AppDynamics vs Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) comparison

AppDynamics and Google are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. AppDynamics is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.2, while Google is ranked #26 with an average rating of 8.5. AppDynamics holds a 5.2% mindshare in APM, compared to Google’s 1.4% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of AppDynamics users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Google users who would recommend it.

AppDynamics

Read 157 AppDynamics reviews

14,012 Views
8,865 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Google Cloud's operations s...

Read 10 Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) reviews

2,852 Views
2,621 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

AppDynamics

Google Cloud's operations s...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

AppDynamics and Google Cloud's operations suite compete in the application performance monitoring and management category. AppDynamics has the upper hand in support and feature offering, while Google Cloud's operations suite is superior in its integration with other Google Cloud services.

Features: AppDynamics has detailed diagnostics and real-time monitoring capabilities, offers application mapping, and performance baselining. Google Cloud's operations suite provides seamless integration with Google Cloud services, advanced logging, and tracing functionality, and comprehensive metrics and monitoring tools.

Room for Improvement: AppDynamics needs to improve its scalability, integration with third-party tools, and user interface. Google Cloud's operations suite requires a more intuitive setup process, enhanced customization options, and better alerting mechanisms.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AppDynamics is straightforward to deploy and has responsive customer service. Google Cloud's operations suite has a complex setup process but benefits from extensive documentation and a strong community.

Pricing and ROI: AppDynamics has a higher initial setup cost but delivers significant ROI through its comprehensive monitoring features. Google Cloud's operations suite is cost-effective for users already invested in the Google Cloud ecosystem, delivering good ROI with its integrated services.

To learn more, read our detailed AppDynamics vs. Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AppDynamics vs. Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver)

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:

Categories and Ranking

AppDynamics

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

5th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

157

Ranking in other categories

Mobile APM (2nd), Container Monitoring (3rd)

Google Cloud's operations s...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

26th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (31st), Cloud Monitoring Software (24th)

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 Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) is 1.4%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Mahesh Deshpande

Senior Technology Architect at Infosys

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.

Read full review

Anand_Patel

Senior Technical Architect at T-Systems International GmbH

Offers reliable Ops Agent and logging transport feature with easy third-party integrations

As part of our company, we implemented several changes in our log analytics pattern, including the storage and procurement process. Earlier, before implementing the solution, our company was able to procure only one year of data, but later, we came to the three-year mark. Around 15-20% reduction has been witnessed in the total analytic consumption of our company. The aforementioned result was possible because the solution allowed the creation of a dashboard where factors like storage costs, proportion of logs, and logs presence in a storage bucket or BigQuery can all be checked. Earlier all logs were stored in a raw storage, but currently our company is able to move logs in table bucket that contributes towards cost savings.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AppDynamics is easy to implement if you follow the documentation, and the documentation that they provide is good."

"The most valuable feature of AppDynamics is Proactive Monitoring and Alerting."

"AppDynamics' most valuable features are the response time of the business transaction modules, the ability to monitor multiple services, and testing and developing environments."

"The initial setup is simple."

"We have been able to monitor our applications more accurately."

"Applications: This provides us insight into how our applications are performing within our environments and affords us the ability to identify opportunities and make changes to code / environment to effect positive performance lift."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the fact that it is very easy to use, making it easy to implement...It is a very stable solution."

"The most valuable feature is the live reporting on the current health\performance of our application"

More AppDynamics pros

"The features that I have found most valuable are its graphs - if I need any statistics, in Kubernetes or Kong level or VPN level, I can quickly get the reports."

"Provides visibility into the performance uptime."

"Offers a valuable logging transport feature"

"Google's technical support is very good."

"Our company has a corporate account for Google Cloud and so our systems and clusters integrate really well."

"The most valuable feature is the multi-cloud integration, where there is support for both GCP and AWS."

"It's easy to use."

"The cloud login enables us to get our logs from the different platforms that we currently use."

More Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) pros

Cons

"The infrastructure is not as good as other solutions."

"The GUI can be overwhelming at first to a novice Dev or Ops support person, and the possible root causes of an issue do not bubble up to the first screen you see."

"The end-user experience is not really good because we can't catch all of the transactions. We only can catch the full stack of flow transactions, but I think that this is caused by the technology they use. If they will catch every transaction, it will cause a very big load on the performance of applications. The monitoring of all transactions needs improvement."

"The resolution time takes longer than expected."

"AppDynamics's agent management could be improved."

"We would love to see support for more types of agents in the mainframe world."

"Additional support for NextGen mobile platforms also needs to be high in the roadmap prioritizations"

"As per my experience, the drill-down feature can be improved at the class level."

More AppDynamics cons

"While we are satisfied with the overall performance, in certain cases we must add additional metrics and additional tools like Grafana and Dynatrace."

"It is difficult to estimate in advance how much something is going to cost."

"The logging functionality could be better."

"It could be more stable."

"It could be even more automated."

"This solution could be improved if it offered the ability to analyze charts, such as a solution like Kibana."

"Lacking sufficient operations documentation."

"The process of logging analytics can be improved"

More Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a more expensive APM among the competitors, which is fine because it also does a lot more on the auto-detection and the AI side... It is not a cheap product. None of them are. The price is fair, but I could use it on more projects if they had a lower price."

"The price of AppDynamics could be reduced in my region."

"As a technical person, and as an application development team, they all understand that this is the right tool for us. But when it comes to budget and financial matters, it takes days and weeks to convince upper management to buy this tool. So they should do something more on licensing costs."

"For those who appreciate the value and had issues with the visibility of the performance of their applications, then the pricing is good. For somebody who does not need it, it can be pricey, but overall, it is worth the money which it costs."

"The way it is structured in terms of price could be better. You pay for individual modules and that adds on to the cost, which detracts you from implementing those modules and slows you down."

"The product’s licencing policy is competitive. However, properly identify and size your needs to get the best rate."

"We do not have any issues with the price."

"It is not a cheap tool, but you also save in manpower to setup because it is easy and fast. At the end of the day, I think the revenue is much better. BUT, they have an awful co-term mode of licensing."

More AppDynamics pricing and cost advice

"We have a basic standard license without any additional costs."

"The cost could be lower."

"The cost of using Stackdriver depends on usage."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

50%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

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

What do you like most about Google Stackdriver?

It's easy to use.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Stackdriver?

If the errors are caught early in the interface, it would be easier for users to manage. The process of logging analytics can be improved.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Google Stackdriver?

I use the solution for logging, defining alerts, and monitoring. Our company's Java and Python logging teams mainly use it.

See all answers

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Compared 19% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

Elastic Observability vs AppDynamics

Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 30% of the time

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Compared 22% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

Dynatrace vs Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver)

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 2% of the time

More Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AppDynamics

January 2025

Download AppDynamics product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

December 2024

Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) report

Download Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) product report

Also Known As

AppD, AppDynamics APM

Google Stackdriver, Stackdriver Monitoring, Stackdriver Logging, Google Cloud Monitoring

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.

AppDynamics

Real-time log management and analysis

Cloud Logging is a fully managed service that performs at scale and can ingest application and platform log data, as well as custom log data from GKE environments, VMs, and other services inside and outside of Google Cloud. Get advanced performance, troubleshooting, security, and business insights with Log Analytics, integrating the power of BigQuery into Cloud Logging.

Built-in metrics observability at scale

Cloud Monitoring provides visibility into the performance, uptime, and overall health of cloud-powered applications. Collect metrics, events, and metadata from Google Cloud services, hosted uptime probes, application instrumentation, and a variety of common application components. Visualize this data on charts and dashboards and create alerts so you are notified when metrics are outside of expected ranges.

Stand-alone managed service for running and scaling Prometheus

Managed Service for Prometheus is a fully managed Prometheus-compatible monitoring solution, built on top of the same globally scalable data store as Cloud Monitoring. Keep your existing visualization, analysis, and alerting services, as this data can be queried with PromQL or Cloud Monitoring.

Monitor and improve your application's performance

Application Performance Management (APM) combines the monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities of Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring with Cloud Trace and Cloud Profiler to help you reduce latency and cost so you can run more efficient applications.

Google

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

Uber, Batterii, Q42, Dovetail Games

Buyer's Guide

AppDynamics vs. Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver)

January 2025

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