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AppDynamics vs Datadog comparison

AppDynamics and Datadog are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. AppDynamics is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.2, while Datadog is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7. AppDynamics holds a 5.2% mindshare in APM, compared to Datadog’s 9.9% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of AppDynamics users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Datadog users who would recommend it.
AppDynamics
Read 156 AppDynamics reviews
  • 14,012 Views
  • 8,865 Comparison Views
89% willing to recommend
Datadog
Read 186 Datadog reviews
  • 28,472 Views
  • 17,662 Comparison Views
96% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

AppDynamics and Datadog are both leaders in the application performance management category. AppDynamics holds an advantage with its detailed insights into complex environments, while Datadog excels in real-time monitoring and integration capabilities, which cater well to cloud-native architectures.

Features: AppDynamics offers stack trace insights, JVM metrics, and business transaction tracking across multiple nodes, providing comprehensive visibility into application performance. Its key features include deep dive monitoring and quick transaction correlation for performance analysis. Datadog is renowned for real-time monitoring, centralized pipeline tracking, and customizable dashboards, combined with extensive integration capabilities that make it ideal for diverse cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: AppDynamics could enhance its user interface and improve support for network monitoring and technologies like Kubernetes, with pricing viewed as expensive. Datadog could benefit from refining its pricing structure for greater clarity, making its UI more intuitive, and optimizing query performance for handling large datasets.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AppDynamics can be deployed on-premises and across cloud environments, though users report high maintenance and deployment complexity in larger setups. It receives praise for customer service. Datadog offers seamless deployment on public cloud platforms but needs to improve its multi-cloud strategy support. Users favor its responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: AppDynamics is priced by server licenses, leading to high costs for full infrastructure coverage, yet provides significant ROI through rapid issue resolution. Datadog offers pricing flexibility, which can increase with advanced feature usage, but users find value in enhanced operational efficiency and minimized incident response times.

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Buyer's Guide
AppDynamics vs. Datadog
January 2025
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Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
AppDynamics boosts user availability, performance, troubleshooting, and ROI, leading to client satisfaction and streamlined feature development within a year.
Sentiment score
7.2
Datadog optimizes costs, boosts efficiency, enhances debugging, saves time, and outperforms alternatives despite challenges in quantifying returns.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
AppDynamics' customer support gets mixed reviews; some praise responsiveness and professionalism, others criticize slow responses and communication issues.
Sentiment score
7.3
Datadog's customer service is generally praised for responsiveness and expertise, though some users note delays and lack of phone support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Users have mixed opinions on AppDynamics' scalability, praising its potential but noting challenges and performance issues at larger scales.
Sentiment score
7.6
Datadog offers scalable performance and customization but users should monitor rising costs and potential challenges with complex architectures.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.2
AppDynamics is highly rated for stability and reliability, with users appreciating its performance and planning to continue its use.
Sentiment score
8.0
Datadog is praised for its stability and reliable performance, effectively managing disruptions and supporting diverse operational needs.
 

Room For Improvement

Users want AppDynamics to improve features, integrations, support, costs, AI capabilities, ease of use, and cloud performance.
Datadog users face challenges with billing, integration, interface complexity, and desire more flexibility, support, and improved features.
 

Setup Cost

AppDynamics' licensing costs range widely and can be expensive, leading some companies to consider cheaper alternatives like DataDog and Dynatrace.
Datadog's pricing varies by organization size, requiring careful monitoring and planning due to complex usage-based billing and potential hidden costs.
 

Valuable Features

AppDynamics offers robust monitoring, real-time alerts, detailed diagnostics, customizable dashboards, and extensive integration, enhancing operational efficiency and user experience.
Datadog excels in real-time monitoring, intuitive interface, robust integrations, efficient alerts, and comprehensive performance tracking and system reliability.
 

Categories and Ranking

AppDynamics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
5th
Ranking in Container Monitoring
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
156
Ranking in other categories
Mobile APM (2nd)
Datadog
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
1st
Ranking in Container Monitoring
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
186
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (2nd), Log Management (3rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st), AIOps (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of AppDynamics is 5.2%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Datadog is 9.9%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Q&A Highlights

BH
Dec 10, 2020
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 found one capable to give me solutions they all report you have a problem but you need to figure out what the problems is. So we have decided to develop our own AI and it is not only monitoring OSI layer 1 -3 but layer 1-8 as well it give you a solution what has been wrong based on delays in transactions combined with security. We have deployed this now across healthcare in the USA as well Airports but it is working on every industry and working in a SaaS solution. But if I have a chose between the tools you mentioned, Dynatrace is the best choose it is easy to install and has a great interface. Also it has almost no configuration.
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Featured Reviews

Mahesh Deshpande - PeerSpot reviewer
The transition tracing and user experience are good, but performance degrades past 3,000 or so agents
The Kubernetes cluster agent has not yet matured. That's one area that requires a lot of improvement. You have two options for implementing the Kubernetes agent. One is deployed in DocCloud, but you can't download those images from DocCloud for security reasons at most organizations, so this option isn't that useful. The installation for the second option isn't that user-friendly. Transition tracing for the Kubernetes application is challenging. You have to navigate to a new set of user interfaces in AppDynamics, so that's the pain point. There is an icon you need to click on to get a newer user interface.
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Kevin Palmer - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful log aggregation and management with helpful metrics aggregation
Datadog provides us value in three major ways: First, Datadog provides best-in-class functionality in many, if not all, of the products to which we subscribe (infrastructure, APM, log management, serverless, synthetics, real user monitoring, DB monitoring). In my experience with other tools that provide similar functionality, Datadog provides the largest feature set with the most flexibility and the best performance. Second, Datadog allows us to access all of those services in one place. Having to learn and manage only one tool for all of those purposes is a major benefit. Third, Datadog provides significant connectivity between those services so that we can view, summarize, organize, translate and correlate our data with maximum effect. Not needing to manually integrate them to draw lines between those pieces of information is a huge time savings for us.
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Answers from the Community

BH
Dec 8, 2020
Dec 8, 2020
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 monitoring. We maintain critical processing on our mainframe so there was a desire to include this in our transaction trace. Due to a highly mature ELK implementation, we are not trying to incorporate log ...
2 out of 5 answers
reviewer802371 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 20, 2020
Could you please share your requirements ? There are a lot tools can be added to the list. I spent almost 6 months to test and check many tools then I select eG enterprise.
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reviewer1352679 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 20, 2020
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 monitoring.  We maintain critical processing on our mainframe so there was a desire to include this in our transaction trace.  Due to a highly mature ELK implementation, we are not trying to incorporate log analytics into solution buy may consider in the future.  We had AppD, Dynatrace, New Relic, and CA Wily all in house at the time of our evaluation.  We eliminated Datadog due to a lack of real user monitoring and AppD based on experience and licensing.  Between Dynatrace and New Relic, Dynatrace won based on the automation, integrated AI, support for "old" techs, and confidence we could eliminate multiple APM and infra monitoring tools.   I would not include products like BigPanda, MoogSoft, in this analysis. They are not monitoring solutions but event correlation solutions.  You will need additional monitoring products to capture data and feed them.  Having said that if you cannot consolidate tools you will likely need to purchase an event solution to make sense of all the alarms. We did evaluate these products but with Dynatrace AI did not feel the business value was there for the investment. Here's a quick pro/con list on Dynatrace & New Relic from our analysis. New Relic Pros: Insights is an awesome product and capability. Lots of capabilities and plugins to extend data collection. The APM dashboard is aesthetically pleasing and intuitive. Good training and documentation are available to support the product. New Relic Cons: Requires lots of manual configurations to implement and support.  Insights product requires an investment of time to achieve value. Licensing is a nightmare as there is virtually no transparency in what you are being charged for. Lack of solution to consolidate alerts across implementation other than significant investment in insights to manually achieve this.   Dynatrace Pros: Very simple to implement and maintain with out of the box automation which supports modern (cloud/Kubernetes) and "old" (mainframe). In-app chat is helpful.  High integration of infra and APM data for full-stack observability and engineering.  Topology and trace discovery is more reliable than other products or our CMDB.  Synthetics are easy to set up for any user. AI-assisted problem analysis on the trace discovery streamlines troubleshooting.  AI includes "events" in an analysis like VMotion, deployment events. Have not done yet but looking to leverage monitoring as code for a fully integrated and automated delivery pipeline. See keptn.sh open source project. Dynatrace Cons: User SQL lacks some functions of NRQL for user analysis.  Host, process, and service data is not available to query within the product.  Alarm processing lacks some granular controls. The Plug-in library is less robust. Good luck with your decision!
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
50%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Educational Organization
39%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
See all answers
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...
See all answers
What do you like most about AppDynamics?
The solution saves time and cost.
See all answers
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
See all answers
Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Dynatrace. Dynatrace offers network ...
See all answers
What do you like most about Datadog?
Integrating Datadog with other platforms has made our monitoring processes a bit easier. It's not super simple, but it's manageable.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Compared 9% of the time
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Compared 7% of the time
Elastic Observability vs AppDynamics Logo
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Compared 6% of the time
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Compared 5% of the time
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Compared 14% of the time
Azure Monitor vs Datadog Logo
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Compared 13% of the time
New Relic vs Datadog Logo
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Compared 5% of the time
AWS X-Ray vs Datadog Logo
AWS X-Ray vs Datadog
Compared 4% of the time
Amazon OpenSearch Service vs Datadog Logo
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Compared 3% of the time
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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
AppDynamics
January 2025
AppDynamics reportDownload AppDynamics product report
Buyer's Guide
Datadog
January 2025
Datadog reportDownload Datadog product report
 

Also Known As

AppD, AppDynamics APM
No data available
 

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AppDynamics
Datadog
 

Overview

AppDynamics is a comprehensive tool used for monitoring application performance, identifying user issues, analyzing traffic, managing infrastructure, and performance testing. It supports environments like Kubernetes, WebLogic, and Azure, and is crucial for industries such as banking, telecommunications, and financial services.

AppDynamics offers a robust solution for application performance monitoring, enabling deep diagnostics, transaction tracing, and root cause analysis. Users benefit from its real-time monitoring and comprehensive analytics capabilities. It's designed for ease of implementation and scalability, featuring intuitive dashboards that streamline infrastructure optimization and enhance user experience. AppDynamics supports extensive third-party extensions and provides proactive monitoring and alerting to ensure optimal system health. It assists in troubleshooting, database monitoring, and setting custom alerts to address Java applications and performance challenges efficiently.

What are the most important features of AppDynamics?

  • Application Performance Monitoring: Real-time insights into application health and performance
  • Business Transaction Capturing: Detailed tracking of business transactions across the application
  • Memory Monitoring: Monitoring memory usage to optimize application performance
  • Analytics: Advanced analytics to understand application and user behavior
  • Customizable Dashboards: Intuitive dashboards for better visualization and decision-making
  • Proactive Monitoring and Alerting: Immediate alerts and monitoring to prevent issues before they affect users
  • Integration Capabilities: Integration with third-party tools to extend functionality
  • Root Cause Analysis: Deep diagnostics to pinpoint and fix issues promptly
  • Transaction Mapping: Mapping transactions to understand and improve user journeys
  • Error Detection: Identifying and diagnosing errors to maintain application stability

What benefits or ROI should users look for in reviews?

  • Ease of Implementation: Simple deployment process
  • Scalability: Ability to grow with the organization's needs
  • Time Savings: Reducing time spent on troubleshooting and issue resolution
  • Enhanced User Experience: Improving application performance for better user satisfaction
  • Cost Efficiency: Balancing functionality with cost to deliver value

AppDynamics is widely adopted in banking, telecommunications, and financial services to ensure optimal user experience and system health. Its capabilities support these industries in maintaining robust, efficient, and reliable applications. The tool is instrumental in troubleshooting, performance optimization, and providing a seamless user experience.

Datadog is a comprehensive cloud monitoring platform designed to track performance, availability, and log aggregation for cloud resources like AWS, ECS, and Kubernetes. It offers robust tools for creating dashboards, observing user behavior, alerting, telemetry, security monitoring, and synthetic testing.

Datadog supports full observability across cloud providers and environments, enabling troubleshooting, error detection, and performance analysis to maintain system reliability. It offers detailed visualization of servers, integrates seamlessly with cloud providers like AWS, and provides powerful out-of-the-box dashboards and log analytics. Despite its strengths, users often note the need for better integration with other solutions and improved application-level insights. Common challenges include a complex pricing model, setup difficulties, and navigation issues. Users frequently mention the need for clearer documentation, faster loading times, enhanced error traceability, and better log management.

What are the key features of Datadog?

  • Graphs and Dashboards: Visualizes servers and infrastructure with customizable views.
  • Metrics: Offers deep insights into system performance and user behavior.
  • Log Management: Provides powerful analytics for logs and seamless log aggregation.
  • Unified Tagging: Facilitates organization and retrieval of metrics and logs.
  • APM and RUM: Enables application performance monitoring and real user monitoring for comprehensive insights.
  • Synthetic Testing: Allows the simulation of user interactions to test application performance.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?

  • System Reliability: Helps ensure uptime and performance across cloud environments.
  • Proactive Issue Resolution: Assists in identifying and resolving issues before they impact users.
  • Operational Efficiency: Streamlines monitoring and log management tasks.
  • Flexible Integrations: Adapts to various cloud services and infrastructure setups.
  • Real-Time Alerts: Provides timely notifications to address problems swiftly.

Datadog is implemented across different industries, from tech companies monitoring cloud applications to finance sectors ensuring transactional systems' performance. E-commerce platforms use Datadog to track and visualize user behavior and system health, while healthcare organizations utilize it for maintaining secure, compliant environments. Every implementation assists teams in customizing monitoring solutions specific to their industry's requirements.

 

Sample Customers

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
Adobe, Samsung, facebook, HP Cloud Services, Electronic Arts, salesforce, Stanford University, CiTRIX, Chef, zendesk, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, mercardo libre, Slashdot, Ziff Davis, PBS, MLS, The Motley Fool, Politico, Barneby's
Buyer's Guide
AppDynamics vs. Datadog
January 2025
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We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.