Grafana Cloud Application Observability vs SolarWinds Observability

GAGrafana Cloud Application Observability9.3Visit SolarWinds Observability8.7Visit

Higher score GA Grafana Cloud Application Observability #2 in Monitoring Observability 9.3/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 1 of 5 features Visit Grafana Cloud

vs

SolarWinds Observability #8 in Monitoring Observability 8.7/10 30-day trial Free trial✓ 1 of 5 features Visit SolarWinds

• Grafana Cloud Application Observability fits best

  Teams seeking unified application observability

• SolarWinds Observability fits best

  Teams monitoring applications and hybrid IT together

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Side by side

Feature	GAGrafana Cloud Application Observability 9.3/10 Visit ↗	SolarWinds Observability 8.7/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	9.3	8.7
Ranking	#2 in Monitoring Observability	#8 in Monitoring Observability
Best for	Teams seeking unified application observability	Teams monitoring applications and hybrid IT together
Pricing model	Free plan + paid	Paid
Starting price	$0.03/unit usage-based	$5/GB/mo
Free plan	✓ (best)	—
Free trial	—	30 days
Deployment	Cloud	Cloud, Self-hosted
Platforms	Web	Web, Windows, Linux
Support	Email, Community, Docs	Docs, Community
Built for	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Grafana Cloud Application Observability 1/5 · SolarWinds Observability 1/5
Metrics monitoring	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Log management	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Distributed tracing	✓	✓
Alerting	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Synthetic monitoring	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Specs
Deployment model	Cloud	Hybrid
Data retention	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Our review
Pros	Maps service relationships alongside health and request performance. Explores metrics, logs, traces, and profiles in one application view. Correlates log spikes with traces to find requests tied to errors.	Combines distributed tracing, code profiling, and application metrics. Maps service dependencies and correlates logs with transaction traces. Offers cloud and self-hosted deployment options.
Cons	Requires application instrumentation that sends data to Grafana Cloud. Pro adds a $19 monthly platform fee on top of usage pricing. Frontend RUM is delivered through the related Frontend Observability offering.	Separate modules can make SaaS costs depend on several billing units. The $8 per-node starting price applies to Self-Hosted, not SaaS. Advanced application and experience coverage requires distinct modules.
Our verdict	Grafana Cloud Application Observability brings application telemetry into service inventories, service maps, and service health views. It is aimed at application teams instrumenting with OpenTelemetry and Prometheus that want to… Read the review →	SolarWinds Observability brings application performance monitoring together with infrastructure, network, database, log, and digital experience monitoring. IT operations and DevOps teams can use its application capabilities to track… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• Grafana Cloud Application Observability — where it wins

  • Maps service relationships alongside health and request performance.
  • Explores metrics, logs, traces, and profiles in one application view.
  • Correlates log spikes with traces to find requests tied to errors.

  Where it doesn't

  • Requires application instrumentation that sends data to Grafana Cloud.
  • Pro adds a $19 monthly platform fee on top of usage pricing.
  • Frontend RUM is delivered through the related Frontend Observability offering.

• SolarWinds Observability — where it wins

  • Combines distributed tracing, code profiling, and application metrics.
  • Maps service dependencies and correlates logs with transaction traces.
  • Offers cloud and self-hosted deployment options.

  Where it doesn't

  • Separate modules can make SaaS costs depend on several billing units.
  • The $8 per-node starting price applies to Self-Hosted, not SaaS.
  • Advanced application and experience coverage requires distinct modules.

• GAGrafana Cloud Application Observability9.3/10 · Free plan

  A cloud observability view that connects application services and telemetry for investigation.

  Visit Grafana CloudFull verdict →
• SolarWinds Observability8.7/10 · 30-day trial

  Modular observability for teams connecting application performance with underlying infrastructure.

  Visit SolarWindsFull verdict →