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AppDynamics vs SCOM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

AppDynamics
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
156
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (5th), Mobile APM (3rd), Container Monitoring (3rd)
SCOM
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (3rd), Network Monitoring Software (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

AppDynamics and SCOM aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. AppDynamics is designed for Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability and holds a mindshare of 5.2%, down 6.3% compared to last year.
SCOM, on the other hand, focuses on Event Monitoring, holds 7.4% mindshare, down 10.3% since last year.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Noorul Mustafa Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Widely used by most financial services sectors, such as banking and insurance sectors
Currently, the solution is on the cloud as well. You can have your cloud applications onboarded to AppDynamics without any issues. AppDynamics has its own SaaS environment and SaaS controller on which you can onboard your application. You will need to install some of the AppDynamics agents. I used to contact the tools team, and they used to answer our queries mostly. If not, they used to take it to the support and then come back with their solution. Users need to list all the servers related to their application on which they want the AppDynamics agents installed. Depending on whether your application is cloud-based or non-cloud, you need to list all your servers. Then, a further installation process would be recommended. To use AppDynamics, you need to understand the different flows. If an issue is currently ongoing, you need to check which GUI flow is being used. If you want previous data, it will be in the history, and that's a different flow. Working with the tool is tricky, but two to three weeks of continuous work on it should bring you up to date. Suppose you are working in a bank. For your application, you can configure everything regarding the business transaction. For balance transfers, you can have one business transaction that will monitor balance transfers. There can be another business transaction that can monitor credit cards. You can configure different flows and transactions within the flows in terms of business transactions. Wherever there is an issue, that exact business transaction will start developing. The integration of AppDynamics within our CI/CD pipeline has positively affected our deployment frequency and application quality. Whenever there is a deployment or release, we see some hiccups in AppDynamics. There will be some things going on on that server, which we can easily identify in AppDynamics. Only after we validate that do we give the next go. Overall, I rate the solution eight and a half out of ten.
MarcMermuys - PeerSpot reviewer
Has efficient monitoring with robust integration capabilities
We use SCOM to configure different monitors using several management packs. It integrates systems like Active Directory and correlates them, and it is used for monitoring and managing systems SCOM allows integration of several systems, providing correlation between different systems such as…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It helped to find quick solutions for specific business transactions."
"The solution saves time and cost."
"Autodiscovery of application topology, based on real user traffic."
"AppDynamics is scalable."
"The transaction snapshots are the most valuable feature of AppDynamics"
"It is used to test customer behavior on a website."
"Being able to install it on-prem and monitor our on-prem infrastructure is important for us... Most of our infrastructure is on-prem. We have highly scalable systems and AppDynamics will help us monitor our load on-prem. Our systems range from simple to the most complex and it gives us the visibility across transactions, in one dashboard."
"It's made it easier to collaborate across teams; be able to have the same data immediately in front of you just by sharing a URL."
"We have found the scalability capabilities to be okay."
"It's easy to use."
"The most valuable features for us are the monitoring, the health explorer, and the console."
"The ease of deployment, especially on Windows platforms, is valuable."
"The solution's reporting engine has given me detailed information on which applications or services I've either failed or about to fail in terms of the predictive makeup on Azure cloud."
"The solution is used for monitoring the hardware inventory. For instance, it helps with the whole operational monitoring view for the company's infrastructure."
"This solution allows us to standardize all of the reports for monitoring the network, so it helps a lot for auditing purposes."
"Availability monitoring is the feature I have found most valuable, as well as the capacity and ability to send notifications."
 

Cons

"I’d like to see better out-of-the-box visual reporting so that we can roll this up to management."
"The initial setup could be easier."
"If it can be able to intelligently provide all the things we need to look at, from a data point of view, that would be very useful."
"AppDynamics scaled well up to around 3,000 agents. The performance deteriorated after that, while Dynatrace could support more than 10,000 agents. We were surprised that AppDynamics' scalability is not so good."
"The integration part in AppDynamics with other systems is an area with a little difficulty, especially when it comes to the configuration area. The integration of AppDynamics with other products takes a lot of time."
"I would like to be able to monitor both cloud an on-prem infrastructures, displayed in one dashboard."
"It could do with more than one data centre/multiple AWS accounts in a pane of glass. Also, improved scalability to large environments would be helpful."
"I would like to see more of a unified platform. They're very, very new on the server side, machine agents. I want them to be more mature in this area."
"Then there is also an issue with capacity and limited space. That is something that needs to be improved."
"They could provide better dashboards, detailed logs, and reports crucial for monitoring services in real-time."
"I would like more customized reports. People should have some customization option on the dashboards for whenever they put multiple lists into it. Beyond customizing the content, there should be the ability to customize the colors so that they can engage some priority and mark challenges separately."
"The solution’s initial setup is difficult."
"I would like to see better support for monitoring Unix-based systems."
"Of course, price is always an issue with Microsoft and could be improved."
"Direct integration with third-party tools, like ticketing systems, is lacking but would be beneficial."
"SCOM is not as straightforward in terms of user interface or general experience, which could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It could be cheaper. It's a little cost prohibitive. There are so many features that also show a lot of value, but it’s not always easy to justify the cost."
"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."
"I would like more flexible pricing: A pay-per-use model, rather than just a fixed-price model."
"We do not have any issues with the price."
"AppDynamics is what I would consider an enterprise-level solution. This means that it's a solution that is intended for use by larger organizations, while small or medium-sized businesses may find it difficult to afford. The number of agents required will also impact the pricing, and smaller companies may only be able to afford a limited number of agents. Essentially, the cost of the solution is not within the reach of every organization, and only some may be able to afford it."
"AppDynamics is really pricey as it requires licenses for every feature."
"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."
"There is a license needed to use the solution and it is expensive. The licensing model needs to improve."
"SCOM is part of the System Center suite and I am satisfied with the pricing."
"The platform is cost-effective due to our existing Microsoft support."
"SCOM's pricing is average."
"The pricing is good, and it's part of their system center suite."
"I don't know the exact cost because it's managed by our sales team, but Microsoft is on the higher side."
"It is more expensive than the competition."
"SCOM is very cheap because it's included in the license for the System Center suite, which is around $8,400 per CAL."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $30 per user, per month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
49%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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...
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...
What do you like most about SCOM?
The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCOM?
I am not aware of the exact pricing as it is managed by my supervisor. As an academic institution, we receive substantial discounts.
What needs improvement with SCOM?
SCOM is not as straightforward in terms of user interface or general experience, which could be improved. Additionally, I would like to see a software-as-a-service version in Azure to eliminate the...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

AppD, AppDynamics APM
System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
 

Overview

 

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
Dialog Telekom
Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.