We believe that our position as a Contender reflects steady momentum in the core elements of service management, with strength anchored in the operational context that has always defined the SolarWinds approach to ESM. Let’s take a closer look at what this acknowledgement means for us in the context of today’s IT landscape.
Enterprise Service Management in 2025
Enterprise service management has changed a lot in recent years. What started as applying IT service principles to other departments has evolved into a broader, more interconnected discipline. Teams now expect consistency across HR, Facilities, Finance, IT, and beyond. That’s why they need the systems behind those services to work together, share context, and help people move faster. Increasingly, ESM is also intersecting with observability, automation, and AI-driven insights. For many organizations, service delivery is no longer just a ticketing exercise; it’s part of how digital operations run reliably at scale.
Responding to Disruptions Before They Happen
As the market increasingly integrates ESM with operational intelligence, there is a renewed emphasis on the fundamentals that ensure services remain reliable: visibility, real-time insight, and the ability to detect and respond to disruptions before they affect employees. That foundation has long been central to our philosophy. The Forrester report notes that SolarWinds “excels in infrastructure monitoring, with real-time service disruption detection,” backed by “strong analytics and dashboards with 360-degree summary reports for service health.”
Many ESM platforms originated around workflow routing. SolarWinds comes from a different direction, building service management on top of a deep understanding of systems, performance, and the operational signals that drive reliability. As modern ESM shifts toward integrated operations and service experience, that DNA becomes a meaningful advantage.
What SolarWinds Delivers Today and Where We’re Going Next
Our approach remains measured and pragmatic: we build intelligence and automation that meaningfully reduce work for service teams and users, rather than introducing complexity for the sake of momentum. Recent platform updates, including generative AI and the forthcoming agentic AI assistant in SolarWinds® Service Desk, along with integration points with SolarWinds Observability, guided resolution, and automated summarization, reflect the same philosophy: focused improvements that support real teams doing real work.
Maximizing ESM Value Through Intuitive Design
According to Forrester’s evaluation, “Customers appreciate SolarWinds for its intuitive design, solid ticketing and asset management capabilities, and relatively good value for enterprises.”
Not every organization needs an over-engineered ecosystem to support its internal operations. Many want a platform that brings consistency and clarity across functions without introducing unnecessary friction or cost. Our goal is to offer an ESM that is powerful where it needs to be, straightforward where it should be, and affordable without sacrificing enterprise rigor. The report also notes areas where we intend to keep pushing, and we welcome that input. Customer feedback consistently shapes our roadmap, and the areas Forrester’s evaluation mentions align with ongoing work to streamline setup, strengthen automation, and make configuration even more accessible for admins and teams across the business.
Why Forrester Recognition Matters To Us Now
In its final summary of SolarWinds, Forrester’s take is: “For enterprises prioritizing deep infrastructure visibility and reporting, SolarWinds remains a solid fit.”
This captures a fundamental truth of where ESM is heading. Service experience and operational reliability are no longer separate ideas. As environments become more hybrid, distributed, and interdependent, teams need systems that bridge the gap between service workflows and the live state of the business. At SolarWinds, we are confident that we’re well-positioned to support this convergence, combining service delivery, observability, and context-driven automation to help teams resolve issues faster, avoid downtime, and deliver better employee experiences at scale.
Being one of fifteen vendors included in this report matters to us not because of rank but because we believe it confirms our continued relevance in a market experiencing rapid evolution. It shows us the strength of our foundation and reinforces our commitment to evolving in a way that prioritizes clarity, usability, and real value for the organizations we serve. We appreciate Forrester’s recognition, take their perspective seriously, and remain focused on building a service management experience grounded in operational truth, supported by thoughtful automation, and designed to make work simpler for the people who rely on it every day.
Read the full report: The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Service Management Platforms, Q4 2025
Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here.
