LogicMonitor vs SolarWinds pricing per device, per VM, and which is cheaper

Short answer: a server or a switch costs almost the same on both. LogicMonitor Essentials is $16 per Hybrid Unit a month and SolarWinds Observability SaaS is $15.75 per node. The bills split on everything else: SolarWinds counts three standalone VMs or ten wireless access points as one node, so VM-heavy and wireless-heavy estates pay 37% to 63% less there. LogicMonitor counts seven cloud PaaS resources as one unit, so managed-cloud estates can pay less on LogicMonitor.

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alertping ▸ check preview

simulated


            
            
                ▸ type a domain to watch a check and an alert play out
                ▸ simulation of 2 regions · US East · EU Central
                ▸ waiting…▌

If ever goes down, you get:

Alert fired ▸ 2 channels · 6.2 s after first failure

AlertPing app

● DOWN : HTTP timeout confirmed from 2/2 regions (US East, EU Central). Incident opened.

sms · on-call

AlertPing: DOWN. Confirmed 2/2 regions . First fail: EU Central.

Simulation, not a measurement of your site: this preview runs entirely in your browser and the latencies are generated from the domain you typed. Real checks on your monitors run from our US East and EU Central regions.

the short version

Same price per box, different counting rules

LogicMonitor and SolarWinds land on the same shortlist when a US IT team wants one platform for servers, network gear and cloud. On the headline number they are nearly identical, and that is exactly why the headline number tells you nothing. What decides the bill is how each vendor turns your estate into billable units.

LogicMonitor sells three packages at $16, $27 and $53 per Hybrid Unit a month. One unit is one collector-monitored device (a server, VM, firewall, router or switch), one cloud IaaS instance, seven cloud PaaS resources or five wireless access points. You pay on the monthly average of daily unit counts, and the price list says those are starting prices based on standard minimum quantities and terms.

LogicMonitor

no ratio listed

SolarWinds

$1.58

SolarWinds counts ten containers as one node.

The VM card needs one caveat. SolarWinds applies the 3:1 ratio only when a VM is monitored as a standalone entity. Put the host agent on it and it becomes a host at 1:1, the same $15.75. Hypervisors from VMware, Hyper-V and Nutanix count 1:1 as well. So the saving is real for VMs you watch through the hypervisor or API, and it disappears for VMs you instrument with the agent.

rate cards side by side

LogicMonitor vs SolarWinds pricing, line by line

Rows are matched by what you are buying. AlertPing appears in the third column only where it does the same job, and says so where it does not.

What you are buying	LogicMonitor	SolarWinds	AlertPing
Billing model	Package price per Hybrid Unit, monthly average of daily counts	Per node per module, daily high watermark of reporting nodes	Flat monthly plan, counted in monitors
Where it runs	SaaS, with collectors inside your network	SaaS, or Self-Hosted on your own servers	SaaS, checks run from our two regions
Infrastructure entry price	Essentials $16 per unit, up to 999 units	SaaS $15.75 per node; Self-Hosted from $8 per node	Starter $49 a month, 20 monitors
Higher tiers	Advanced $27, Signature with Edwin AI $53 per unit	Priced per module instead of per tier	Team $59, Business $189
Contract on the price list	Starting prices on standard minimum quantities and terms	Multi-year contracts billed annually	Monthly or yearly billing
Logs	LM Logs included in every package	Log Observability $5 per GB a month	Not offered
Other SolarWinds modules	Priced by package, not per module	Application $27.50 per service, Database $70 per instance, RUM $10 per 100,000 page views	Not offered
Plain URL uptime check	LM Uptime: add-on on Essentials, included on Advanced and Signature	$10 per bundle of 10 uptime checks, counted per protocol per location	Every plan, two regions, no metering
Multi-step transaction check	LM Synthetics add-on, price not published	$10 per bundle of 2 transaction checks	Not offered
Fastest external check	Not stated on the pricing page	60 seconds, same price at any frequency	60 seconds on Starter, 30 seconds from $59
Ping-only devices	A device is a unit	ICMP nodes included, not counted	Ping monitors count as monitors
Public status page	Not listed in the packages	Not in the rate card	Included on every plan
Trial	15 days, any package	30 days on Observability	Demo check, no signup

six estates, priced

Is LogicMonitor cheaper than SolarWinds? Six estates priced

List prices per month, infrastructure only. LogicMonitor is Hybrid Units times the package price. SolarWinds is SolarWinds Observability SaaS nodes times $15.75, with each ratio rounded up to a whole node. The unit counts are in each row so you can check them against your own inventory.

Estate	LM Essentials	LM Advanced	SolarWinds SaaS	Cheaper on list
20 servers and 5 switches (25 units, 25 nodes)	$400	$675	$393.75	SolarWinds, by $6.25
40 servers, 20 network devices, 10 access points (62 units, 61 nodes)	$992	$1,674	$960.75	SolarWinds, 3% less
150 standalone VMs and 10 switches (160 units, 60 nodes)	$2,560	$4,320	$945	SolarWinds, 63% less
Campus: 5 servers, 10 switches, 200 access points (55 units, 35 nodes)	$880	$1,485	$551.25	SolarWinds, 37% less
Cloud: 30 VMs without agent, 70 PaaS resources (40 units, 34 nodes)	$640	$1,080	$535.50	SolarWinds, 16% less
Cloud: 30 agent hosts, 70 PaaS resources (40 units, 54 nodes)	$640	$1,080	$850.50	LogicMonitor, 25% less

Read the last two rows together, because they are the same cloud estate. The only change is whether the 30 VMs carry the SolarWinds agent. Without it, SolarWinds is $104.50 a month cheaper. With it, LogicMonitor is $210.50 cheaper, because seven PaaS resources fit in one LogicMonitor unit and only three in one SolarWinds node. Decide how you will monitor the VMs before you compare quotes.

Over a year the gaps get large. The 150-VM estate is $30,720 on LogicMonitor Essentials against $11,340 on SolarWinds SaaS. The campus is $10,560 against $6,615. On a plain server-and-switch estate the two differ by less than $400 a year, so pick on product fit, not price.

SolarWinds Self-Hosted halves the node price to $8, which is why long-time Orion shops keep asking about it. The saving is paid back in the servers, storage and staff time it takes to run the platform yourself, and per SolarWinds' licensing documentation polling of new data stops when the subscription expires. Our SolarWinds pricing breakdown covers the Self-Hosted tiers and every module price.

the external check line

Website uptime checks cost extra on both

Neither platform includes outside-in website checks in its base infrastructure price. SolarWinds publishes the rate: $10 a month buys a bundle of 10 uptime checks or 2 transaction checks, and a check is one protocol from one location. Watching a site over both HTTP and HTTPS from London and Los Angeles is four checks, by SolarWinds' own worked example. The price does not change with frequency, and 60 seconds is the fastest.

LogicMonitor bundles LM Uptime into Advanced and Signature and sells it as an add-on on Essentials without a published price. On the 62-unit office above, moving from Essentials to Advanced to get it adds $11 a unit, $682 a month, although that upgrade buys other modules too.

20 endpoints over HTTPS, checked from 3 locations	Monthly cost	Notes
SolarWinds synthetic, uptime checks	$60	60 checks = 6 bundles; $120 if you also test HTTP
SolarWinds synthetic, 5 transaction journeys from 3 locations	$80	15 transaction checks = 8 bundles (rounded up)
LogicMonitor, upgrade a 62-unit estate to Advanced for LM Uptime	$682	Also buys the other Advanced modules
AlertPing Starter	$49	20 monitors, 2 regions each, 60-second checks; 30 seconds on Team at $59

That outside view is all we sell. AlertPing checks websites, APIs, TCP ports, SSL certificates and cron heartbeats from US East and EU Central, and pages someone only when both regions agree the target is down. SMS, email, Slack and webhook alerts and a public status page come with every plan. Keep LogicMonitor or SolarWinds for what happens inside the building, and let an independent service tell you what customers see from outside it. The same outside-in math for other platforms is in uptime monitoring pricing compared.

honest scorecard

Where each one actually wins

LogicMonitor wins on

Managed cloud services: seven PaaS resources to one unit.
One package price that already includes logs, NetFlow, config and topology.
The platform is SaaS; you run only its collectors.
Edwin AI event correlation on the Signature package.
Product-by-product pricing for MSPs through its account team.

SolarWinds wins on

VM-heavy estates watched without an agent, three VMs to a node.
Wireless, ten access points to a node.
Ping-only devices, which are free.
A Self-Hosted option from $8 per node for sites that must stay on premises.
A published price for synthetic and transaction checks.

Where we fit

We replace neither. No agent, no collector, no SNMP, no logs.
We check websites, APIs, ports, SSL and cron heartbeats from outside.
A second region confirms every failure before anyone is paged.
$49 a month for 20 monitors at 60 seconds; 30-second checks from $59.
SMS alerts and a public status page on every plan.

buyer scenarios

Pick by what your estate is made of

A VMware or Hyper-V shop with hundreds of guests. Price SolarWinds first. If you watch guests through the hypervisor, three of them share a node and the gap runs past 60%.
A school district, hospital or warehouse full of access points. SolarWinds counts ten access points to a node against LogicMonitor's five. On a 200-AP campus that alone is $3,900 a year.
A cloud team on RDS, Azure SQL, queues and functions. LogicMonitor, as long as you instrument hosts with an agent. Seven PaaS resources to a unit is the most generous ratio on either list.
A regulated site that cannot send telemetry to a vendor cloud. SolarWinds Self-Hosted is the only one of the two built for that.
An Orion customer facing a renewal. Get both quotes. Moving to SolarWinds Observability SaaS keeps the vendor but changes the counting rules, so re-count your estate before you sign.
You mainly need to know the website and API are up. Neither is the cheap way to buy that. A dedicated uptime service covers 20 endpoints from two regions for $49 a month, next to whichever platform you keep.

plainly

What AlertPing does not do

We are the third option on this page, not a replacement for either platform. If anything below is a requirement, buy LogicMonitor or SolarWinds and run us next to it as the independent outside check.

No agent or collector, so no CPU, memory, disk or process metrics from inside a host.
No SNMP polling, NetFlow, config backups or topology maps.
No log management, tracing or database query analysis.
No scripted multi-step browser journeys.
No monitoring of private addresses behind your firewall. We check what the internet can reach.
No free plan. Starter is $49 a month at 60-second checks; 30-second checks start at $59.

Still weighing a third platform? The LogicMonitor vs Datadog and PRTG vs WhatsUp Gold comparisons run the same arithmetic on those rate cards.

questions

LogicMonitor vs SolarWinds, answered

Is LogicMonitor cheaper than SolarWinds?

Usually not on list price. A server or switch costs $16 a month on LogicMonitor Essentials and $15.75 on SolarWinds Observability SaaS. SolarWinds gets much cheaper for standalone VMs (three per node) and wireless access points (ten per node). LogicMonitor gets cheaper for cloud PaaS resources, seven per unit against three per node.

Is LogicMonitor better than SolarWinds?

LogicMonitor is the better fit for teams that want one SaaS platform with logs, NetFlow, configuration tracking and topology in a single package price and nothing to host. SolarWinds is the better fit for VM-heavy or wireless-heavy estates on price, and for sites that need a self-hosted deployment.

How much does SolarWinds cost per node?

SolarWinds Observability SaaS lists Network and Infrastructure Observability at $15.75 per node a month. SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted starts at $8 per node a month. Both are listed in USD on multi-year contracts billed annually, and SolarWinds offers volume discounts on request.

How does SolarWinds count nodes?

Network devices, hosts with the agent, hypervisors and storage arrays count 1:1. A VM monitored as a standalone entity counts 3:1, a non-host AWS or Azure cloud service 3:1, a wireless access point 10:1 and a container 10:1. Devices monitored by ICMP ping only are included and not counted.

How much does LogicMonitor cost per device?

LogicMonitor lists $16 per Hybrid Unit a month on Essentials, $27 on Advanced and $53 on Signature with Edwin AI. A unit is one collector-monitored device or cloud IaaS instance, seven cloud PaaS resources or five wireless access points, billed on the monthly average of daily counts.

Is SolarWinds cloud based or on premise?

Both. SolarWinds Observability SaaS is cloud hosted and starts at $15.75 per node for infrastructure. SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted runs on your own servers and starts at $8 per node a month.

Can LogicMonitor or SolarWinds monitor website uptime?

Yes, at extra cost. SolarWinds sells synthetic checks at $10 per bundle of 10 uptime or 2 transaction checks, counted per protocol per location, with a 60-second minimum interval. LogicMonitor includes LM Uptime on Advanced and Signature and sells it as an add-on on Essentials.

Do LogicMonitor and SolarWinds have a free trial?

LogicMonitor offers a 15-day free trial of any package. SolarWinds offers a 30-day trial of its Observability products and 14-day trials of most standalone tools. Neither has a perpetual free tier for infrastructure monitoring.

keep reading

Related comparisons

SolarWinds alternatives, six competitors priced on one estate.
LogicMonitor competitors, the same exercise from the other side.
SolarWinds pricing, every module, Self-Hosted and the synthetic bundles.
LogicMonitor pricing, the three packages and the 1,000-unit cliff.
LogicMonitor vs Dynatrace, per-unit against per-GiB billing.
LogicMonitor vs Splunk, per-device against per-host billing.
LogicMonitor vs PRTG pricing, per device against per sensor on 100 devices.
SolarWinds ipMonitor alternative, for teams that lost ipMonitor at end of life.
OpManager vs SolarWinds pricing, per device against per node from 25 to 1,000 devices.

how we page you

Two regions have to agree

A single failed probe never wakes anybody. A second region, US East or EU Central, re-checks first, so a hiccup on one route is not a 3am phone call.

what a plan covers

SMS is in the price, not in credits

Email, Slack and webhook alerts are unlimited on every plan, SMS comes with a monthly allowance, and each plan hosts status pages. No credit packs, no per-message fee, no per-monitor math.

how setup works

One URL, no agent to install

Paste the address, choose where alerts go, and the first check runs from both regions. No agent, no config file, nothing to deploy on your side.

The outside check neither platform prices flat

Websites, APIs, ports and heartbeats confirmed from a second region, SMS and a status page on every plan, from $49 a month.

See pricing