Solarwinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) is the enterprise infrastructure-monitoring incumbent in network operations. It does SSL/TLS certificate monitoring as one feature among hundreds — alongside server health, application performance, virtualisation, log management, and more. Pricing starts around $1,800/year for the base SAM tier and scales up rapidly with node count.
Trace Warrior's SSL/TLS expiry monitor is the opposite shape: one product, five monitor types, free for the first 3 monitors and from $9/month if you need more. If certificate monitoring is the actual problem you're trying to solve, paying for SAM to get it is like buying a kitchen to get a kettle.
Where Solarwinds SAM wins
The infrastructure-monitoring backbone. If you already need server, network, application, virtualisation and log monitoring in one suite — and especially if you need it deployed on-premises or in your own private cloud — SAM is a serious tool that does serious work. Cert monitoring is then a useful add-on rather than the main event.
Deep integration with everything else Solarwinds. NPM, NCM, AppOptics, Loggly, the whole Solarwinds ecosystem. If you're already running that stack, SAM cert monitoring slots in without adding a vendor.
Compliance-friendly on-prem deployment. Many regulated industries (finance, healthcare, defence) need monitoring tools to live inside their own network. Solarwinds installs on Windows Server in your data centre. Trace Warrior is SaaS.
Long-lived certs and complex chains. SAM gives you visibility into the full chain, intermediate cert health, and revocation status — useful when you're operating your own enterprise PKI in addition to public certs.
Where Trace Warrior wins
Time-to-first-alert is minutes, not days. Add a hostname in our dashboard. That's it. No agent install, no Windows Server licence, no SAM polling-interval tuning. Most teams set up their first SSL monitor in under 60 seconds.
Price. Free for 3 monitors. $9/month for 15 monitors on Starter, $29/month for 50 on Professional, $99/month for unlimited on Enterprise. SAM's smallest tier is roughly two orders of magnitude more expensive at the budget that gets you cert monitoring.
Built for the cert-shrinking reality. By 2029 public TLS certs will expire every 47 days under the CA/Browser Forum's SC-081v3 schedule. The tools that win in that world will be the ones built for high-frequency rotation, not the ones bolted on as a side feature. Trace Warrior was designed for it.
Webhook alerts to anywhere. Slack, Discord, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, your own endpoint. Solarwinds alert routing exists but is heavier-weight to configure.
When to pick which
Pick Solarwinds SAM if:
- You already use Solarwinds or another enterprise infrastructure-monitoring suite
- You need monitoring deployed on-premises for compliance reasons
- Cert monitoring is one item on a list of 50 other things you need monitored
- Your annual monitoring budget is north of $10,000
Pick Trace Warrior if:
- You need cert monitoring as a primary use-case, not a side feature
- You want time-to-first-alert measured in minutes
- Your team is mid-market or smaller, or you're a sysadmin wanting cover for your personal portfolio
- You want a tool that's built specifically for the 47-day cert reality coming in 2029
Try the monitor
SSL/TLS Certificate Expiry Monitor — Trace Warrior's SSL monitor with email + webhook alerts. 3 monitors free forever; paid plans from $9/month with a 14-day free trial.
Or test on-demand with the free SSL Certificate Checker.