AssetSonar vs SolarWinds

SolarWinds is built around the help desk and service desk, with assets tracked as a supporting record. AssetSonar starts from the assets. It keeps a single IT asset management record for hardware, software, contracts, and licenses, and runs native ITSM on top of it. Tickets show the linked device, user, license, and contract records where they exist. AssetSonar fits mid-market IT teams where asset, contract, and license records matter as much as the ticket.

A move starts with your SolarWinds export. SolarWinds Web Help Desk exports assets to TSV or Excel and tickets to TSV, and SolarWinds Service Desk produces scheduled CSV backups. AssetSonar imports asset data as CSV or Excel, maps columns to its fields, and supports custom fields. The AssetSonar agent then deploys through a supported MDM. Because most risk lies in mapping, cleanup, and cutover timing, a dedicated CSM coordinates the plan, and typical ITAM onboarding wraps up within 14 days.

Both SolarWinds products include IT asset tracking, but in SolarWinds Service Desk, contracts, license compliance, and network discovery start at the Advanced plan, and asset management is priced separately. AssetSonar ITAM includes agent and network discovery, custody verification, contracts and renewals, and depreciation on one IT Graph. The Advanced SAM add-on adds license compliance and reclamation, so ownership, contract, and license data stay linked to the same asset record.

AssetSonar is priced per managed asset per year, and the ITSM plan includes unlimited technicians, so adding people to the IT team does not raise the bill. Teams choose ITAM or ITSM, which includes ITAM, and can add Advanced SAM to either. Both SolarWinds products are priced per technician on annual subscriptions, and SolarWinds Service Desk quotes IT asset management separately by network-capable device count.

Yes. The AssetSonar ITSM plan includes incident, request, problem, and change management with CAB approvals, SLAs, a knowledge base, a service catalog, and a self-service portal. Tickets run on the IT Graph, so technicians see the requester’s devices, software, and lifecycle status inside the ticket. Teams that keep tickets in Jira or Zendesk can connect AssetSonar through service desk integrations instead.

AssetSonar is hosted on AWS, and customer data sits in an AWS US region by default. Hosting in the EU, UK, Canada, or Australia is available on request through support, and backups stay in the chosen jurisdiction. EZO maintains SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, ISO 27001 certification, and a CSA STAR Level 1 listing. The EZO security page lists further details.

SolarWinds Service Desk includes a CMDB on every tier, with visual CMDB and dependency mapping in Premier. A CMDB is not part of SolarWinds Web Help Desk’s documented feature set. AssetSonar’s CMDB is powered by the IT Graph on the ITSM plan, with more than 30 relationship types and a visual graph. A CMDB maps service dependencies, while asset management tracks ownership and cost. In AssetSonar, configuration items link to the same ownership, contract, and lifecycle records as the asset.

SolarWinds Service Desk offers offboarding checklists, with Entra ID account actions in early-access Labs on its Advanced and Premier plans. Offboarding is not part of SolarWinds Web Help Desk’s documented feature set. AssetSonar runs employee offboarding in the Offboarding Center. A directory change or request form starts the workflow, and the offboarding ticket pulls the departing employee’s devices and licenses from the asset and employee records for recovery and reassignment.