Dynatrace vs Grafana comparison

Dynatrace and Grafana Labs are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Dynatrace is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.8, while Grafana Labs is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.8. Dynatrace holds a 10.8% mindshare in APM, compared to Grafana Labs’s 6.4% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Dynatrace users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Grafana Labs users who would recommend it.

Dynatrace

Read 345 Dynatrace reviews

30,686 Views
19,443 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Grafana

Read 42 Grafana reviews

11,797 Views
9,517 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Dynatrace

Grafana

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

Dynatrace and Grafana are two leading tools in the monitoring and observability space. Dynatrace has the upper hand for its comprehensive features and enterprise support.

Features: Dynatrace users highlight the platform's AI-driven insights, automated root cause analysis, and valuable for large-scale environments. Grafana users praise its customizable dashboards, extensive plugin ecosystem, and flexibility to various data sources.

Room for Improvement: Dynatrace users suggest enhancements in reporting capabilities, reducing the learning curve, and more usability improvements. Grafana users recommend improved alerting functionalities, better out-of-the-box templates, and more robust built-in solutions for less technical users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dynatrace is noted for its straightforward deployment process and responsive support team. Grafana, being open-source, demands more initial setup but benefits from active community support

Pricing and ROI: Dynatrace has a premium pricing model, reflecting its extensive feature set and enterprise-focused support, delivering a solid return on investment for large organizations. Grafana, often praised for its cost-effectiveness, especially in smaller setups, balances initial setup costs with long-term adaptability, appealing more to diverse budget ranges.

To learn more, read our detailed Dynatrace vs. Grafana Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dynatrace vs. Grafana

March 2025

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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

Dynatrace

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

2nd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

345

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (5th), Mobile APM (1st), Container Monitoring (2nd), AIOps (2nd)

Grafana

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

6th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

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 Dynatrace is 10.8%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana is 6.4%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Anand_Kumar

Enterprise Architect at DXC Technology

Provides a comprehensive view by integrating with other monitoring systems

There may be an issue since there are many tools like Splunk involved in network monitoring. From an IP perspective, Dynatrace is performing well. If they want to develop in network monitoring, they can, as it's part of their product line. It's not rocketry, so they can accomplish it. If I, as an SI, look at it from an enterprise perspective, considering the cost from the client, I prefer not to go with multiple systems, as they don't provide a complete 360-degree view. They need to improve on claims about being an enterprise system. The definition of enterprise is loosely used, however, from a holistic security perspective, including infrastructure, network, ports, software, applications, transactions, and databases, there are areas lacking, especially in network monitoring tools.

Read full review

Vikash-Agarwal

Aplication Architect at Amazon

Displays data visually from multiple sources while integrating seamlessly with existing systems

Grafana provides a user-friendly interface for viewing infrastructure metrics through dashboards. It integrates with Prometheus to pull data and offers a straightforward setup process. Users can monitor metrics with greater ease, and the tool aids in quickly identifying issues by providing a visual representation of data. Grafana's integration capability is straightforward, which facilitates building dashboards as needed.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"PurePaths. The ability to see the transaction flow of the web request. It's valuable because our developers, when we have an issue, they can drill down to see exactly where in the application, the call in the application; where the high response time is, or where something is wrong."

"Dynatrace helps to build business and non-business dashboards and the appropriate alarming on mail groups."

"It helps to improve code efficiency and has quicker performance analysis."

"It gives you a great level of detail into whatever the issue is: Using troubleshooting and getting to the root cause."

"UEM (User Experience Management) is an optional feature that we acquired and use a lot. It provides indicators from the customer's browser, reflecting more precisely on what our internal users are experiencing."

"Dynatrace has great training available. It is easy for everybody to use. Anybody can go out to YouTube, watch a video, and figure out how to use the piece that they need."

"The initial setup was straightforward."

"We had point solutions where we could see different elements of the stack, and Dynatrace ties everything together. Before, we could never get that full-stack monitoring. It also helps us get us the context of the customer experience. What's the business impact of those problems?"

More Dynatrace pros

"It integrates well with other solutions."

"Compatibility with Prometheus databases and the Spring Boot application make it the first choice when moving toward an SRE model."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the UI dashboard because we need to create a dashboard on Grafana to monitor our data."

"The solution can scale well."

"The most valuable thing was that it had a good visualization tool."

"Kubernetes could help us to better visualize the trend of our data by recording and displaying our history over a chosen duration, such as the last 30 days."

"Grafana is stable and has great engineers."

"The best thing about Grafana is the visualization. The colors and the ease of use make it very user-friendly."

More Grafana pros

Cons

"I would say that this solution's reports are lacking a little bit, and because of this, you have to rely on API to fetch and pull data. I think they could have done a bit of a better job by providing a more user-friendly search from a reporting perspective."

"If the user interface were made more intuitive then it would really benefit the product."

"The thing that is preventing us from moving forward with Dynatrace right now is that we can't tag our customer traffic with a customizable tag. All of our students have a unique identifier and in AppMon we tag that and we can search by it very easily and it's very useful. But in Dynatrace, you can't yet customize and find people like that, so that's really preventing us. I heard that it's being worked on but I'm not sure when it's coming out."

"The initial setup was relatively complex because we were trying to implement into environments that they did not yet support."

"Dynatrace has been difficult to set up and use to diagnose problems in the past due to the complex nature of the tool."

"Some technical architectures are based on an event mechanism operating via a publish/subscribe system. APM technology sometimes reaches its limits to go upstream."

"The product could be faster and lighter, especially the rich client which uses many resources."

"The user interface needs to be improved."

More Dynatrace cons

"Trigger limits are difficult to see in a graph."

"Lacks event management which affects our DevOps people."

"Its interface could be more accessible."

"There is room for improvement when using multiple dashboards because they can become complicated to keep track of and use."

"It is limited on the reporting type supported, which is important for managerial-level officers who want reports that are either general or specific."

"It would be helpful if Grafana provided more information and training on how to use Prometheus."

"Lacks in-depth graphs and sufficient AI."

"I had issues with the solution's configuration part."

More Grafana cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing can be high, especially for Portuguese standards. But as one says, you get what you pay for."

"Pricing is still too expensive."

"As compared to New Relic and other providers, it is more expensive, which is its biggest disadvantage. Its biggest advantage is its capability. It is more feature-rich."

"This is an expensive solution, but it is also worth the money."

"Consider volume because that is where you will get the most benefit. Doing a point solution is not cost-effective."

"Its price is quite high. Although it is worth it, it would be better if its price is reduced. They base their prices around licensing. Their prices are based on agent licensing and consumption licensing. Both of these can be a bit cheaper, but if they are the best in the market, as I consider them to be, I assume that their prices will be higher. They are delivering the product for that price."

"It's more expensive than other solutions, but worth it. We use full APM monitoring on our primary systems, but only resource monitoring on lesser systems. We shift licenses around our environment when a deeper dive into lesser systems is required."

"We have not fully been able to get the full value out of the product. It is expensive compared to other things that we have had in the past. Paying that much and not being able to get the full return on the product is a downgrade. "

More Dynatrace pricing and cost advice

"We are using the open-source license."

"My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."

"I use the open source model so it is free."

"The solution is expensive."

"You need to purchase the solution's license for its commercial use."

"It's free of cost; it operates as an open-source tool."

"I am using an open-source version"

"For me, Grafana is a cheap tool because I don't have to spend much time learning the product since it is a simple solution."

More Grafana pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

36%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?

The key is to have a holistic view over the complete infrastructure, the ones you have listed are great for APM if you need to monitor applications end to end. I have tested them all and have not f...

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What cloud monitoring software did you choose and why?

While the environment does matter in the selection of an APM tool, I prefer to use Dynatrace to manage the entire stack. Both production and Dev/Test. I find it to be quite superior to anything els...

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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

What do you like most about Grafana?

The product's initial setup phase was very easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana?

I used the open-source version for my learning, which was free. In an enterprise setting, pricing is reasonable, as many customers use it.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Grafana?

The interface is not well-liked by my customers. Grafana cannot be easily embedded into certain applications and offers limited customization options for graphs. I think predictive capabilities in ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Datadog vs Dynatrace

Compared 12% of the time

Azure Monitor vs Dynatrace

Compared 7% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Dynatrace

Compared 6% of the time

New Relic vs Dynatrace

Compared 6% of the time

Instana Dynamic APM vs Dynatrace

Compared 3% of the time

More Dynatrace Competitors

Sentry vs Grafana

Compared 24% of the time

Azure Monitor vs Grafana

Compared 12% of the time

Elastic Observability vs Grafana

Compared 8% of the time

New Relic vs Grafana

Compared 5% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs Grafana

Compared 5% of the time

More Grafana Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dynatrace

March 2025

Download Dynatrace product report

Buyer's Guide

Grafana

March 2025

Download Grafana product report

Overview

Dynatrace is an AI-powered software intelligence monitoring platform that accelerates digital transformation and simplifies cloud complexities. Dynatrace is an entirely automated full-stack solution that provides data and answers about the performance of your applications and deep insight into every transaction throughout every application, including the end-user experience. By modernizing and automating enterprise cloud operations, users can deliver an optimal digital experience with higher quality software to customers faster.

Dynatrace offers an all-in-one automated artificial intelligence solution that brings together application performance, cloud and infrastructure, and digital experience monitoring. Dynatrace accelerates performance-driven results through operations, development, and business teams with a shared metrics platform. In addition, users are provided a full-stack monitoring experience with three patented technologies:

Smartscape - visualization mechanism that maps the totality of everything working in your environment and detects any casual dependencies between your applications, processes, websites, services, hosts, cloud infrastructure, and networks.
OneAgent - a technology that analyzes, gathers ,and unifies all business performance metrics throughout every layer of your technology stack.
PurePath Technology - code-level context and timings are captured from the mainframe to the cloud for all end-to-end transactions.

What does Dynatrace offer?

Dynatrace redefines how organizations monitor their digital ecosystems. The solution offers:

Cloud Automation: With AI engine Davis®, users can see the exact reason for problems and facilitate quick auto-remediation and intelligent cloud orchestration.
Application Security: With automated application vulnerability management, users can deliver applications faster and more securely.
Infrastructure Monitoring: Convenient broad visibility across your environments is provided with streamlined, automated infrastructure monitoring.
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM): Optimize your applications, provide better support, and improve user experience with a combination of Real User Monitoring (RUM), Session Replay, and synthetic monitoring throughout your environment.
Applications and Microservices: For complex cloud environments, Dynatrace can automatically provide visibility and root-cause answers. It can also monitor microservices.
Digital Business Analytics: Get AI-powered, real-time answers to analytical business queries with KPIs and metrics that are already flowing through applications.

Reviews from Real Users

Dynatrace is the only solution that provides answers to organizations based on deep insight into each user, transaction, and organization's environment.

Barry P., a managing performance engineer at Medica Health Plans, writes, "With Dynatrace, we have synthetic checks and real-user monitoring of all of our websites, places where members and providers can interact with us over the web. We monitor the response times of those with Dynatrace, and it's all integrated into one place."

A consultant at a tech service company notes, "A feature that's one of the highlights of Dynatrace is the AI. The second most valuable feature is OneAgent. Between infrastructures, applications, operating systems, you can deploy with just a single agent and can practically install and forget about it."

Dynatrace

Grafana is an open-source visualization and analytics platform that stands out in the field of monitoring solutions. Grafana is widely recognized for its powerful, easy-to-set-up dashboards and visualizations. Grafana supports integration with a wide array of data sources and tools, including Prometheus, InfluxDB, MySQL, Splunk, and Elasticsearch, enhancing its versatility. Grafana has open-source and cloud options; the open-source version is a good choice for organizations with the resources to manage their infrastructure and want more control over their deployment. The cloud service is a good choice if you want a fully managed solution that is easy to start with and scale.

A key strength of Grafana lies in its ability to explore, visualize, query, and alert on the collected data through operational dashboards. These dashboards are highly customizable and visually appealing, making them a valuable asset for data analysis, performance tracking, trend spotting, and detecting irregularities.

Grafana provides both an open-source solution with an active community and Grafana Cloud, a fully managed and composable observability offering that packages together metrics, logs, and traces with Grafana. The open-source version is licensed under the Affero General Public License version 3.0 (AGPLv3), being free and unlimited. Grafana Cloud and Grafana Enterprise are available for more advanced needs, catering to a wider range of organizational requirements. Grafana offers options for self-managed backend systems or fully managed services via Grafana Cloud. Grafana Cloud extends observability with a wide range of solutions for infrastructure monitoring, IRM, load testing, Kubernetes monitoring, continuous profiling, frontend observability, and more.

The Grafana users we interviewed generally appreciate Grafana's ability to connect with various data sources, its straightforward usability, and its integration capabilities, especially in developer-oriented environments. The platform is noted for its practical alert configurations, ticketing backend integration, and as a powerful tool for developing dashboards. However, some users find a learning curve in the initial setup and mention the need for time investment to customize and leverage Grafana effectively. There are also calls for clearer documentation and simplification of notification alert templates.

In summary, Grafana is a comprehensive solution for data visualization and monitoring, widely used across industries for its versatility, ease of use, and extensive integration options. It suits organizations seeking a customizable and scalable platform for visualizing time-series data from diverse sources. However, users should be prepared for some complexity in setup and customization and may need to invest time in learning and tailoring the system to their specific needs.

Grafana Labs

Sample Customers

Audi, Best Buy, LinkedIn, CISCO, Intuit, KRONOS, Scottrade, Wells Fargo, ULTA Beauty, Lenovo, Swarovsk, Nike, Whirlpool, American Express

Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.

Buyer's Guide

Dynatrace vs. Grafana

March 2025

Free Report: Dynatrace vs. Grafana

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