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AppDynamics vs SCOM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
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 (2nd), 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 (14th)
 

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 10.0% since last year.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
Event Monitoring
 

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.
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 gives me the ability to trace logs between transactions, for example, a DB transaction or JVM transaction from one hub to the other. I can easily find out where the problem is or where the bottleneck of the issues lies."
"In AppDynamics, everywhere I go, there's some sort of grouping and aggregation function, or there's some sort of timeline that lets me zero in more quickly on the traces that I need. They go to more pains to aggregate and bubble the important ones to the top. That removes a lot of manual work."
"AppDynamics has a very broad range of supported technologies, and it's user-friendly. It looks nice, and it's easy to sell the solution to the stakeholders when we can visualize how the website is working. For example, where we have any problems through visual analytics."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the flow map."
"This solution not only provides answers but also provides sensor data. This allows us to quickly resolve issues that developers may take a long time to solve."
"The release management capabilities are great."
"We have found the scalability capabilities to be okay."
"SCOM integrates several systems and offers correlation features, like setting up everything around Active Directory or DNS."
"This solution allows us to standardize all of the reports for monitoring the network, so it helps a lot for auditing purposes."
"The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location."
"It works better than other products I’ve used – namely SolarWinds, which is cumbersome and error prone for web app monitoring. SCOM is not."
"The solution primarily drives system information, and I believe it works fine."
"The advantages of SCOM are that it is definitely user friendly and a more appropriate solution for what we need."
"It can send messages to our ticketing system."
 

Cons

"There are many KPIs that are not available in AppDynamics."
"One area for improvement is the MST model. It would be more helpful if it could be offered as a managed service provider model with more multi-tenancy and features."
"They need to improve the consolidation of agents for the agent's installation process."
"AppDynamics should improve its ability to track all the transactions."
"When you have high stress of visits I do not know if you are more stress because of the amount of visits or because you have to wait eternal 60 seconds to find out it things are going well or you already have mess."
"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."
"The price of the solution could improve."
"AppDynamics lacks integration with cloud technology. It probably isn't a good fit for emerging enterprises because it's an on-premise solution, and many newer companies are moving to the cloud. AppDynamics' on-premise technology works reasonably well, but it doesn't have cloud features."
"Direct integration with third-party tools, like ticketing systems, is lacking but would be beneficial."
"In future releases, I would like to see APM solutions and dashboards like Grafana."
"The solution should be more user-friendly and offer a better user interface."
"The console feature is very poor, and it would be very good for us if this were improved."
"SCOM's feature that notifies us when a server is down is not present in recent updates, which has weakened the product."
"There could be more integration of SIM in the solution."
"SCOM is not as straightforward in terms of user interface or general experience, which could be improved."
"The configurations could be better. There are multiple tests where you can do something, but they can be a trigger as well. The overriding methodologies are not that easy. The configurations are difficult. The configuration and thorough day-to-day operations to get them to the level you want takes some time. It's very difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are looking forward to purchasing the solution on the AWS Marketplace."
"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 solution is highly expensive"
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I was not involved with the procurement of AppDynamic, but I believe it's expensive."
"AppDynamics is really pricey as it requires licenses for every feature."
"Two customers bought the enterprise agreement with Microsoft and paid for Software Assurance. But few customers don't buy it for Software Assurance. They just buy it and deploy it, and they think that we will be using it for the next five years."
"It is the cheapest product available in the market."
"It is more expensive than the competition."
"SCOM is part of the System Center suite and I am satisfied with the pricing."
"I don't know the exact cost because it's managed by our sales team, but Microsoft is on the higher side."
"We have to pay for a license and the price is fine for us."
"We have an EA with Microsoft, and it comes as part of the EA."
"SCOM's pricing is average."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
50%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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.
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