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Dynatrace vs Grafana comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

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 (4th), Mobile APM (1st), Container Monitoring (1st), AIOps (2nd)
Grafana
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Dynatrace is 10.9%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana is 6.4%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Anand_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Vikash-Agarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Of the entire stack, DC RUM and DT SaaS are definitely the most asked for in our offering catalog."
"Dynatrace positively impacts my organization in various ways."
"The most valuable features for me are the dashboard panels because they enable you to monitor multiple applications in one single site."
"The features that we find most valuable are automatic root cause detection, topology discovery, and session replay."
"UEM (RUM)​: User Experience Management (real user monitoring) puts you in "user's seat" and gives you insight into how they experience the application. Often, this gives a totally different view than just watching the backend calls."
"Enables my performance engineer to recreate a problem and give the developers what's happening, where to go look, all the information they need to be able to find what the root cause is."
"Automation and anomaly detection has helped reduce MTTR and MTBF."
"Dynatrace's documentation is great. I love the university."
"Great capacity planning and the solution has a great GUI."
"I find Grafana beneficial due to its numerous plugins."
"What I found most valuable in Grafana is that it has a lot of integrations and features that I need for data processing and visualization."
"The best feature was the creation of graphs and trends."
"The solution can scale well."
"It provides a graphical representation and it's clear to see what's happening."
"​Grafana has improved our analysis capability to solve an issue, increasing the co-working between IT services and business services.​"
"It's easy to make changes. We can put many dashboards in one place. There's no delay in showing data - what you see on Grafana matches the server metrics."
 

Cons

"There are a lot of features that could be added that would make this a very useful solution, but it is getting there.​"
"Setting up the thresholds and alerting, it is complicated to understand their use cases."
"The functionality needs improvement."
"I would like to see more features from the desktop client included in the web client."
"I do not like the performance of the UI. It is really slow."
"Dynatrace could be improved by having a fully functional applications and infrastructure monitoring feature. Their existing stack, which is SNMP-based, does not have full infrastructure monitoring, whereas if we compare it with other solutions like New Relic or Datadog, they have moved into infrastructure monitoring. The second improvement I would suggest is in regards to the cost. So far, Dynatrace is the most expensive APM that we sell, even compared to New Relic. I think they can improve a little bit in terms of the license pricing."
"Cloud monitoring and reporting need improvement, as well as how to manipulate data and export it to share with business executives."
"Our primary wish list for RFEs or feature requests are additional integration options with ticketing systems. Although, we are able to work around it, 'ticketing' is not a core function of the product."
"Lacks event management which affects our DevOps people."
"I have a problem with Grafana in the area of documentation."
"The solution has room for improvement with a better API to help automate the construction of the dashboards easier."
"​The security needs to be improved, such as the capacity to add permissions on dashboards.​"
"There are not a lot of plugins for financial market monitoring."
"I had issues with the solution's configuration part."
"The interface is not well-liked by my customers. Grafana cannot be easily embedded into certain applications and offers limited customization options for graphs."
"The formatting could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Dynatrace is bit costly and not easily affordable."
"They could improve their price ranges, as there is no option for startups or testing."
"We asked for a three-year license, and the price was quite good."
"​Make sure your leadership buy-in is in place. Ensure leadership understands that an APM solution is a fairly expensive, so they know what they are getting into."
"Dynatrace is an expensive solution."
"Look at the product and the product features, not the price. Too often people look at the price and turn away. Dynatrace costs a little bit more than the other products I researched, but it can do far more.​"
"The pricing is a bit on the higher end."
"There are additional Professional Services costs which ensure the solution is configured with meaningful names so you're getting the most money for your investment."
"You need to purchase the solution's license for its commercial use."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"We are using the open-source license."
"We use the open-source version of Grafana."
"I give the price an eight out of ten."
"It's free of cost; it operates as an open-source tool."
"My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
35%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
6%
 

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...
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...
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...
What do you like most about Grafana?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
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.
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 ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

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.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dynatrace vs. Grafana and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
839,255 professionals have used our research since 2012.