when resources are becoming obsolete and we can reallocate the physical resources to the virtual environment.
- It provides metrics to see which applications are being accessed and by whom to provide a better ROI picture as well as internal billing.
- SolarWinds as a whole can still be a resource hog so getting it to operate the way we wanted took some trial and error.
May 13, 2019
Good Product needs to think of future
- It has been tested in the field and has a lot of modules that work well with different applications.
- It can be pretty easy to set up.
- The interface will seem old if it doesn't get an overhaul that allows for more customization.
- It can be tricky to figure out where everything is.
- Easy to use.
- Super flexible and customizable as far as alerting and reporting.
- A small footprint.
- I cannot customize license levels.
- It's expensive.
- It takes support a long time to get back to you.