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Akamai mPulse vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Akamai mPulse
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
54th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk AppDynamics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
259
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Mobile APM (1st), Container Monitoring (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Akamai mPulse is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 3.7%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Splunk AppDynamics3.7%
Akamai mPulse0.7%
Other95.6%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Arivu Arumugam - PeerSpot reviewer
Staff Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Lacking in regard to observation of the entire platform but does dynamic injections from within
There is little that's unique about mPulse but since the solution is part of Akamai, you can do dynamic injections from within the product which is a great feature. the UI is quite good. It offers a basic set of features but nothing unique other than that as part of Akamai, you can do dynamic injections.
DK
Technology lead at Infosys
Has enabled us to detect issues instantly through alerts and monitor every service from a single dashboard
Splunk requires significantly more improvements compared to Splunk AppDynamics, specifically regarding the licensing aspect. Splunk renews licenses every six months, which is inconvenient. It would be better to have a one-year license to avoid needing to update keys constantly, which can only occur on weekends, making it a burdensome task. Although Splunk is better for certain use cases, Splunk AppDynamics is broader in functionality. Specifically, I want enhancements related to creating dashboards not only for logs or minor services but also for configuration levels, allowing us to check configurations immediately without manually opening the entire code when exceptions arise—a feature I wish to see improved in Splunk, although it may not be necessary for Splunk AppDynamics.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Enables dynamic injections from within the product which is great."
"The most valuable feature is the solutions overall performance. It is very efficient and accurate for our usage."
"You have a live view of what happens when something goes wrong on the production or support side. You don't have to scramble and do guesswork. We can identify the query that creates the bottleneck or slows the performance of the database system. It can give you points on how to debug and fix the system."
"The proactive monitoring from AppDynamics definitely helps."
"It is a wonderful monitoring tool that manages various aspects such as system resources (CPU, RAM), mobile performance, and infrastructure monitoring."
"Splunk AppDynamics' AI-powered anomaly detection and root cause analysis are very effective in diagnosing performance issues, allowing me to quickly identify blocking on the database, track slow SQL queries, and understand what is going on."
"AppDynamics is a good tool that offers excellent out-of-the-box dashboards and application topology."
"It provides a lot of data, so it helps businesses identify their user base."
"From the performance management side, I like everything from business transaction work to tracking. On the database side, we can get a lot of insights from the database. On the server monitoring side, it helped us a lot to find out some of the issues on the VM side because VMs were creating a little trouble for us."
"That visual representation’s been really good, also the overhead that AppDynamics creates is quite small. We've tried Dynatrace in the past. Some of the applications didn't work as well with Dynatrace."
 

Cons

"In the next release, I would like to see the possibility of sharing the metric from this solution with other solutions."
"The end-to-end distributor tracing connectivity isn't there."
"The solution needs to support IBM products."
"They need to improve the consolidation of agents for the agent's installation process."
"The product’s dashboard could be more easy to implement."
"The limitations are often due to the vendors not supplying all the profiling features to AppDynamics."
"If we consider the implementation of alternative solutions, such as Dynatrace, there is a notable difference in the approach to agent-based service monitoring. For instance, Dynatrace employs a single-agent solution, which can pose security concerns. When installing Dynatrace, granting the agent ld pro payload rights is a requirement. In contrast, our solution ensures a more secure approach by not requiring root and administration access. While we currently utilize an agent-based solution, there may be a shift in the next one or two years, possibly with the adoption of Open Telemetry. It's anticipated that many APM vendors, including Dynatrace, may alter their structure or strategy for implementation. However, as of now, the trend is towards an increasing number of implementations daily."
"The user access management could be a bit better."
"I would like to see more of a unified platform. They're very, very new on the server side, machine agents. I want them to be more mature in this area."
"In terms of improvements we would like to see, we want to understand what the battery consumption metrics are whenever a user is viewing. It would be really helpful for us if we could get those details levels."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We have a license-based solution. That means you need a license for each server you monitor."
"AppDynamics is one of the most expensive solutions on the market."
"You are required to purchase licenses whether you use it or not. It is not pay-as-you-use."
"There is a license for the solution and we paid approximately $2,000. There is also an additional cost above the standard license which cost us approximately $3,000."
"AppDynamics is priced on the higher side."
"The price of AppDynamics could be reduced in my region."
"Because it is priced per JVM, the price can increase pretty fast, into the millions. We have had challenges because we had to justify the price to our clients, as well, when we are putting in certain tools."
"AppDynamics is really pricey as it requires licenses for every feature."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business55
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise194
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AppDynamics?
I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten. The solution is highly expensive. Our company pays for the solution on a yearly basis, if we don't add new modules or features to the license, we need ...
 

Also Known As

SOASTA mPulse
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nordstrom, Gatwick, DirecTV, MSN, SquareSpace, SAP, Lenovo, Hallmark, myspace, Intuit, Kentucky Derby, Toys "R" Us, Netflix, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Lowe's, Nike, REI, Apple, Sears, Verizon, Wendy's, Huawei
Cisco, Sony, Nasdaq, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Edmunds.com, Puma, Fox News, DirecTV, Pizza Hut, T-Systems, Cornell University, OpenTable, BITMARCK, Green Mountain Power, Care.com, Overstock, Paddy Power, eHarmony, Kraft, The Motley Fool, The Container Store, and more See more customers
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai mPulse vs. Splunk AppDynamics and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.