SolarWinds

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.

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

Headquarters

HQ city

Austin

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices8 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Professional Services: Deployment services and professional services for implementation, configuration, and optimization of SolarWinds products, including federal deployment services through the Monalytic acquisition.
4. 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

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels6 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core 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

Named customers6 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration7 records

AI capability8 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered major and core.

• ATS Network ManagementmajorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ Distributor · 1 May 2026ATS 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.coreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ Distributor · 1 April 2026Carahsoft 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 ManagementmajorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ Distributor · 1 April 2026ATS 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.
• SterlingmajorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ Distributor · 1 January 2026SolarWinds 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)coreTechnology or Integration · 1 December 2025SolarWinds 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.
• SquadcastcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2025SolarWinds acquired Squadcast to improve its analytical and generative AI capabilities, enhancing the platform's incident response and observability features with advanced AI-powered automation.
• MonalyticcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022SolarWinds 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

Direct 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

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/solarwinds
• Xx.com/solarwinds
• Facebookfacebook.com/SolarWinds

Compliance4 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles8 records

Subsidiaries2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds6 records

Investors9 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A25 records

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about SolarWinds