Amazon CloudWatch vs Dynatrace comparison

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Amazon CloudWatch

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Dynatrace and Amazon CloudWatch are prominent in the application performance monitoring market. Dynatrace appears to have an upper hand due to its comprehensive monitoring capabilities and range of integrations, while Amazon CloudWatch's strength lies in its seamless integration with AWS services for AWS-based environments.

Features: Dynatrace is known for its automatic root cause analysis, extensive third-party integrations, and comprehensive monitoring features. Amazon CloudWatch stands out with its native compatibility with AWS services, scalability, and seamless AWS integration.

Room for Improvement: Dynatrace could improve its dashboard customization, simplify its toolset, and enhance user experience. Amazon CloudWatch could benefit from more intuitive metrics visualization, better alerting capabilities, and improved interface design.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dynatrace is favored for its straightforward deployment and proactive customer service. Amazon CloudWatch is well-aligned with AWS but can be complex for those unfamiliar with AWS, requiring better deployment guidance.

Pricing and ROI: Dynatrace is considered cost-effective due to its comprehensive features, offering good ROI. Amazon CloudWatch's pricing is based on AWS usage, leading to variable costs, yet its tight AWS integration offers value for users with extensive AWS infrastructures, indicating positive ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon CloudWatch vs. Dynatrace Report (Updated: December 2024).

Amazon CloudWatch vs. Dynatrace

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Categories and Ranking

Amazon CloudWatch

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

12th

Ranking in Log Management

12th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)

Dynatrace

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

2nd

Ranking in Log Management

4th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

344

Ranking in other categories

Mobile APM (1st), Container Monitoring (2nd), AIOps (2nd)

Featured Reviews

Rasanpreet Singh

Senior Consultant at Infosys

Reliable AWS monitoring and logging

The choice of logging solution should always be determined by the specific business requirements. It is crucial to align the logging strategy with what type of logs are needed and how they should be used. There are instances where we require custom solutions to retrieve logs, especially application logs that may not be easily accessible through CloudWatch or similar services. When we heavily rely on AWS native services, CloudWatch is indeed a robust choice. However, in certain scenarios, we might need integration capabilities with other tools, and if they can incorporate such features, it would enhance overall logging capabilities. I would rate it eight out of ten.

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Sathis-Kumar

Senior Manager at Bank of America

The single-agent format is easy to use and accurately captures issues

We are currently migrating from AppDynamics to the solution. AppDynamics is moving toward a fast model and has a few issues with vendor support. It also requires multiple agents for each function. For example, a Java-related APM requires the installation of another agent. The solution is a bit higher priced than AppDynamics but is more user friendly and only requires one agent, so our application teams prefer it.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can set CPU thresholds using the solution."

"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is reliability."

"The solution offers very detailed metrics for their services."

"It offers direct integrations with various storage providers, making it convenient to push logs from CloudWatch to these external platforms."

"We can create events and alerts. We use the information to dive down into the infrastructure performance."

"Setting up this product was easy. I found data analytics as its most valuable feature."

"The monitoring features are valuable."

"The tool's UI is good. One can scroll through the logs very easily."

More Amazon CloudWatch pros

"The initial setup was straightforward. The documentation and the university helped on Dynatrace."

"The most valuable features of Dynatrace are the ease of installation and management, as well as its extensibility."

"We have identified and solved "mystery" issues that we have experienced for a long time, including sporadic latency issues on storage volumes and SQL databases not scaling properly when under certain loads."

"The most valuable feature of the solution would be the level of visibility that you get. I haven't seen anything that gives us that level of visibility yet"

"End-to-end visibility of the applications, since we have them instrumented. Understanding where the hotspots are in the applications."

"By using Dynatrace Managed, we have improved customer satisfaction and have also helped internal teams and subcontractors make the application more stable."

"The real user experience monitoring is very helpful. We can see what real users are seeing, what JavaScript errors, what pages are very slow for them. As well, it helps to correlate the front-end users to the back-end application components, and the corresponding Method which is failing, as well. We are able to go to the correct spot and fix the issue."

"Dynatrace helps us to improve overall performance and allows us to detect the root cause of an outbreak on our systems."

More Dynatrace pros

Cons

"The dashboard and the UI could improve in Amazon CloudWatch. Additionally, they should focus on visibility inside the servers with AI and machine learning integrations. This would allow users who are using the solution to see what is happening within the system better."

"The technical support must be improved."

"The drill-down aspect on the dashboard of the solution needs improvement. We get a very good high-level overview, but when we drill down, it becomes a little less clear. We have given this feedback to AWS as well and hope they will improve this in the future."

"The dashboard of Amazon CloudWatch is not very customizable right now."

"The monitoring part and GUI are areas in Amazon CloudWatch that have shortcomings currently and can be considered for improvements in the future."

"The graphical interface has room for improvement. CloudWatch only gives you a breakdown of what's wrong. However, it would be nice if it could automatically remedy the problems it identifies. You should be able to configure it so that when a specific condition arises, it will take a predefined action."

"I found several areas for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch. First is that it's tough to track issues and find out where it's going wrong. The process takes longer. For example, if I get an exception error, I read the logs, search, go to AWS Cloud, then to the groups to find the keyword to determine what's wrong. Another area for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch is that it's slow in terms of log streaming. It requires an entire twenty-four hours for scanning, rather than just one hour. This issue can be solved with Elasticsearch streaming with Kibana, but it requires a lot of development effort and integration with Kibana or Splunk, and this also means I need a separate developer and software technical stack to do the indexing and streaming to Kibana. It's a manual effort that you need to do properly, so log streaming should be improved in Amazon CloudWatch. The AWS support person should also have a better understanding of the logs in Amazon CloudWatch. What I'd like added to the solution is a more advanced search function, particularly one that can tell you more information or special information. Right now, the search function is difficult to use because it only gives you limited data. For example, I got an error message saying that the policy wasn't created. I only know the amount the customer paid for the policy, the mobile number, and the customer name, but if I use those details, the information won't show up on the logs. I need to enter more details, so that's the type of fuzzy matching Amazon CloudWatch won't provide. If this type of search functionality is provided, it will be very helpful for businesses and companies that provide professional services to customers, like ours."

"Better reporting is always something needed. That could be an answer to just about anything. But you always want better reporting, better dashboards, things that are just more dynamic and more accessible."

More Amazon CloudWatch cons

"There are a couple gaps in the network reporting that we would like to see cleared up a bit."

"I would like a testing module focused on quality gates."

"The web-based UI needs to be improved."

"The challenge with AppMon is, what if you don't have an AppMon agent on a host, but it talks to the database. It talks to it, but I don't have either a host agent or an AppMon agent on it. That has been a challenge, but I believe the Dynatrace agent, the OneAgent, will solve that, potentially."

"Right now, there is a log analysis feature. This is maybe a little more deeper than the log analytics in comparison to other tools, like Splunk or Sumo Logic. If Dynatrace can come up with this replay feature, that would be great."

"Two things that can be improved are the licensing and the Business dashboard."

"The new Managed Edition is too complex. I feel like a fish out of water."

"SSO options are missing."

More Dynatrace cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."

"I consider it as a medium-priced solution."

"Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap solution."

"The tool is not expensive."

"The product's cost is relatively inexpensive."

"The price is okay for me."

"The pricing is average."

"The pricing can be considered reasonable, especially when already operating on a cloud platform."

More Amazon CloudWatch pricing and cost advice

"They could improve their price ranges, as there is no option for startups or testing."

"I think the pricing is at a fair value for what it is."

"The product is pricey, but it is feature-rich, which is why we probably haven't looked away from it."

"Dynatrace is an expensive solution."

"The cost is somewhat high."

"The pricing is not bad, but it could be better."

"Make sure your leadership buy-in is in place. Ensure leadership understands that an APM solution is a fairly expensive, so they know what they are getting into."

"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was a pretty straightforward process. We had no hiccups."

More Dynatrace pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

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824,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

University

Educational Organization

34%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon CloudWatch?

The monitoring features are valuable.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudWatch?

In general, Amazon CloudWatch is cheaper compared to Dynatrace. However, there are potential costs to be mindful of, like running a log query that returns trillions of bytes of data.

What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?

CloudWatch itself is fine. That said, maybe Amazon Web Services can improve by providing a library for CloudWatch with some useful features.

Any advice about APM solutions?

The key is to have a holistic view over the complete infrastructure, the ones you have listed are great for APM if you need to monitor applications end to end. I have tested them all and have not f...

What cloud monitoring software did you choose and why?

While the environment does matter in the selection of an APM tool, I prefer to use Dynatrace to manage the entire stack. Both production and Dev/Test. I find it to be quite superior to anything els...

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...

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Product Reports

Amazon CloudWatch

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Learn More

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Overview

Amazon CloudWatch is used for monitoring, tracking logs, and organizing metrics across AWS services. It detects anomalies, sets dynamic alarms, and automates actions to optimize cloud utilization, troubleshoot, and ensure service availability.

Organizations leverage Amazon CloudWatch for collecting and analyzing logs, triggering alerts, and profiling application performance. It's also employed for monitoring bandwidth, virtual machines, Lambda functions, and Kubernetes clusters. Valuable features include seamless integration with AWS, real-time data and alerts, detailed metrics, and a user-friendly interface. It provides robust monitoring capabilities for infrastructure and application performance, log aggregation, and analytics. Users appreciate its scalability, ease of setup, and affordability. Additional key aspects are the ability to create alarms, dashboards, and automated responses, along with detailed insights into system and application health. Room for improvement includes dashboards and UI enhancements for better visualization and customizability, log streaming speed, advanced machine learning and reporting capabilities, pricing, and integration with non-AWS services and databases. Users also seek more real-time monitoring and comprehensive application performance features, and simpler alerts and configuration processes.

What are the most important features?

Seamless integration with AWS: Ensures smooth operation with AWS services.
Real-time data and alerts: Provides immediate insights and notifications.
Detailed metrics: Offers in-depth data on infrastructure and application performance.
Scalability: Supports growing needs with ease.
Ease of setup: Quick and straightforward installation.
Affordability: Cost-effective monitoring solution.
Alarms and dashboards: Customizable alerts and visual insights.
Automated responses: Facilitates automatic actions based on set criteria.
System and application health insights: Delivers comprehensive health reports.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Optimized cloud utilization: Ensures efficient use of resources.
Improved troubleshooting: Identifies and resolves issues quickly.
Enhanced service availability: Keeps services running smoothly.
Effective log analysis: Provides valuable insights from collected logs.
Performance profiling: Assesses and optimizes application performance.
Scalable monitoring: Adapts to growing business needs.

Amazon CloudWatch is implemented across a range of industries, including technology, finance, healthcare, and retail. Technology firms use it to monitor application performance and traffic, while financial organizations leverage it for ensuring compliance and system reliability. Healthcare entities rely on it for maintaining service availability and monitoring data flow, and retail companies utilize it for tracking customer interactions and optimizing server usage.

Dynatrace is an AI-powered software intelligence monitoring platform that accelerates digital transformation and simplifies cloud complexities. Dynatrace is an entirely automated full-stack solution that provides data and answers about the performance of your applications and deep insight into every transaction throughout every application, including the end-user experience. By modernizing and automating enterprise cloud operations, users can deliver an optimal digital experience with higher quality software to customers faster.

Dynatrace offers an all-in-one automated artificial intelligence solution that brings together application performance, cloud and infrastructure, and digital experience monitoring. Dynatrace accelerates performance-driven results through operations, development, and business teams with a shared metrics platform. In addition, users are provided a full-stack monitoring experience with three patented technologies:

Smartscape - visualization mechanism that maps the totality of everything working in your environment and detects any casual dependencies between your applications, processes, websites, services, hosts, cloud infrastructure, and networks.
OneAgent - a technology that analyzes, gathers ,and unifies all business performance metrics throughout every layer of your technology stack.
PurePath Technology - code-level context and timings are captured from the mainframe to the cloud for all end-to-end transactions.

What does Dynatrace offer?

Dynatrace redefines how organizations monitor their digital ecosystems. The solution offers:

Cloud Automation: With AI engine Davis®, users can see the exact reason for problems and facilitate quick auto-remediation and intelligent cloud orchestration.
Application Security: With automated application vulnerability management, users can deliver applications faster and more securely.
Infrastructure Monitoring: Convenient broad visibility across your environments is provided with streamlined, automated infrastructure monitoring.
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM): Optimize your applications, provide better support, and improve user experience with a combination of Real User Monitoring (RUM), Session Replay, and synthetic monitoring throughout your environment.
Applications and Microservices: For complex cloud environments, Dynatrace can automatically provide visibility and root-cause answers. It can also monitor microservices.
Digital Business Analytics: Get AI-powered, real-time answers to analytical business queries with KPIs and metrics that are already flowing through applications.

Reviews from Real Users

Dynatrace is the only solution that provides answers to organizations based on deep insight into each user, transaction, and organization's environment.

Barry P., a managing performance engineer at Medica Health Plans, writes, "With Dynatrace, we have synthetic checks and real-user monitoring of all of our websites, places where members and providers can interact with us over the web. We monitor the response times of those with Dynatrace, and it's all integrated into one place."

A consultant at a tech service company notes, "A feature that's one of the highlights of Dynatrace is the AI. The second most valuable feature is OneAgent. Between infrastructures, applications, operating systems, you can deploy with just a single agent and can practically install and forget about it."

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus

Audi, Best Buy, LinkedIn, CISCO, Intuit, KRONOS, Scottrade, Wells Fargo, ULTA Beauty, Lenovo, Swarovsk, Nike, Whirlpool, American Express

Amazon CloudWatch vs. Dynatrace