SolarWinds has hiked renewal prices by 300%: Switch to ManageEngine, the affordable alternative

The timeline of the shift in SolarWinds licensing

According to several trusted sources and conversations in THWACK, here's what the road ahead looks like:

• 2022–2024: SolarWinds began offering subscription licensing alongside perpetual options for select modules.
• April 16, 2025: After the Turn/River acquisition, market commentary cited renewal fees rising by up to 300% and perpetual customers being steered toward multi-year subscriptions.
• Post acquisition in April: New product documentation—especially for observability and modules originally sold under the Orion Platform label—emphasizes subscription-only structures and indicates that perpetual licensing options are being deprecated.

The result? Subscription licensing has become the default standard regardless of your legacy architecture or purchase history.

How will this impact your IT operations and IT budget?

SolarWinds' decision to move from perpetual to subscription-based licensing is not a simple billing change. It affects how you plan infrastructure growth, handle renewals, and maintain operational continuity.

1. Migration risk for current perpetual license holders:

Once maintenance support ends for current perpetual customers, your organization will be left with two difficult options:

• Upgrade to HCO: HCO is where legacy Orion modules (NPM, SAM, NCM, NTA, and IPAM) are now bundled into tiered packages with no standalone flexibility. Each tier combines multiple modules, forcing license decisions at the tier level rather than by individual module.This limits control for teams that only need one module.
• Remain on unsupported Orion: You can continue using your perpetually licensed Orion modules, accepting that no patches or vendor support are available after maintenance ends. This significantly increases risk, especially for regulated or security-sensitive environments.

Either way, you're rebuilding on someone else’s terms.

2. New licensing rules make license consumption unpredictable

Recent SolarWinds licensing rule changes —such as upgrades to SolarWinds Platform 2025.1— have caused unexpected license consumption increases in license consumption, even for existing workloads:

• Actions like enabling WMI, User Device Tracking (UDT) or QoE can trigger multiple extra node or element charges.
• SolarWinds documentation tates that these changes can prevent admins from adding new nodes mid-renewal because license thresholds are abruptly exceeded.

3. Upcoming renewals or planned expansions can cause budget overruns

Hardware refreshes or cloud scale-ups can unexpectedly bump you into higher subscription tiers. During scaling transitions or feature adoption, untracked usage can put teams at risk of billing disputes or license noncompliance.

• Cost implications of scaling: The shift to subscription licensing comes with opaque thresholds for nodes and elements. With point products now bundled, moving to a higher tier can increase subscription fees by 50% to 100%. For example, adding just 50 extra nodes could push your environment from one tier to the next, resulting in thousands of dollars in additional costs.
• Renewal surprises: For perpetual and new customers who were initially offered heavy discounts on the subscription licenses, renewal billing could come as a shock. Non-discounted renewal charges combined with untracked usage can lead to budget overruns and compliance risks.

How ManageEngine is a better, more affordable alternative

1. Customer-first, not investor-first

ManageEngine is a privately held company that operates without venture capital or public market obligations. This independence allows us to make long-term product and pricing decisions without pressure from external shareholders.

This structure contrasts with vendors such as Passler PRTG or SolarWinds, where pressure for quarterly earnings often drives abrupt pricing changes and roadmap decisions.

2. Flexible licensing: Perpetual, subscription, and hybrid

ManageEngine continues to offer perpetual and subscription licensing options. This flexibility allows organizations to align purchases with either CapEx or OpEx strategies.

For example, OpManager explicitly supports both perpetual and subscription licensing models. Customers may also engage with sales representatives to configure hybrid arrangements, mixing license types across modules or environments.

3. Modular pricing and not forced bundling

Unlike vendors who lock critical capabilities behind expensive pricing tiers, ManageEngine OpManager offers a simple, user-friendly licensing model.

The tool serves as a foundation for unified observability through integrated network performance monitoring . From here, users can enhance capabilities through plug and play addons for application performance monitoring, bandwidth monitoring, configuration management, and firewall log analyzer — each licensed separately and also available as a standalone solutions.

This approach ensures you pay only for what you deploy, avoiding cost inflation caused by forced bundling.

Similarly, our cloud offering, Site24x7, follows the same philosophy. Its website monitoring, application performance management, and infrastructure monitoring capabilities are modular, allowing customers to subscribe only to the features they need.

Let's ensure observability without instability

SolarWinds’ subscription mandate is more than a licensing shift. It erodes ownership, increases audit risk, and centralizes power in vendor hands. You don’t have to accept that alternative.

ManageEngine full-stack observability backed by modular control, predictable licensing, and no forced roadmap shifts.

Don’t rebuild your monitoring stack under someone else’s roadmap.
Build it your way, with a partner who still gives you a choice. Try ManageEngine today!

The information in this blog is based on verified online sources and community discussions available at the time of publishing. For any discrepancies or clarifications, please reach out to us directly.