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Grafana vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 6, 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

Grafana
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
42
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
6.9
Number of Reviews
246
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Mobile APM (2nd), Container Monitoring (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Grafana is 6.4%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 4.8%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Vikash-Agarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Displays data visually from multiple sources while integrating seamlessly with existing systems
Grafana provides a user-friendly interface for viewing infrastructure metrics through dashboards. It integrates with Prometheus to pull data and offers a straightforward setup process. Users can monitor metrics with greater ease, and the tool aids in quickly identifying issues by providing a visual representation of data. Grafana's integration capability is straightforward, which facilitates building dashboards as needed.
Muhammad Zeeshan Siddiqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Dynamic mapping enhances workflows that are user-friendly
One aspect that requires improvement is the agent. Without an agent, gathering sufficient information on applications is challenging. Additionally, the agent sometimes creates performance issues in production environments. If AppDynamics could develop a means to monitor without an agent, it could significantly improve application performance and reduce potential problems. Moving to an agentless solution, like what some competitors are doing, would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The installation process is easy. We have deployed it on the cloud. I have around 20 to 30 people using the solution in my company."
"It's easy to make changes. We can put many dashboards in one place. There's no delay in showing data - what you see on Grafana matches the server metrics."
"It provides a graphical representation and it's clear to see what's happening."
"It integrates well with other solutions."
"Grafana's built-in integration with third-party tools, databases, and MQs is an amazing feature."
"Great capacity planning and the solution has a great GUI."
"We can write queries in different languages, which is beneficial for visualization."
"Almost any kind of visualization is possible with Grafana and all dashboards are configurable."
"The most valuable feature is the live reporting on the current health\performance of our application"
"It is a stable solution that helps address user issues well."
"This solution is easy to use and very powerful, it is a complete tool for us."
"The event alerting feature or the trigger system is what I like most about AppDynamics Server Monitoring. Whenever an issue occurs, the tool automatically generates an even trigger that tells engineers in the company to take action, so it's an essential feature of AppDynamics Server Monitoring. Another valuable feature of the tool is end-to-end monitoring, which means if you need to debug, you can go transaction by transaction, where the issue lies, and how it's linked. For example, if it's a low-performance issue, you can look into it more through AppDynamics Server Monitoring in terms of which area takes too much time to execute. You can also see the SQL queries and the kind of query going on through the tool."
"Database scaling or migration projects play a supportive role throughout the development, monitoring, and troubleshooting phases."
"AppDynamics Database Monitoring's most valuable feature is the ability of the out-of-the-box to update the information, provide various metrics, and possibly include custom metrics."
"It's good for a larger scale deployment such as what my company is working on."
"The dashboards are very well-defined."
 

Cons

"I would like the ability to download my results into any format in order to share the information with my clients."
"Grafana could consider building its own metrics system to eliminate the reliance on other tools like Prometheus, providing a one-stop solution."
"It can take a considerable amount of time to learn the graphs if a long duration is selected."
"I have a problem with Grafana in the area of documentation."
"It would be helpful if they simplified the data source."
"There is room for improvement when using multiple dashboards because they can become complicated to keep track of and use."
"Lacks in-depth graphs and sufficient AI."
"Its interface could be more accessible."
"It needs strengthening in the database tiers."
"It is stable, but the only downside is the licensing part."
"The solution's pricing could be improved and made more competitive."
"The user access management could be a bit better."
"The user experience is quite confusing. There are too many different development stages. The UI is not very intuitive."
"An improvement could be if the monitoring was able to be summarized into something more clear and simple for people who don't have the technical skills on the database side."
"They are using Flash for their website, which is very slow. We had hoped the website would be much faster to use, and that is definitely what we want to see."
"I would like to see accommodation for millisecond granularity, as we only have one-second granularity now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."
"For me, Grafana is a cheap tool because I don't have to spend much time learning the product since it is a simple solution."
"We are using the open-source license."
"I give the price an eight out of ten."
"​Grafana is free and open source.​"
"We use the open-source version of Grafana."
"Since Grafana is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."
"I use the open source model so it is free."
"AppDynamics is an expensive solution."
"The pricing of the solution is reasonable for what features you receive."
"The tool is expensive."
"The product’s licencing policy is competitive. However, properly identify and size your needs to get the best rate."
"There is a license to use this solution. However, the clients pay for the licenses we are the service provider."
"My understanding is that the price of this solution is quite high, compared to other products."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"We buy the platform's yearly subscription."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
Educational Organization
48%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Grafana?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana?
I used the open-source version for my learning, which was free. In an enterprise setting, pricing is reasonable, as many customers use it.
What needs improvement with Grafana?
The interface is not well-liked by my customers. Grafana cannot be easily embedded into certain applications and offers limited customization options for graphs. I think predictive capabilities in ...
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...
APM tools for a Managed Service Provider - Dynatrace vs. AppDynamics vs. Aternity vs. Ruxit
Hi Avi! It's great to see your thorough approach to selecting an APM package for your MSP company. Considering your focus on SMBs and enterprises in Israel, Dynatrace seems like a solid choice with...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.
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 Grafana vs. Splunk AppDynamics and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.