SQL Sentry vs SolarWinds DPA

Quick verdict

SolarWinds sells two database performance products side by side, and they overlap on SQL Server. SolarWinds itself has been privately held since April 2025, when Turn/River Capital completed its acquisition of the company; it continues to operate under the SolarWinds name.

SQL Sentry (SolarWinds SQL Sentry, originally a SentryOne product) monitors the Microsoft data platform. Version 2026.3 (1 September 2026) supports SQL Server 2017 to 2025, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, Amazon RDS for SQL Server, SQL Server Analysis Services 2017 to 2025, Windows Server hosts and VMware or Hyper-V hosts. It comes with Plan Explorer, which SolarWinds also offers as a free standalone tool.

Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) is SolarWinds' cross-engine tool built around wait-time analysis; the documentation's current release is 2026.2. It monitors Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, Percona, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, EDB Postgres, IBM Db2, SAP ASE and SAP HANA, both self-managed and as managed services on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.

Side by side

Key differences

How SolarWinds positions each product

SolarWinds presents SQL Sentry as a SQL Server performance monitoring product: its product page lists a performance analysis dashboard, Top SQL, index analysis, deadlock and blocking analysis, TempDB analysis, an event calendar with event chains, storage forecasting, Always On availability group monitoring and SSAS monitoring. DPA is presented as cross-platform database performance analysis, built on wait-time analytics and machine-learning anomaly detection, with table tuning advisors and AI Query Assist.

In practice the split is depth against breadth. SQL Sentry knows more about SQL Server and the Windows and virtualisation layers around it. DPA applies one method, sampling what every session is waiting on, to many engines, which makes it the SolarWinds choice for Oracle, Db2, SAP and open source databases.

SQL Server specifics

• Waits. DPA records the wait type of every active session every second and charts total wait time per query; that is its core view. SQL Sentry shows waits on its dashboard and, since 2026.3, lets you filter which waits are collected.
• Top queries and plans. SQL Sentry's Top SQL captures completed batches, procedures and statements above thresholds (default minimum duration five seconds) and keeps a chronology of plan changes that opens in Plan Explorer. DPA ranks queries by wait time and collects plans as part of its analysis.
• Blocking and deadlocks. Both cover them. SQL Sentry has dedicated Blocking SQL and Deadlocks views; DPA shows blocking sessions and SQL Server deadlock details with victims, survivors, locked resources and victim impact.
• Query Store. We did not find Query Store integration documented for either product; both rely on their own collection.
• Availability groups. SQL Sentry has an AlwaysOn view with alerting. DPA shows AG status and annotations and alerts on failover and status change, but not for distributed AGs.
• Beyond the engine. Only SQL Sentry covers SSAS, SQL Server Agent job scheduling through the Event Calendar, and Windows, VMware and Hyper-V hosts.

Both tools turn snapshots like the one below into history. This T-SQL lists the cached query plans with the highest total elapsed time since they entered the plan cache (times are in microseconds, and the figures disappear when a plan leaves the cache, which is one reason monitoring tools store them):

-- T-SQL (SQL Server, Azure SQL)
SELECT TOP (10)
       qs.execution_count,
       qs.total_elapsed_time / qs.execution_count AS avg_elapsed_us,
       qs.total_worker_time AS total_cpu_us,
       qs.total_logical_reads,
       t.text AS sql_text
FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats AS qs
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(qs.sql_handle) AS t
ORDER BY qs.total_elapsed_time DESC;

For background, see our performance tuning lesson, indexes lesson and the error 1205 deadlock page.

Supported SQL Server versions

This can decide the choice on its own. SQL Sentry 2026.3 lists SQL Server 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2025. DPA's current supported-versions page lists self-managed SQL Server 2022 and 2025 only (on Windows and Linux), with SQL Server 2019 still listed for Amazon RDS. SolarWinds states that DPA drops support for a version once the database vendor does, although monitoring an unsupported version may still work without support. If you run SQL Server 2017 or 2019 on your own servers, SQL Sentry is the documented option of the two.

Architecture and retention

Both are self-hosted and agentless. SQL Sentry runs a monitoring service on Windows (SolarWinds says one service typically handles 50 to 100 targets, and you add services to scale), stores data in a SQL Server 2017 or later database, and offers a Windows client plus a web Portal. DPA is one server application on Windows Server 2022 or 2025 or on Linux, with a repository on SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL or Azure SQL Database. SolarWinds says DPA adds less than 1% overhead to the monitored instance, which is the vendor's figure. DPA Central links several DPA servers.

Default retention differs. SQL Sentry keeps Top SQL, Blocking SQL and deadlock history for 15 days, event history for 30 days, and dashboard metrics at full detail for 3 days before rolling them up, down to daily values kept for a year and coarser intervals kept for up to three years. DPA keeps per-second data for 30 days, hourly summaries for 90 days and daily summaries for five years.

Neither product is SaaS. SolarWinds' SaaS option for databases is SolarWinds Observability SaaS, whose database monitoring covers SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, MongoDB, Redis and others; it is a separate product and is compared with Datadog on Datadog vs SolarWinds DPA.

Alerting

SQL Sentry uses Conditions (including customisable Advisory Conditions) with Actions such as sending email, running a SQL Server Agent job, sending an SNMP trap or writing to the Windows Event Log, and Response Rulesets to control how often an action fires. DPA has wait time, resource, administrative and custom alerts, with email templates, SNMP traps and Platform Connect for ServiceNow and PagerDuty.

Pricing and licensing

Shared licence. SolarWinds' Database Self-Hosted (DBSH) and Database Self-Hosted DBaaS (DBSHDS) licence types are subscription only and, per the DBSH documentation, can be used with either DPA or SQL Sentry. SQL Sentry adopted DBSH in version 2024.4, and DPA in 2024.4 as well. DBSHDS covers database services such as Azure SQL Database.

SQL Sentry. Licensed per monitored target (SQL Server instance, SSAS instance or Azure SQL database). The Portal, clients and monitoring services need no extra licence; the instance that hosts the SQL Sentry database can be monitored with a free licence; and each licence lets you watch three Windows, VMware or Hyper-V hosts. A 14-day trial is available.

DPA. Licensed per monitored database instance. Perpetual licences with annual maintenance were sold for earlier DPA versions, and Category 1 and Category 2 licences appear in the documentation as legacy types. A 14-day trial is available.

SolarWinds does not publish prices for either product; both are quote-based.

Pricing checked on the vendors' official pages on 7 October 2026. Prices change; confirm before buying.

Where each one leads

Limitations

When to choose each

When neither is right

• You want SaaS: SolarWinds Observability SaaS, or an observability platform such as Datadog; see Datadog vs SolarWinds DPA and database monitoring vs APM.
• You want a non-SolarWinds estate monitor for SQL Server plus PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle and MongoDB: see Redgate Monitor vs SQL Sentry and Redgate Monitor vs SolarWinds DPA.
• A few instances and no budget: Query Store, Extended Events and the DMVs in SSMS are free. See the best SQL Server monitoring tools.

Final recommendation

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• SolarWinds SQL Sentry product page
• SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer product page
• SQL Sentry 2026.3 system requirements
• SQL Sentry components and architecture
• SQL Sentry license management
• SQL Sentry 2026.3 release notes
• SQL Sentry Top SQL
• DPA: database instances DPA can monitor
• DPA architecture
• DPA 2026.2 system requirements
• DPA license types
• Database Self-Hosted (DBSH) administrator guide
• DPA: monitoring SQL Server Availability Groups
• SolarWinds Observability: database monitoring
• SolarWinds press release: Turn/River completes acquisition of SolarWinds
• Microsoft Learn: sys.dm_exec_query_stats

Checked October 2026.

How we research comparisons: our editorial method.