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Datadog vs SolarWinds AppOptics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

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

Datadog
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
1st
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
2nd
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
186
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), Log Management (3rd), Container Monitoring (2nd), AIOps (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (9th)
SolarWinds AppOptics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
52nd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
52nd
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
34th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Datadog is 9.9%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.3%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

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.
John Yuko - PeerSpot reviewer
Unique features allow consolidating and combing metrics into a single dashboard, but don't monitor mobile solutions
I would like to see more granular information provided on Unix applications. Also, the integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward in terms having an agent to retrieve your credentials rather than having to enter or save them for SSH on SolarWinds. From the outset, we had to set some commands to log into the search console, and they are saved on the solution, which presents a challenge in terms of exposure. The solution is unable to monitor APK solutions completely because we'd then be forced to break down the APK and provide the APIs or go through the source code. They don't have a module that can analyze an application that is maybe under-used.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has empowered all our platform engineers with a very powerful and easy to use monitoring system."
"Datadog has helped us a ton by allowing us to set up a multitude of easily configurable alarms across our tech stack and infrastructure."
"Thanks to the logs, we manage to make better reports through Jira and also to trace the request with more facility than we would be able to do otherwise."
"We've found it most useful for managing Rstudio Workbench, which has its own logs that would not be picked up via Cloudwatch."
"Datadog's learning platform is second to none."
"I like that you can build out a dashboard pretty quickly. There are some things that come out of the box that you don't really need to do, which is great because they're default settings."
"We enjoy the multistep API tests."
"The installation step is pretty straightforward."
"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."
"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."
"The product has a great dashboard."
 

Cons

"One area where I was really looking for improvement was the CSPM product line. I had really wanted to have team-level visibility for findings, since the team managing the resources has much more context and ability to resolve the issue, as the service owner. However, this has been added to the announcement in a recent keynote."
"The menu on the left is pretty dense (and I know it has to be). I never knew about the cmd+k functionality until recently. It would be helpful to offer more tips/cheat sheets to see handy shortcuts like that."
"The sheer amount of products that are included can be overwhelming."
"Datadog does not have the feature where you can monitor external websites or check the SSL secure for websites."
"I'd like to see better pricing and more integration in the next release."
"Datadog lacks a deeper application-level insight. Their competitors had eclipsed them in offering ET functionality that was important to us. That's why we stopped using it and switched to New Relic. Datadog's price is also high."
"We primarily use the log management functionality, and the only feedback I have there is better fuzzy text searching in logs (the kind that Kibana has)."
"The ability to find what you are looking for when starting out could be improved."
"The solution should be more user-friendly."
"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."
"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."
"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."
"In terms of the technology, I think they need to put some more advanced troubleshooting into SolarWinds, in terms of AI capabilities. That's the next generation, especially in the cases of APIs which have already adopted AI capabilities into their products."
"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It didn't scale well from the cost perspective. We had a custom package deal."
"If you do your homework, you'll find that if you're really concerned with cost, it's good."
"Pricing is somewhat affordable compared to other solutions but in order to really lower the costs of other products you need to plan very carefully your resources usage, otherwise, it can get expensive real quick."
"Licensing is based on the retention period of logs and metrics."
"The cost is high and this can be justified if the scale of the environment is big."
"Pricing and licensing are reasonable for what they give you. You get the first five hosts free, which is fun to play around with. Then it's about four dollars a month per host, which is very affordable for what you get out of it. We have a lot of hosts that we put a lot of custom metrics into, and every host gives you an allowance for the number of custom metrics."
"The solution's pricing depends on project volume."
"The tool is open-source."
"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."
"Mostly, it's a perpetual license. We don't have any customers using the subscription right now—it's mostly a perpetual license that the customers purchase. The licensing is based on the number of elements, whereas other solutions are node-based."
"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
39%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Educational Organization
65%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
4%
 

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...
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...
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 ...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds AppOptics?
The solution should be more user-friendly.
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds AppOptics?
I used the solution for monitoring servers and network equipment.
 

Also Known As

No data available
AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato
 

Overview

 

Sample 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
TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista
Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog vs. SolarWinds AppOptics and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.