What it does
SolarWinds Observability SaaS combines application performance monitoring, digital-experience monitoring, database, infrastructure, network, and log telemetry in a browser-based service for cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments. Teams can add external website checks, instrument applications, connect infrastructure, and review collected data in entity views and dashboards. Alerts and telemetry help detect and investigate issues, while identifying and applying a fix remains an operational task for the team.
Start with an external check
The getting-started guide begins with an organization invitation and account setup. For a public website, add a website or URI test and provide its name, address, protocol, test locations, and interval. Optional settings include request headers, checks for specific response text, and SSL/TLS certificate monitoring. Results can then be reviewed in the Entity Explorer, area overviews, and custom dashboards.
Illustrative example, not a case study: a team could check its storefront from selected locations, verify that a response includes an expected phrase, and watch the certificate's expiry. Those checks can identify an availability or response problem, but cannot by themselves explain an internal database or code failure.
Add internal telemetry when the external signal is not enough
For application monitoring, the guide describes adding a service, selecting its language, creating or choosing an API token, and installing the corresponding library on the host. Self-managed hosts use the SolarWinds Observability Agent, while Kubernetes monitoring requires a Prometheus server and the SWO Kubernetes Collector. Once telemetry arrives, teams can inspect entities, correlate signals, and configure alerts. The monitoring path therefore depends on installing instrumentation or collectors in the systems being observed.
The pricing page separates application services, infrastructure nodes, log volume, database instances, synthetic checks, and real-user page views into monitored-unit measures. It lists paid plans and a 30-day trial; the resulting quote depends on the selected modules and volumes. SolarWinds also lists a separate Self-Hosted Observability offering, so this entry is specifically about its SaaS product.
Strengths
- Combines application, digital-experience, database, infrastructure, network, and log monitoring in one SaaS product.
- Application monitoring includes performance metrics and distributed traces, with code profiling and exception tracking described on the product page.
- Website checks can use test locations and intervals, optional response-text checks, and SSL/TLS certificate monitoring.
- A documented public REST API provides create, read, update, and delete operations through Swagger.
Watch out for
- Host monitoring requires the SolarWinds Observability Agent, while Kubernetes monitoring requires a Prometheus server and the SWO Kubernetes Collector.
Best for
- Operations teams that need hosted visibility across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid application and infrastructure environments.
- Teams combining external website availability checks with application traces and real-user monitoring.
- Organizations that want to review network, database, host, and application telemetry in one monitoring workspace.
Sources
- SaaS Observability & Monitoring Platform | SolarWinds (Oct 26, 2026)
- SolarWinds Observability SaaS Getting Started Guide (Oct 26, 2026)
- SolarWinds Observability SaaS Pricing | SolarWinds (Oct 26, 2026)
- SolarWinds Observability | Public API (Oct 26, 2026)