AppDynamics vs Prometheus comparison

AppDynamics and Prometheus are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. AppDynamics is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.2, while Prometheus is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.3. AppDynamics holds a 5.4% mindshare in APM, compared to Prometheus’s 3.4% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of AppDynamics users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Prometheus users who would recommend it.

AppDynamics

Read 156 AppDynamics reviews

15,054 Views
9,654 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Prometheus

Read 33 Prometheus reviews

6,878 Views
6,098 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

AppDynamics

Prometheus

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

AppDynamics and Prometheus are leading application performance management tools. AppDynamics has the upper hand due to its comprehensive features, while Prometheus is preferred for its superior deployment model and cost-effectiveness.

Features: AppDynamics offers deep monitoring capabilities, seamless integration with other systems, and advanced analytics. Prometheus is known for its robust query language, scalability, and strong support for containerized environments.

Room for Improvement: AppDynamics has a steep learning curve and occasional performance overhead. Prometheus could improve with better built-in dashboarding and more intuitive alerting mechanisms.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AppDynamics requires extensive configuration but offers strong customer service. Prometheus, with an open-source deployment model, is easier and faster to deploy but relies on community-driven support.

Pricing and ROI: AppDynamics has significant setup costs but offers high ROI due to its feature set and support. Prometheus offers low setup costs and high ROI because of its open-source nature and scalability. Prometheus provides a cost-effective solution, while AppDynamics justifies its higher cost with richer features and better support.

To learn more, read our detailed AppDynamics vs. Prometheus Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

AppDynamics vs. Prometheus

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

AppDynamics

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

5th

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

156

Ranking in other categories

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

Prometheus

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

9th

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of AppDynamics is 5.4%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prometheus is 3.4%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Venus Yaker Dalton

Information Technology Specialist at 3M

Oct 5, 2023

Very good real-time monitoring capabilities, deep problem diagnosis, and transaction mapping

As for areas of improvement, AppDynamics could benefit from greater integration with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. This would allow the tool to automatically analyze and correlate application performance and behavior data to detect patterns and anomalies not evident to users. Additionally, the ability to track performance in multi-cloud environments would be valuable as many organizations are adopting hybrid cloud or multi-cloud strategies. In terms of additional features, it would be beneficial to include a capacity management module that allows operations teams to proactively plan and adjust capacity, avoiding performance issues related to lack of resources.

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Noam Blidstein

Head of Global IT Operations at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

Dec 22, 2022

A very flexible open box that can be used vastly to do anything you need

Make sure that you have dedicated manpower to configure and manage the solution. It requires handling, not necessarily on a daily basis, but it definitely requires someone who is focused and has expertise with the solution. Know in advance what you want to gain from the solution. Don't jump in to configuring or deploying before knowing what you expect from it. I like the solution very much. I think it is a major tool, especially in advanced environments. The open box provides a lot of flexibility and gives a very holistic view of the entire Kubernetes environment. Integrating with the Rancher management tool gives the solution even more abilities. There are several tools that we use behind the scenes to ease the process but the solution on its own is a very good tool. I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

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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

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

"It allows us to configure health rules so that we can, based on our own experience, determine when an application is behaving incorrectly."

"It is a wonderful monitoring tool that manages various aspects such as system resources (CPU, RAM), mobile performance, and infrastructure monitoring."

"The most valuable feature is having our services being available and healthy."

"The solution helps us save a lot of time on certain tasks."

"The SAP monitoring element is very helpful."

"The transaction snapshots let you find out where the application broke; it pinpoints where in the call stack, and then how long it took to resolve."

"The most valuable features of AppDynamics is the scalability and monitoring."

More AppDynamics pros

"It has lots of APIs and libraries to integrate with any kind of language."

"Prometheus gives us high availability automatically."

"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."

"It is a scalable solution."

"The solution helps us to scale our products and services, and it helps me by gathering those metrics."

"The sky is the limit because the solution is a flexible open box that can be used vastly to do anything you need to monitor applications."

"The product is easy to maintain."

"The resilience of the solution's metric collection is very nice."

More Prometheus pros

Cons

"The agent deployment could be simplified by, for example, adding a GUI."

"They need to improve the consolidation of agents for the agent's installation process."

"AppDynamics is dealing with a lot of products and technologies, so we need to have clear documentation."

"I think I would like to see a better way to deploy and upgrade the machine agents that we use. Currently, we have to use SCCM, and that might just be our environment with the customer."

"Maybe some more CPU power or something like that could be an area to improve."

"Sometimes, it is hard to navigate through and find if something is wrong or figure out where an error stemmed from."

"If AppDynamics could do a one-agent function with their actual monitoring effectiveness, it will be the greatest tool."

"Their support should be improved. Clusters and monitoring can also be improved."

More AppDynamics cons

"The solution's error handling part could be improved."

"If you want to collect details of metrics, you should be able to write a query for it directly. I want the product to offer better queries for the metrics."

"There is a need for a more comprehensive overview of exporters, especially when dealing with many of them."

"The setup could be made easier for new users because it requires a bit of advance knowledge or experience."

"Its documentation could be clearer to understand."

"The interface is not particularly user-friendly and that could be improved."

"The setup process could be more straightforward."

"Setting up the rules in Prometheus can be confusing, making it an area where improvements are required."

More Prometheus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is not the cheapest but it works well. You will end up doing more work with a cheaper solution than if you just spent the extra money on a better solution like this one."

"I would like more flexible pricing: A pay-per-use model, rather than just a fixed-price model."

"AppDynamics is priced on the higher side."

"The solution is highly expensive"

"Yearly payments have to be made toward the licensing costs of the solution. The solution has no additional costs apart from the licensing costs."

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

"I was not involved with the procurement of AppDynamic, but I believe it's expensive."

"The tool is expensive."

More AppDynamics pricing and cost advice

"It is an open-source tool."

"The tool is open-sourced."

"Prometheus is an open-source solution."

"Prometheus is an open-source tool."

"The solution is free of cost."

"This is an open-source solution."

"The solution is open source."

"We have the open-source version, so we don't pay for it."

More Prometheus 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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815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

48%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

26%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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 Prometheus?

The most valuable feature of Prometheus is its ability to collect metrics.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Prometheus?

Prometheus is an open-source tool.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Prometheus?

We use Prometheus for observability and analyzing data for business metrics and system metrics. It helps us with messaging services observability. It also helps a lot with the architecture and scal...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 20% of the time

Datadog vs AppDynamics

Compared 10% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs AppDynamics

Compared 9% of the time

New Relic vs AppDynamics

Compared 7% of the time

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Azure Monitor vs Prometheus

Compared 18% of the time

Zabbix vs Prometheus

Compared 11% of the time

Dynatrace vs Prometheus

Compared 10% of the time

New Relic vs Prometheus

Compared 9% of the time

Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) vs Prometheus

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AppDynamics

November 2024

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Buyer's Guide

Prometheus

November 2024

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Also Known As

AppD, AppDynamics APM

No data available

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AppDynamics

Prometheus

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.

Prometheus specializes in gathering, monitoring, and analyzing logs and metrics. Utilized for data visualization in Grafana, cloud deployments, Kubernetes monitoring, and financial transactions, it provides a comprehensive view of application performance.

Prometheus is widely adopted for its robust metrics collection and scraping capabilities. It integrates seamlessly with Grafana for detailed visualizations and supports installations in cloud environments like Azure and Amazon. Prometheus is especially valued for monitoring Kubernetes deployments and ensuring efficient operation of servers, databases, and microservices. Its open-source nature provides reliability, flexibility, and scalability. Users appreciate its extensive integrations, APIs, and libraries, supporting multiple languages. Prometheus also offers remote writing, dynamic conflict resolution, high availability, and lightweight configuration with detailed documentation.

What are the key features of Prometheus?

Extensive Integrations: Supports APIs and libraries across multiple languages
Metrics Collection: Efficiently handles large amounts of metrics
Scraping Capabilities: Effective data gathering from applications
HTTP Monitoring: Reliable and detailed tracking
Grafana Integration: Seamless dashboards and visualizations
High Availability: Ensures system reliability
Lightweight Configuration: User-friendly setup process
Robust Querying: Advanced data querying and long-term storage integration

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Holistic Application Performance: Provides a comprehensive view
Scalability: Handles growing amounts of metrics
Flexibility: Adapts to various cloud and on-premises environments
Reliability: Ensures consistent performance
Detailed Documentation: Offers clear guidance for users

Prometheus is extensively used in industries requiring robust monitoring and alerting systems. Financial services leverage it for tracking transactions, while tech companies deploy it for Kubernetes and microservices monitoring. Its scalable and flexible nature makes it a preferred choice for cloud environments, supporting the efficient operation of infrastructure and applications.

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

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Buyer's Guide

AppDynamics vs. Prometheus

October 2024

Free Report: AppDynamics vs. Prometheus

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