Best SolarWinds DPA Alternatives

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) analyses database performance by wait time: it samples what each session is waiting on and attributes response time to SQL statements, waits, programs and users, with anomaly detection and query and index advice. SolarWinds' documentation lists self-managed Oracle, SQL Server, Db2, SAP ASE, MySQL, Percona MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, EDB Postgres and SAP HANA, plus Amazon RDS and Aurora, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure Database for PostgreSQL and Google Cloud SQL. It is self-hosted and agentless. The current release is DPA 2026.2 (30 June 2026), which added SAP HANA monitoring.

Reasons teams look elsewhere. The licensing, coverage and ownership facts come from SolarWinds' documentation and filings; the rest is our editorial reading, not survey data.

• Licensing cost and model. Since DPA 2024.4, new licences are subscription-based Database Self Hosted (DBSH and DBSHDS) licences per monitored instance, replacing the older Category 1 and Category 2 licences. Prices are by quote. Renewal under the new model is a common moment to compare alternatives.
• SaaS versus self-hosting. DPA runs on a server you manage, with its own repository. Teams moving monitoring to SaaS look at observability platforms; SolarWinds' own SaaS route is SolarWinds Observability rather than DPA.
• Engine coverage. DPA is strong on relational engines, but its supported list does not include MongoDB or Redis, and its self-managed SQL Server support in the current release is SQL Server 2022 and 2025. Teams with older SQL Server versions or NoSQL stores need something else for part of the estate.
• Vendor change. SolarWinds was acquired by Turn/River Capital, completing on 16 April 2025, and is now privately held. Some buyers review long-term vendor risk after an ownership change.

Every tool on this page builds on wait data the engine already exposes. On PostgreSQL, sampling pg_stat_activity shows what active sessions are waiting on right now:

-- PostgreSQL: current waits of active sessions
SELECT wait_event_type, wait_event, count(*) AS sessions
FROM pg_stat_activity
WHERE state = 'active' AND wait_event IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY wait_event_type, wait_event
ORDER BY sessions DESC;

-- MySQL 8.0 and later: cumulative waits since server start
SELECT EVENT_NAME, COUNT_STAR, SUM_TIMER_WAIT
FROM performance_schema.events_waits_summary_global_by_event_name
WHERE COUNT_STAR > 0
ORDER BY SUM_TIMER_WAIT DESC
LIMIT 10;

The SQL Server equivalent is sys.dm_os_wait_stats. What the tools add is regular sampling, history, attribution of waits to individual statements, and alerting. For head-to-head pages, see Redgate Monitor vs SolarWinds DPA, Datadog vs SolarWinds DPA and SQL Sentry vs SolarWinds DPA. If your estate is SQL Server only, the SQL Sentry alternatives guide goes deeper on that engine.

Quick picks

How we chose

We considered Redgate Monitor, Quest Foglight for Databases and Foglight Cloud, Datadog Database Monitoring, New Relic, SolarWinds Observability, Percona Monitoring and Management, Amazon CloudWatch Database Insights, Idera SQL Diagnostic Manager and SolarWinds SQL Sentry. To be included, a product had to analyse query-level performance on at least three database engines (or, for a cloud-native service, across that cloud's managed engines), be sold or actively developed in October 2026, and document supported engines and deployment on an official page.

SQL Server-only tools (SQL Sentry, Idera SQL Diagnostic Manager, Quest Spotlight) are covered in the best SQL Server monitoring tools and the SQL Sentry alternatives guide. Prometheus exporters with Grafana can also monitor several engines, but they collect metrics rather than per-statement wait analysis; see the open source monitoring tools guide.

The order is not a ranking: dedicated database monitors first, then observability platforms, then open source and cloud-native options. Where a price is quoted it is one dated example from the vendor's own page.

At a glance

When to stay with DPA

Stay with DPA if you need wait-time analysis across engines that few alternatives cover, especially Db2, SAP ASE and SAP HANA alongside Oracle and SQL Server, and you are content to self-host. DPA's 2026 releases added database discovery, SAP HANA monitoring and AI Query Assist for PostgreSQL and MySQL, so the product is being developed. The DBSH licence can also be used in SQL Sentry, so a SQL Server-heavy estate can mix the two products under one key.

Switch when a specific constraint applies: you want SaaS (Redgate Monitor SaaS, Datadog, New Relic, Foglight Cloud, or SolarWinds Observability if you prefer the same vendor), you need MongoDB or Redis covered (Redgate Monitor, Foglight, Datadog, PMM), you run older SQL Server versions outside DPA's current support list (Redgate Monitor, SQL Sentry), or your databases are all on RDS and Aurora (CloudWatch Database Insights). Run the alternative in parallel through at least one real incident before cancelling.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
• Database instances DPA can monitor
• DPA license types
• DPA 2026.2 release notes
• SolarWinds to be acquired by Turn/River Capital (press release)
• SolarWinds: completion of Turn/River acquisition (SEC filing)
• SolarWinds Observability database monitoring
• SolarWinds Observability pricing
• Redgate Monitor
• Quest Foglight
• Foglight for Databases 8.2.0 release notes
• Datadog Database Monitoring documentation
• Datadog pricing list
• New Relic query performance monitoring
• New Relic pricing
• Percona Monitoring and Management documentation
• PMM repository and licences
• Amazon CloudWatch Database Insights
• PostgreSQL: pg_stat_activity and wait events
• MySQL: wait event summary tables

Checked October 2026.

How we research these guides: our editorial method.