SolarWinds
SolarWinds provides AI-powered hybrid IT observability, database performance management, ITSM, and incident response software across SaaS and self-hosted deployments, serving over 300,000 customers including 84% of Fortune 500 companies, federal agencies, and public sector organizations through a channel-first go-to-market.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded1999
- HeadquartersAustin, United States
- Headcount1,001–5,000
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What SolarWinds does
SolarWinds provides information technology and management software focused on hybrid IT observability, database performance, IT service management, and incident response. The company was founded in 1999, is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and was taken private by Turn/River Capital in April 2025 for approximately $4.4 billion after previously trading on the NYSE. SolarWinds serves over 300,000 customers globally, including 84% of Fortune 500 companies, with named enterprise references spanning Amazon, McDonald's, CVS Health, Morgan Stanley, Walmart, and Pine Labs. Its core platform is SolarWinds Observability, offered as both a SaaS and self-hosted deployment, complemented by an extensive module portfolio including Network Performance Monitor, Server Application Monitor, Database Performance Analyzer, SQL Sentry, Security Event Manager, NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, Virtualization Manager, IP Address Manager, Access Rights Manager, SolarWinds Service Desk, Web Help Desk, Dameware, Kiwi Syslog, Serv-U Managed File Transfer, and Squadcast (incident response, acquired 2025).
The underlying technology is a hybrid IT observability and IT service management platform built on AI-powered, cloud-native architecture supporting both SaaS and self-hosted deployment. Differentiated features include the SW1 agentic AI teammate (launched April 2026), ML-driven alerting and root-cause analysis, OpenTelemetry-compatible telemetry ingestion, AIOps capabilities, generative AI powered by Anthropic Claude via Amazon Bedrock, and integrations across AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQL Server. The company maintains a 200,000+ member THWACK user community as a peer knowledge and feedback channel.
SolarWinds generates revenue primarily through subscription-based software licenses (SaaS and self-hosted), annual maintenance and support contracts, and professional services. It transitioned from perpetual licenses to subscription pricing following the 2025 PE acquisition. The go-to-market is channel-first, operating a tiered reseller partner program with a dedicated distributor (Carahsoft) for the federal/public sector, supplemented by direct enterprise field sales and regional partners (including ATS Network Management for Africa). Customer segments are enterprise-led (primary), with secondary focus on SMB, public sector/government, education, DBAs, and DevOps/SecOps personas. The company maintains compliance certifications including SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, and CCPA.
SolarWinds firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- SolarWinds
- Legal name
- SolarWinds Corporation US, SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC, SolarWinds Software Europe DAC
- Website
- https://solarwinds.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 1999
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1,001–5,000 employees
- Short description
- SolarWinds provides AI-powered hybrid IT observability, database performance management, ITSM, and incident response software across SaaS and self-hosted deployments, serving over 300,000 customers including 84% of Fortune 500 companies, federal agencies, and public sector organizations through a channel-first go-to-market.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Where SolarWinds is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Austin
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices8 records
Markets served
SolarWinds business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Subscription-based Software Licenses: SolarWinds generates primary revenue through subscription-based software licenses for its observability and ITSM platforms, offered as both SaaS and self-hosted options. The company transitioned from perpetual licenses to AI-driven cloud-native subscription services following its acquisition by Turn/River Capital in 2025.
- Maintenance and Support Services: Annual maintenance and support contracts providing technical support, documentation, training, and access to updates. Includes Premium Support offerings for enhanced support tiers.
- Professional Services: Deployment services and professional services for implementation, configuration, and optimization of SolarWinds products, including federal deployment services through the Monalytic acquisition.
- Per-Server Licensing: Managed File Transfer (Serv-U) products offer per-server and consumption-based pricing models for predictable and high-volume data transfer deployments.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Annual | SolarWinds Observability SaaS - Cloud-based subscription with AI-powered hybrid IT monitoring |
| Subscription | Annual | SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted - On-premises hybrid deployment option |
| Subscription | Annual | Serv-U Managed File Transfer - Per-server and consumption-based pricing |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels6 records
Marketing channels8 records
SolarWinds product offering
Product offeringCore offering
SolarWinds provides AI-powered IT management software for hybrid IT environments, offering observability, database performance, IT service management, and security solutions. The portfolio includes self-hosted and SaaS deployment options covering network monitoring, infrastructure management, application performance, database performance, ITSM, and security event management for over 300,000 customers worldwide, including 84% of Fortune 500 companies.
Product overview
SolarWinds offers a comprehensive IT management portfolio built as a platform-plus-modules architecture. The core SolarWinds Observability platform (available as Self-Hosted or SaaS) provides unified monitoring across hybrid, multi-cloud, and on-premises environments with AI-powered capabilities. Database management is addressed through Database Performance Analyzer and SQL Sentry. Security capabilities center on Security Event Manager (SIEM), complemented by network tools including Network Performance Monitor, NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, Network Configuration Manager, IP Address Manager, Access Rights Manager, and Virtualization Manager. IT Service Management is delivered through SolarWinds Service Desk and Web Help Desk, with Squadcast providing incident response capabilities. Additional tools include Dameware (remote access), Kiwi Syslog Server (log management), Network Topology Mapper, Engineer's Toolset, and Serv-U Managed File Transfer. The platform is enhanced by SW1, an agentic AI teammate for autonomous IT operations.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Squadcast: Incident response platform by SolarWinds that helps teams drive operational resilience.
- SW1
- THWACK
Products and services
- SolarWinds Observability AI-powered observability platform providing real-time application performance monitoring and end-to-end visibility across hybrid, multi-cloud, on-premises, and cloud-native environments. Offers unified monitoring with AI-assisted remediation, root cause analysis, and system management.
- SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted Self-hosted deployment option for organizations requiring on-premises control. Observe on-prem, hybrid, and cloud-native IT ecosystems with full-stack visibility built to scale with emerging requirements.
- SolarWinds Observability SaaS Cloud-based SaaS deployment providing flexible, scalable observability without infrastructure management. Offers unified monitoring and observability with greater flexibility, scalability, and value.
- Network Performance Monitor Network monitoring solution for discovering, mapping, and monitoring computer networks and components including routers, switches, servers, and firewalls.
- Server Application Monitor Application and server monitoring tool providing visibility into application performance, infrastructure health, and system resources.
- Database Performance Analyzer Database performance monitoring and optimization solution for cross-platform database management, providing root-cause analysis and multi-dimensional views for troubleshooting.
- SQL Sentry Database performance monitoring tool specialized for SQL Server environments, offering query-level profiling and operation accuracy for database diagnostics.
- Security Event Manager Security information and event management (SIEM) software designed to help organizations monitor and respond to security incidents through log analysis, compliance reporting, and automated threat response.
- SolarWinds Service Desk IT service management (ITSM) solution providing service management, asset management, CMDB, reporting, and enterprise service management features with AI-driven automation.
- Web Help Desk IT help desk and ticketing software solution for managing IT service requests, asset tracking, and customer support workflows.
- SolarWinds Incident Response Incident response solution enabling teams to build operational resilience and keep systems online through event correlation and on-call management.
- Serv-U Managed File Transfer Managed file transfer (MFT) server solution for secure file transfers, automation capabilities, and compliance support for enterprise file exchanges. Offered with per-server and consumption-based pricing.
- SW1 Agentic AI Teammate An agentic AI teammate built on the SolarWinds Agentic Framework and 'AI by Design' principles, enabling natural language queries for unified insights into system performance, capacity, and health. Includes autonomous issue resolution, proactive SLO/SLA risk prediction, and automated asset discovery capabilities.
Quantifiable outcome
- Pine Labs eliminated tool sprawl and is on track to reduce mean time to resolution by 60-70%
- +6 more outcomes
Companies that use SolarWinds
Customer profileNamed customers6 records
Segments6 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
SolarWinds technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration7 records
AI capability8 records
Feature6 records
SolarWinds partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Seven partnerships are on record, tiered major and core.
- ATS Network ManagementmajorATS Network Management partnered with SolarWinds to showcase SW1, SolarWinds' new agentic AI teammate for IT observability, at events in Kenya: the ATS Network Management SolarWinds World Tour in Nairobi and GITEX Kenya. Over 100 partners registered for the Nairobi partner event.
- Carahsoft Technology Corp.coreCarahsoft was named SolarWinds' 2025 Distributor Partner of the Year at the 2026 Partner Summit, recognizing its role in supporting SolarWinds' transition to a subscription-based model and driving revenue growth especially within the public sector.
- ATS Network ManagementmajorATS Network Management received the EMEA Partner Award for Excellence in Marketing at the 2026 SolarWinds Partner Summit for building a structured, partner-led SolarWinds ecosystem across Africa through its Africare Program enabling trusted channel partners across more than 25 African countries.
- SterlingmajorSolarWinds was named Sterling's Software Partner of the Year at the 2025 Sterling Technology Summit, recognizing the partnership built on collaboration, trust, and joint focus on helping customers operate efficiently in complex IT environments.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)coreSolarWinds announced expanded collaboration with AWS through new integrations with Amazon Bedrock, using the service to power generative AI capabilities within its platform and Service Desk products. The company updated its observability SaaS to monitor Amazon Bedrock workloads as first-class resources, leveraging Anthropic's Claude models.
- SquadcastcoreSolarWinds acquired Squadcast to improve its analytical and generative AI capabilities, enhancing the platform's incident response and observability features with advanced AI-powered automation.
- MonalyticcoreSolarWinds acquired Monalytic, a monitoring, analytics, and professional services company, to improve support for federal customers and enhance secure IT environments. The acquisition integrates Monalytic's expertise with SolarWinds' products to provide 24/7 support and streamlined procurement options, including a Monalytic Federal Deployment Addendum.
Scale indicators7 records
Recent moves7 records
Expansion highlights6 records
SolarWinds competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Datadog: Datadog is a leading cloud-native monitoring and observability platform offering APM, infrastructure monitoring, log management, and AIOps, directly competing with SolarWinds Observability SaaS for enterprise and mid-market hybrid cloud workloads.
- Dynatrace: Dynatrace provides an AI-powered observability and security platform with automated root-cause analysis, competing head-to-head with SolarWinds Observability and SW1 in the enterprise APM and AIOps market.
- New Relic: New Relic offers an all-in-one observability platform covering APM, infrastructure, logs, and AI monitoring, directly competing with SolarWinds Observability SaaS for developer and enterprise hybrid cloud use cases.
- Splunk (Cisco): Splunk, now owned by Cisco, provides log analytics, observability, and security information management that competes with SolarWinds Observability and Security Event Manager across enterprise and federal markets.
- ManageEngine (Zoho): ManageEngine offers a broad suite of IT management products including network, server, application, and ITSM tools, directly competing with SolarWinds' on-prem IT management portfolio across enterprise and SMB segments.
Broad incumbents
- ServiceNow: ServiceNow is a leading enterprise ITSM and workflow platform that competes with SolarWinds Service Desk and Web Help Desk, while also expanding into observability, security operations, and AIOps adjacent to SolarWinds' portfolio.
- Cisco (AppDynamics, ThousandEyes): Cisco's AppDynamics (APM) and ThousandEyes (network observability) compete with SolarWinds Observability for enterprise APM and network performance monitoring, particularly within Cisco-led full-stack deals.
- IBM (Instana, Turbonomic): IBM Instana offers automated observability and APM for cloud-native and hybrid environments, and IBM Turbonomic handles application resource optimization, both competing with SolarWinds Observability and database performance tools in large enterprise deals.
Emerging players
- PagerDuty: PagerDuty is a digital operations management and incident response platform competing with SolarWinds Incident Response and Squadcast for real-time alerting, on-call management, and AIOps-driven remediation.
- Sumo Logic: Sumo Logic provides cloud-native log management, observability, and security analytics, competing with SolarWinds Observability and Security Event Manager for SaaS-first log analytics and SIEM use cases.
Market position
Strengths3 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
SolarWinds social profiles
Digital presenceSolarWinds compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance4 records
SolarWinds financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
SolarWinds leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles8 records
SolarWinds subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries2 records
SolarWinds funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds6 records
Investors9 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
SolarWinds M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A25 records
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about SolarWinds
What does SolarWinds do?
SolarWinds provides AI-powered IT management software for hybrid IT environments, offering observability, database performance, IT service management, and security solutions. The portfolio includes self-hosted and SaaS deployment options covering network monitoring, infrastructure management, application performance, database performance, ITSM, and security event management for over 300,000 customers worldwide, including 84% of Fortune 500 companies.
Is SolarWinds a public or private company?
SolarWinds is a private company. It is classified as private equity controlled and is currently operating.
When was SolarWinds founded?
SolarWinds was founded in 1999. It employs 1,001 to 5,000 people.
Where is SolarWinds based?
SolarWinds is headquartered in Austin, United States, in the North America region.
How does SolarWinds make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Subscription-based Software Licenses are the primary driver. The others are maintenance and Support Services, professional Services and per-Server Licensing.
Who are SolarWinds's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic, Splunk (Cisco) and ManageEngine (Zoho). Broad incumbents are ServiceNow, Cisco (AppDynamics, ThousandEyes) and IBM (Instana, Turbonomic). Emerging players are PagerDuty and Sumo Logic.
Does SolarWinds have an API?
Yes. SolarWinds exposes a public API.