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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
188
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), Log Management (3rd), Container Monitoring (1st), AIOps (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (7th)
SolarWinds AppOptics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
48th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
50th
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 April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Datadog is 8.8%, down from 11.3% 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

"Datadog's log aggregation is really helpful since it lets me and every other engineer on my team login, view, and share logs when we need to debug our application."
"Log analytics give us a powerful mechanism for error tracking, research, and analysis."
"Their interface is probably one of the easiest things to use because it lets non-developers and non-engineers quickly get access to metrics and pull business value out of them. We could put together dashboards and give it to people who are non-technical, then they can see the state of the world."
"Straightforward to integrate and automate."
"The two most valuable aspects are the Terraform provider for Datadog and the K8s Orchestrator."
"The ability to send notifications based on metadata from the monitor is helpful."
"It has enhanced the performance of my team."
"I like how we can customize alerts, and when alerts have become too noisy, we turn their threshold down fairly easily."
"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."
"The product has a great dashboard."
"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."
 

Cons

"Datadog's roadmap can be a bit unpredictable at times."
"We need more integration with security tools like Drata."
"There are some areas on log filtering screens where the user interface can take some getting used to."
"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."
"Datadog could have a better business analysis module."
"I found the solution to be stable, I did not experience any bugs or glitches. However, some of the managing team did."
"While the documentation is very good, there are areas that need a lot of focus to pick up on the key details."
"Interactive tutorials could be a game changer."
"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."
"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."
"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 solution should be more user-friendly."
"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing depends on project volume."
"Pricing seemed easy until the bill came in and some things were not accounted for."
"I am not satisfied with its licensing. Its payment is based on the exported data, and there was an explosion of the data for three or four weeks. My customer was not alerted, and there was no way for them to see that there has been an explosion of data. They got a big invoice for one or two months. The pricing model of Datadog is based on the data. The customer was quite surprised about not being alerted about this explosion of data. They should provide some kind of alert when there is an increase in usage."
"​Pricing seems reasonable. It depends on the size of your organization, the size of your infrastructure, and what portion of your overall business costs go toward infrastructure."
"Our licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis."
"The tool is open-source."
"The price is better than some competing products."
"At my last company, we did see ROI, specifically around response time. We could get to mission critical things that were down and losing revenue on immediately. So, the product paid itself back."
"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."
"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
37%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Educational Organization
61%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
5%
 

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: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.