10 Best SolarWinds Alternative Of 2024

What is SolarWinds?

SolarWinds stands out as a highly scalable application performance management (APM) and metrics platform designed to grow alongside your organization seamlessly. This zero-configuration APM boasts an array of features, including distributed tracing, comprehensive monitoring of hosts and IT infrastructure, the flexibility of custom metrics, and seamless integration with numerous third-party tools. All these components seamlessly contribute to a unified dashboarding, analytics, and alerting system, providing a comprehensive and holistic approach to application performance monitoring.

It offers you the features of creating a dashboard and visualizing your data. You can easily manipulate individual charts by dragging them around and adjusting their resize corners on a grid-based dashboard.

The alerting system enables you to associate alerts with multiple notification services, giving you the flexibility to send notifications via email to pagers, direct web services to your chosen escalation partner, or even employ both simultaneously.

Limitations and Challenges of SolarWinds

Configuring and scripting some of the advanced features can be confusing
Limited 3rd party compatibility
Difficulty in modifying thresholds
Confusing UI
A very complex interface for network mapping feature
Dashboard delays to show the current status of Nodes/Service
The caching of web console requests operates at a relatively slow pace
Not all devices are supported
No intuitive way to configure interfaces between nodes in the map editor
Updating the application is a little complex

Best Alternative for SolarWinds

UptimeMonster

Reliable website and server monitoring service from the cloud to monitor your web availability, performance, and security. The tool will give you a 24/7 website monitoring service that will Monitor the availability of your website, APIs, and business-critical web transactions with powerful synthetic monitoring and testing tools.

It collects, correlates, and monitors servers alongside data from the rest of your stack. UptimeMonster server monitoring allows you to visualize, analyze, and track down different query metrics happening on your server so that you can prevent them before anything goes wrong.

Monitor your network performance like IP, DNS, Service port, Application, and others using the check monitoring tools. It will enable you to understand the network behavior and track NetFlow.

UptimeMonster check monitoring service will give you full control over your network. The check monitoring types are as follows

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)
ICMP PING (Internet Control Message Protocol)
IP Blacklist
UDP (User Datagram Protocol)
DNS (Domain Name Server)
Application Monitoring

With a status page, you can share your monitoring activities and incidents with customers. You can easily make our status page public or private. You can highly customize your status page and share it with your customers to reduce the number of customer support tickets.

Using the status page you can easily gain trust from your customers. The alert notification easily notifies your customers about any incidents so that they can take necessary steps to prevent the issue. So that they will always be prepared and stay tuned.

Create and customize intricate policies for the escalation of incidents by taking into consideration various factors, including the passage of time, the availability of your team, and the source or origin of the incident.

Key Features

Reliable Website and Server Monitoring
Network Performance Monitoring
Check Monitoring Types
Status Page Customization
Alert Notifications
Incident Escalation Policies
Incident Timeline
SSL Expiration Monitoring
Search String Monitoring.

Pros

Reliable Uptime Monitoring
Easy Setup and Configuration:
Cost-Efficiency
Customer Support:
Accurate Reporting:
User-Friendly Interface
Customizable Alerts
Status Page
Escalation policies
Incident Timeline Report

Cons

According to user reviews, UptimeMonster doesn’t exhibit any notable drawbacks. However, a few users have highlighted certain feature limitations present in the free plan offering. These limitations might include restricted access to certain functionalities or reduced capabilities compared to the premium plans. Despite this, the overall consensus from users is overwhelmingly positive regarding the platform’s performance and functionality.

Our perspective on this matter revolves around the notion that smaller teams might not necessitate the utilization of numerous advanced features. Therefore, it appears reasonable to curtail access to certain functionalities, considering that smaller teams might not require or fully utilize these advanced features. This approach ensures a streamlined and more focused user experience, optimizing the platform’s usability for smaller teams with specific needs.

Pricing

Standard plan at $7/month with 30 monitors and 2-minute interval
Professional plan at $19/month with 50 monitors and 1-minute interval
Business plan at $99/month with 100 monitors and 25-second interval

Nagios

Nagios is an open-source and commercial monitoring tool used by businesses of all sizes to keep their IT infrastructure up and running. It monitors everything from servers and networks to applications and services, alerting you to potential problems before they become critical.

Nagios XI diligently monitors various elements of your infrastructure, encompassing applications, operating systems, network architecture, network protocols, services, and system metrics. Its extensive library of hundreds of third-party addons empowers you to monitor virtually any internal or external program, service, or system with flexibility and adaptability.

Nagios Fusion unites dispersed Nagios XI and Core servers, granting panoramic network oversight and simplifying issue resolution across vast networks. Centralize diverse Nagios deployments with Fusion, boosting scalability and resolving geographically scattered network issues effortlessly.

Key Features:

Monitoring of various IT components: Nagios can monitor servers, networks, applications, services, and more. It supports various protocols like SNMP, Ping, SSH, and WMI to collect data from different devices and systems.
Customizable alerts and notifications: You can define custom alerts and notifications for different types of issues. Nagios can send alerts via email, SMS, instant messaging, or other channels to ensure the right people are notified promptly.
Reporting and data analysis: Nagios provides comprehensive reports and data analysis to help you track trends, identify potential issues, and improve the performance of your IT infrastructure.
Flexible and scalable: Nagios is highly flexible and scalable. You can start with a basic setup and add more features and functionality as your needs grow.
Open-source and commercial options: Nagios Core is an open-source solution, while Nagios XI is a commercial version with additional features and enterprise-grade support.

Pros

Highly customizable: Nagios can be customized to meet the specific needs of your IT infrastructure.
Wide range of features: Nagios offers a wide range of features for monitoring different aspects of your IT environment.
Powerful alerting system: Nagios’ alerting system ensures that you are notified of potential problems promptly.
Active community: Nagios has a large and active community that provides support and helps you troubleshoot any issues.
Cost-effective: Nagios Core is free to use, and Nagios XI is relatively affordable compared to other monitoring solutions
Integration Capabilities: Nagios seamlessly integrates with various third-party tools and services, fostering compatibility and expanding its functionality according to organizational needs.

Cons

Can be complex to set up: Nagios can be complex to set up for beginners, especially the open-source version.
Requires technical expertise: Using and maintaining Nagios effectively requires some technical expertise.
Limited scalability for large enterprises: The open-source version of Nagios may not be scalable enough for large enterprises.

Pricing

The initial cost for Nagios XI begins at $1,995 per instance, billed on an annual basis.

LogicMonitor

LogicMonitor presents an expansive solution, delivering log intelligence at a scale specifically tailored for hybrid and multi-cloud environments. The platform excels in centralizing, correlating, and contextualizing data, prioritizing data hygiene and internal compliance to ensure a comprehensive and compliant log management experience.

One notable feature of LogicMonitor is its capability to centralize monitoring activities, enabling users to seamlessly correlate pertinent logs with metrics within a singular platform. This integrated approach enhances the overall coherence of monitoring efforts, fostering a more holistic understanding of system performance.

Pros

Wide range of vendor equipment supported
Modules can be customized
Agent or agentless monitoring
Security features

Cons

Changing the alerting settings is difficult
No prebuilt alerts and templates are provided
Customization Complexity
Expensive
Doesn’t provide any detailed reporting
Mobile app not user-friendly

Pricing

The initial price starts at $15 per device per month, the price may vary based on configurations and requirements

Zabbix

Zabbix is a powerful, enterprise-grade monitoring solution that keeps a watchful eye on your IT infrastructure, ensuring everything runs smoothly and efficiently. Whether you’re a small business or a large organization, Zabbix provides comprehensive monitoring capabilities to safeguard your critical systems and applications.

Utilizing an extensive range of data collection methods, including JMX, SNMP, WMI, IPMI, and customizable scripts, this software provides a precision-focused approach to network monitoring. It can adapt diverse monitoring requirements, whether in on-premise or cloud environments, catering to networks of varying complexities.

Key Features

Trend Prediction: Anticipate future trends with Zabbix’s trend prediction feature, enabling proactive measures based on historical performance data.
Automated Problem Resolution: Zabbix streamlines operations with automated problem resolution, minimizing manual intervention and ensuring swift responses to detected issues.
Anomaly Detection: Uncover irregularities in your network’s behavior using Zabbix’s anomaly detection, providing early insights into potential performance deviations.
High-Level Map Navigation: Gain a comprehensive understanding of network structure and dependencies through Zabbix’s high-level view with map navigation, offering a visual representation of your network landscape.

Zabbix seamlessly integrates with a diverse array of IT infrastructure components, fostering compatibility and interoperability:

Database Harmony: Collaborate effortlessly with databases, as Zabbix aligns smoothly with MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle, ensuring seamless data synchronization.
Cloud Compatibility: Embrace cloud services without constraints—Zabbix extends its capabilities to work seamlessly with cloud giants such as AWS and Azure, providing holistic cloud monitoring.
Interconnectivity with Monitoring Tools: Forge connections with other monitoring tools effortlessly, as Zabbix harmonizes with popular solutions like Grafana and Elasticsearch, offering a unified and synergized monitoring ecosystem.

Pros

Versatile Data Collection Methods
Scalable to Large Networks
Open-Source and Cost-Effective

Cons

Steeper Learning Curve
GUI Could Be More Intuitive
Requires In-House Expertise for Setup and Maintenance

Pricing

Zabbix Core: Free and open-source, ideal for individuals, small businesses, and non-profit organizations.
Zabbix Enterprise: Paid version with additional features like enhanced security, distributed monitoring, and high availability. Pricing depends on the number of monitored items and licenses.
Zabbix Professional Support: Optional paid support plans for Zabbix Core and Zabbix Enterprise, offering faster response times, technical expertise, and access to exclusive resources.

iCINGA

Icinga, an open-source network monitoring tool, delivers adaptable and scalable solutions for monitoring network resources, notifying users of outages, and supplying data for reporting purposes. Renowned for its extensible architecture, Icinga is an ideal choice for environments seeking a monitoring solution that is both customizable and scalable to their specific needs.

Its capability to seamlessly adapt to the expansion of an organization’s network and its capacity to integrate with a plethora of plugins and add-ons for enhanced functionality showcase its versatility.

Key Features

Real-Time Network Monitoring: Icinga excels in real-time network monitoring, providing instant insights into the health and performance of critical network resources.
Multi-Channel Notifications: Stay informed with notifications delivered through various channels, ensuring prompt alerts for any detected issues, and allowing for quick response and resolution.
Customizable Reporting: Tailor your reporting to meet specific needs with Icinga’s customizable reporting capabilities, providing in-depth insights into network performance and trends.
Web Interface for Management: With a user-friendly web interface, managing and visualizing network data becomes a seamless process, enhancing overall ease of use and accessibility.
Integration with Graphite: Icinga seamlessly integrates with Graphite for efficient metrics storage and visualization, enhancing the analytical capabilities of network monitoring.
Puppet Integration for Automation: Strengthen your network monitoring capabilities with integrations like Puppet for IT automation, enabling automated responses to identified issues and streamlining operational workflows.

Pros

Open-source and Cost-effective
Highly Flexible and Customizable
Alerting and Reporting:
Active Community and Support
Lightweight and Scalable

Cons

Initial Setup Complexity
Documentation could be improved
Interface can feel outdated

Pricing

As an open-source tool, Icinga is freely available for use. Besides, if your needs extend to enterprise-level features and dedicated support, Icinga provides commercial packages, and details regarding their pricing can be acquired through inquiry.

ManageEngine OpManager

ManageEngine OpManager is a powerful network monitoring software that provides deep visibility into the performance of your routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, wireless LAN controllers, servers, VMs, printers, and storage devices. It is an easy-to-use and affordable network monitoring solution that allows you to drill down to the root cause of an issue and eliminate it.

Featuring flexible per-device pricing, OpManager enables gradual scalability beyond the Free Edition’s foundational features. Its compatibility with various operating systems and hypervisors makes it an excellent choice for managing virtual infrastructure, aligning seamlessly with your company’s long-term objectives.

Key Features

Comprehensive Network Monitoring
Proactive Issue Resolution
Flexible Per-Device Pricing
Compatibility and Virtual Infrastructure Management
End-to-End Visibility and Analytics
Sophisticated Autodiscovery Tools
Integration Capabilities

Pros

Easy to use
Affordable
Scalable

Cons

Limited free edition
Some advanced features require additional licenses
Can be resource-intensive for large networks

Pricing

ManageEngine OpManager offers a variety of pricing plans based on the number of devices you need to monitor. The Standard Edition starts at $245 per year for 10 devices, the Professional Edition starts at $345 per year for 10 devices, and the Enterprise Edition starts at $11,545 per year for 250 devices.

Zenoss

Zenoss is a unified monitoring platform that helps businesses of all sizes gain visibility and control over their IT infrastructure. It goes beyond simple monitoring, offering intelligent event correlation, automation, and remediation capabilities to keep your systems running smoothly.

Its remarkable scalability and holistic monitoring approach distinguish it from the rest. In my evaluation, Zenoss stands out as the “Top Choice for unified monitoring in large-scale environments,” thanks to its broad infrastructure coverage and the depth of its monitoring capabilities.

Key Features

Real-Time Analytics: Zenoss incorporates real-time analytics, providing immediate insights into the performance and health of IT infrastructures. This enables timely decision-making and proactive issue resolution.
Capacity Planning: The platform includes robust capacity planning tools, allowing organizations to efficiently manage and optimize their resources based on real-time data and analysis. This feature aids in ensuring optimal performance and resource utilization.
Root Cause Analysis: Zenoss facilitates root cause analysis, helping IT teams identify and address the underlying issues causing disruptions or performance degradation. This feature enhances incident resolution efficiency.
Extensive Integrations: Zenoss offers comprehensive integrations with various technologies, including public clouds such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. It also seamlessly integrates with private cloud solutions and virtualization technologies like VMware and OpenStack.
Cloud Integration: With native integration capabilities for leading public cloud providers, Zenoss enables organizations to monitor and manage their cloud-based resources effectively. This ensures a unified approach to monitoring across on-premises and cloud environments.
Private Cloud and Virtualization Support: Zenoss extends its support to private cloud environments, ensuring seamless monitoring of resources within private infrastructures. Additionally, it integrates with virtualization technologies like VMware and OpenStack to provide holistic visibility.

Pros

Extensive Range of Integrations
Comprehensive Monitoring Features
Scalable for Large-Scale Environment
Increased visibility and control

Cons

No Transparent Pricing Available
Complex Setup and Configuration
Perceived Complexity Compared to Similar Tools

Pricing

Starter Edition: Up to 250 devices – $5,000 per year
Standard Edition: Up to 1,000 devices – $10,000 per year
Enterprise Edition: Unlimited devices – Contact Zenoss for a quote

Atatus

Atatus is a cloud-based application performance monitoring (APM) tool that helps developers and operations teams ensure the smooth delivery of their web and mobile applications. It goes beyond traditional server monitoring to provide deep insights into user experience, code performance, and infrastructure health.

Atatus provides real-time monitoring insights into the performance of all your applications. By examining the data, you can gain a comprehensive overview of the performance of your front-end through Browser Monitoring, back-end via Application Performance Monitoring, and servers with Infrastructure Monitoring.

Atatus aids in optimizing your application through effective application monitoring. With full-stack monitoring tools, it enables you to identify and eliminate errors. By instrumenting, analyzing, troubleshooting, and leveraging Telemetry data, you can proactively address issues to enhance the overall performance of your application.

Key Features

Application Performance Monitoring
Log Monitoring
Browser Monitoring
Infrastructure Monitoring
Integrations
Alerting System

Pros

Cloud-based
Easy to use
Powerful insights
Affordable
Error tracking
Log management

Cons

Limited free plan
Expensive for large enterprises
Complex Configuration

Pricing

Atatus offers a variety of pricing plans, starting with a free plan for smaller applications. Paid plans start at $29 per month for up to 10,000 transactions per day.

DataDog

Datadog’s website monitoring stands out as a comprehensive solution that offers unparalleled visibility. It goes beyond mere aggregation by seamlessly collecting metrics and events from an extensive range of over 500 integrated technologies, tagging and storing them for further analysis.

Notably, Datadog streamlines the entire process by taking care of the ingestion, normalization, and enrichment of logs, allowing users to focus on deriving meaningful insights rather than grappling with technical intricacies. This ensures a user-friendly experience and maximizes the efficiency of log management operations.

Furthermore, Datadog doesn’t stop at threat identification; it actively tracks the performance impact of every deployed code. This automated tracking extends to mapping data flows and dependencies through a service map, offering a visual representation of the intricate relationships within the infrastructure. By doing so, Datadog not only ensures robust security but also provides valuable insights into the operational dynamics of the entire system.

Pros

Real-time log tracking
Security monitoring
Integrations
Alerting system
Custom downtime for deployment

Cons

The primary weakness of Datadog lies in its scaling capabilities. Increasing metrics monitoring necessitates additional monitors, significantly impacting monthly billing and leading to high expenses.
Datadog’s complexity might pose challenges, particularly for users unfamiliar with monitoring systems. Navigating and finding specific functionalities can be challenging without prior experience.
Immediate action is lacking when decommissioning a host. It takes up to 24 hours for a host to be officially removed from the list, causing delays in real-time updates upon decommissioning.
The basic plugins in Datadog offer limited information. Users often need to configure their plugins to obtain more detailed reports, adding complexity to data retrieval.
Graphical reports in Datadog are not intuitively comprehensive, failing to provide easily understandable and valuable information to users.

Pricing

Pro package at $15 per host/per month
Enterprise package at $23 per host/per month

Dynatrace

Dynatrace offers two distinct products, namely Log monitoring v1 and Log monitoring v2 modes, each presenting unique approaches to log management. The v2 mode, characterized as more recent by Dynatrace, addresses issues related to logs with unrecognized timestamps and introduces a versatile log data ingestion engine. However, despite these advancements, certain features, including sensitive information masking, UI configuration files on a host, and on-demand access to log files on the monitored host, remain absent in the v2 version. It’s important to note that both versions have their strengths and limitations, and users must weigh the trade-offs based on their specific requirements.

Pros

V1 and V2 log monitoring
Ability to create custom synthetic monitoring workflows
Metrics addition to the UI
AI-driven analytics
Monthly reports for application performance and SLAs
Custom workflow creation

Cons

UI can be more user-friendly
The alerting mechanism should be improved for a smoother experience
Lack of clear documentation and complexity
The concept is rather intricate, making it challenging to grasp, and there’s a risk that it could become more overwhelming than beneficial for a non-technical person
Higher pricing
Sometimes takes a long time to identify and analyze processes
The alert notification system fails to ascertain the urgency of an issue and whether it requires immediate attention or not.

Pricing

Full-Stack Monitoring – $0.08
Infrastructure Monitoring – $0.04
Application Security – $0.18
Application Security – $0.00225
Synthetic Monitoring – $0.001
Log Management & Analytics – $0.20

Wrapping Up

Choosing the best SolarWinds alternatives requires a thorough assessment of your unique requirements and how well they match the features provided by different monitoring solutions.

After conducting thorough research and rigorous testing, UptimeMonster has proven itself as the premier substitute for SolarWinds. It encompasses all the vital features essential for smooth project management, presenting a cost-effective solution that is especially advantageous for startups and small teams.