Azure Monitor vs SolarWinds AppOptics comparison

Microsoft and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Microsoft is ranked #5 with an average rating of 7.8, while SolarWinds is ranked #58. Microsoft holds a 6.7% mindshare in APM, compared to SolarWinds’s 0.3% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Azure Monitor

Read 55 Azure Monitor reviews

13,217 Views
8,405 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

SolarWinds AppOptics

Read 9 SolarWinds AppOptics reviews

673 Views
314 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Azure Monitor

SolarWinds AppOptics

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

SolarWinds AppOptics and Azure Monitor are tools competing in the application monitoring space. SolarWinds AppOptics has an edge in cost and deployment simplicity, while Azure Monitor leads in functionality and ROI.

Features: SolarWinds AppOptics offers real-time visibility, detailed application monitoring, and essential monitoring tools. Azure Monitor provides seamless integration with Azure services, comprehensive analytics capabilities, and is feature-rich.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds AppOptics needs more customizable alerts, faster data processing, and enhanced user interface. Azure Monitor requires better documentation, a more intuitive setup process, and clearer pricing models.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds AppOptics is favored for its straightforward deployment and helpful support team. Azure Monitor, though complex to deploy due to its extensive features, is noted for its responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds AppOptics is cost-effective, with reasonable setup costs and good ROI. Azure Monitor, while more expensive, offers strong ROI due to its extensive features and integrations.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Monitor vs. SolarWinds AppOptics Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Monitor vs. SolarWinds AppOptics

May 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Azure Monitor

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

5th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

3rd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SolarWinds AppOptics

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

58th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

43rd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (57th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Azure Monitor is 6.7%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.3%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Usman Khawar

Software Engineer (DevOps/ SRE) at Sensys LLC

Native integration simplifies monitoring but documentation and cost improvements are needed

The ease of access in Azure is significant since it's native to the platform and easy to integrate. It has no maintenance overhead, and users don't have to navigate to another portal to get their desired result. It's the handiness that it has, rather than the features. The interpretation from the logs and injection requires custom runbooks. While it's complex, many services provide native insights and workbooks. It does the basic job quite efficiently. They added new kinds of metrics with more integrations to send out metrics. They have even added support for third-party tools that can be integrated. Azure Monitor is working on improvements and becoming more mature. Azure Monitor is stable and scalable. Azure Monitor is evolving with new workbooks and dashboards.

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John Yuko

Assistant Manager ICT - Projects at I&M Bank Ltd

Unique features allow consolidating and combing metrics into a single dashboard, but don't monitor mobile solutions

I would like to see more granular information provided on Unix applications. Also, the integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward in terms having an agent to retrieve your credentials rather than having to enter or save them for SSH on SolarWinds. From the outset, we had to set some commands to log into the search console, and they are saved on the solution, which presents a challenge in terms of exposure. The solution is unable to monitor APK solutions completely because we'd then be forced to break down the APK and provide the APIs or go through the source code. They don't have a module that can analyze an application that is maybe under-used.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The tools for logs and metrics are pretty good and easy to use."

"A product that is well-integrated for monitoring Microsoft Azure."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"Azure Monitor's best features are its graphs and charts, the different visibility options, and reporting."

"I am monitoring all of my Azure Monitor and getting good reports. I can customize the reports to get the information I need. I am also getting emails about which AAS instances are down and everything in the system related to my services. It is easy to use, scalable, and user-friendly. Microsoft has Many guides and videos to help you understand how to create and use Azure Monitor."

"The ease of access in Azure is significant since it's native to the platform and easy to integrate."

"I find the query language in this tool very beneficial, as it allows me to customize some dashboards and create alerts according to my thresholds and metrics."

"The most valuable functions of Azure Monitor for our clients are its ability to monitor CPU usage and detect any potential issues before they escalate into actual problems. This helps in proactively addressing issues and preventing disruptions in our services. Additionally, Azure Monitor's integration with Azure for implementation has been quite straightforward and easy to manage."

More Azure Monitor pros

"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."

"The reporting of the solution is very good."

"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."

"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."

"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."

"The product has a great dashboard."

Cons

"I believe Azure Monitor is already a top-notch solution with excellent functionality and there is not much I would suggest for improvement. However, there is one limitation that certain features require payment, even for testing purposes, which can be a challenge."

"I need connectivity with cost management."

"I would like more transparency when we use the solution with another environment, like on-premises, or on another cloud environment, like AWS or GCP."

"The cost skyrockets once you start using it, and there are complaints that the actual cost of the Kubernetes cluster was less than the cost they were incurring for Azure Monitor."

"n comparison to New Relic, which I've used before, it's a bit more complicated. It's not as easy to use. It also took some time to get it working. The implementation needs to be simpler."

"The biggest one is probably just the user interface. There could be more advanced logging at the database level. They can also improve their query builder to allow you to search for things better, but I last used it about a year ago. They might have already changed a ton of things in the newer versions."

"The process of implementation needs to be easier."

"Azure Monitor could improve network performance monitoring and make it more advanced."

More Azure Monitor cons

"In terms of the technology, I think they need to put some more advanced troubleshooting into SolarWinds, in terms of AI capabilities. That's the next generation, especially in the cases of APIs which have already adopted AI capabilities into their products."

"The solution should be more user-friendly."

"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."

"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."

"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."

"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Azure Monitor is a competitively priced solution."

"The tool's pricing is very good. I could say that Microsoft offers different cost models, which are listed on the product's website."

"I would rate Azure Monitor a two out of five for affordability."

"The solution’s pricing depends on how much logs it collects."

"Azure Monitor is a low-priced solution, which is why it would work best on small-scale projects."

"Customers of Azure Monitor must pay an amount that depends largely on how many services they need to integrate and the storage space required in terms of logs, etc. If they only have a few small services to monitor, the price won't be too high, but on the opposite side of the spectrum, it can certainly get pricey."

"The tool is expensive."

"Since we are using the basic set, it is more cost-effective compared to other third-party APM solutions."

More Azure Monitor pricing and cost advice

"Mostly, it's a perpetual license. We don't have any customers using the subscription right now—it's mostly a perpetual license that the customers purchase. The licensing is based on the number of elements, whereas other solutions are node-based."

"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."

"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Educational Organization

40%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

How does Splunk compare with Azure Monitor?

Splunk handles a high amount of data very well. We use Splunk to capture information and as an aggregator for monitoring information from different sources. Splunk is very good at alerting us if we...

See all answers

What do you like most about Azure Monitor?

Azure Monitor is a very easy-to-use product in the cloud environment.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Monitor?

The primary challenge is the documentation. The major challenge that remains is the costing factor for the logs ingestion. The cost skyrockets once you start using it, and there are complaints that...

See all answers

What do you like most about SolarWinds AppOptics?

The product has a great dashboard.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolarWinds AppOptics?

The solution should be more user-friendly.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SolarWinds AppOptics?

I used the solution for monitoring servers and network equipment.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 22% of the time

Sentry vs Azure Monitor

Compared 14% of the time

Dynatrace vs Azure Monitor

Compared 13% of the time

Grafana vs Azure Monitor

Compared 11% of the time

New Relic vs Azure Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

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Dynatrace vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 28% of the time

New Relic vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 14% of the time

SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 13% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 12% of the time

Zenoss Cloud vs SolarWinds AppOptics

Compared 10% of the time

More SolarWinds AppOptics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Monitor

June 2025

Download Azure Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

June 2025

Download SolarWinds AppOptics product report

Also Known As

No data available

AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato

Overview

Azure Monitor is a comprehensive monitoring solution offered by Microsoft Azure. It provides a centralized platform for monitoring the performance and health of various Azure resources, applications, and infrastructure.

With Azure Monitor, users can gain insights into the availability, performance, and usage of their applications and infrastructure. The key features of Azure Monitor include metrics, logs, alerts, and dashboards. Metrics allow users to collect and analyze performance data from various Azure resources, such as virtual machines, databases, and storage accounts.

Logs enable users to collect and analyze log data from different sources, including Azure resources, applications, and operating systems. Azure Monitor also provides a robust alerting mechanism that allows users to set up alerts based on specific conditions or thresholds. These alerts can be configured to notify users via email, SMS, or other notification channels. Additionally, Azure Monitor offers customizable dashboards that allow users to visualize and analyze their monitoring data in a personalized and intuitive manner.

Azure Monitor integrates seamlessly with other Azure services, such as Azure Automation and Azure Logic Apps, enabling users to automate actions based on monitoring data. It also supports integration with third-party monitoring tools and services, providing flexibility and extensibility.

Overall, Azure Monitor is a powerful and versatile monitoring solution that helps users gain deep insights into the performance and health of their Azure resources and applications. It offers a wide range of features and integrations, making it a comprehensive solution for monitoring and managing Azure environments.

Microsoft

AppOptics is a SaaS-based simple, powerful and affordable Infrastructure & Application monitoring for custom on-premises, cloud, and hybrid systems.

Your business runs on applications, and when they go down or run slowly, it can impact the business in lost productivity, customers, or revenue. To add to the complexity, your IT environment is changing, and workloads can be spread across data centers, and cloud resources. You need to monitor the availability and performance of applications and infrastructure, regardless of where they are, so you can identify potential issues early and address them before they impact users

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Rackspace, First Gas, Allscripts, ABB Group

TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista

Buyer's Guide

Azure Monitor vs. SolarWinds AppOptics

May 2025

Free Report: Azure Monitor vs. SolarWinds AppOptics

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