Dynatrace vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

Dynatrace and Splunk are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Dynatrace is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.8, while Splunk is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.6. Dynatrace holds a 10.8% mindshare in APM, compared to Splunk’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Dynatrace users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

Dynatrace

Read 345 Dynatrace reviews

30,686 Views
19,455 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Splunk Observability Cloud

Read 50 Splunk Observability Cloud reviews

1,960 Views
1,163 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Dynatrace

Splunk Observability Cloud

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 6, 2025

Dynatrace and Splunk Observability Cloud compete in the monitoring and analytics software category, with Dynatrace having a slight upper hand due to its AI-driven analysis capabilities.

Features: Dynatrace provides a flexible platform with dynamic reporting and is known for its real-time insights and technologies like PurePath, aiding in tracing user transactions and detecting code-level errors. Splunk Observability Cloud excels in log analytics and integration, delivering a strong dashboard experience with full visibility across monitored environments.

Room for Improvement: Dynatrace faces challenges with pricing complexity and high costs, especially for smaller setups, along with a need for clearer licensing and platform support expansion. Splunk Observability Cloud's main drawback is its cost related to data volume billing, alongside opportunities to enhance machine learning features and improve user interface design for easier navigation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dynatrace is recognized for its quick deployment across on-premises and cloud environments, providing proactive and responsive customer support. Splunk Observability Cloud also offers efficient deployment models, particularly in hybrid solutions, but Dynatrace's proactive support makes its user experience more favorable.

Pricing and ROI: Both Dynatrace and Splunk Observability Cloud have significant costs linked to their comprehensive features. Dynatrace's pricing is complex and often steep, yet offers robust ROI through automation and reduced downtime. Splunk's pricing remains high due to data volume-based licensing, with its ROI becoming evident in larger deployments through excellent log management and analytics capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Dynatrace vs. Splunk Observability Cloud Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dynatrace vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

April 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)

Splunk Observability Cloud

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

11th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (9th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th), Container Management (8th)

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 Splunk Observability Cloud is 1.0%, up from 0.5% 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.

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Lakshmi Padaga

Java Developer at U.S. Bank

Collaborates performance metrics with log data to pinpoint the exact cause of issues and offers error detection

Splunk APM is a robust tool with many capabilities. There are always areas for potential improvement to enhance its functionality and user experience. For Splunk APM, there could be simplified navigation, like streamlining the user interface to make navigation more intuitive for our users, especially those new to APM, which can enhance usability. We can provide more customization options for dashboards and visualizations to help users tailor the platform to their specific needs. There could be more integration capabilities with a wider range of third-party tools and platforms would also be beneficial. By focusing on these areas, Splunk APM can enhance its value proposition, improve user satisfaction, and better meet the evolving needs of organizations monitoring their application performance.

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

"We monitor end-to-end availability of the application and deep dive PurePath analysis of real user visits."

"One thing it helped with: We should never get traffic from outside the U.S. and we were getting traffic from Europe, and that was a problem. We found out what caused it. Dynatrace helped us find that information out. We wouldn't have found it otherwise."

"Its ability to correlate a large source of information to pinpoint a root cause. This speeds up issue resolution and allow us to better reach our objectives."

"We have used Dynatrace in our performance testing environments to get ahead of issues before they make it into production."

"The alerting mechanism where you get millions of dependencies analyzed, in one alert or "problem" as Dynatrace calls it."

"The solution's most valuable features are AI and root cause analysis."

"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."

"Metrics for CPU, memory, network, and disk. It provides extensive end-user, application, and infrastructure platform and technology support, including mobile, web browser, Java, .NET, PHP, servers, networks, and mainframe."

More Dynatrace pros

"The most beneficial aspect of Splunk APM is the ATM, which is the map displaying the inbound and outbound relationships of the microservices, as well as the traffic between these dependencies. This feature provides us with valuable insights and helps us understand the interactions between different microservices."

"The alerts are the most valuable feature."

"Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring provided our customers with visibility into their overall infrastructure."

"Splunk APM provides a holistic view of the application. Unlike other APMs, Splunk's service map is quite effective."

"It's a very easy-to-use solution."

"The product retains a lot of log data for subsequent analysis."

"The data collection from our VMs, containers, databases, and backend components is valuable."

"The solution's service map feature allows us to have a holistic overview and to see quickly where the issues are."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pros

Cons

"I'd like to see the UI a bit more polished. For example, I saw a demo of the dashboards here at the Perform 2018 conference. There was a table of these widgets, but they're not sorted alphabetically and there's, like, 50 of them. So if you want to find your widgets, you're of scrolling up and down. So small features, being able to search for widgets, that things are more categorized; just a bit more focused on the user experience."

"Right now, there is a log analysis feature. This is maybe a little more deeper than the log analytics in comparison to other tools, like Splunk or Sumo Logic. If Dynatrace can come up with this replay feature, that would be great."

"It needs a dashboard for cluster events in general, and for Kubernetes specifically."

"There should be more visibility for network performance monitoring. There should be more metrics for things like 5G and IoT. That would be the main thing because they've moved more to mobile performance rather than fixed networks."

"Dynatrace must reduce the required resources for on-premise, because they are too high."

"We would also like to see all the good data in a single view across multiple tools, so that access to integration is critical."

"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."

"The user interface is complicated, but recent web versions are getting better all the time."

More Dynatrace cons

"The product collects a lot of data but it does not assure that it collects all of it."

"One thing I recently ran into was that the logs on the server most often get Gzipped after they have been rotated. We found that we were not monitoring some of the things, so we had to go back and pull them in. Right now, it pulls one at a time, untars it, or unzips it, so I cannot look at the entire history. There can be an improvement in that area."

"The clustering part of indexes can be more refined."

"The UI enhancements could be a way to improve the solution in the future."

"We still use Splunk Enterprise licensing. A lot of the newer features go into Splunk Cloud before Enterprise. We're not looking to switch our licensing over, so we're falling behind on the newer features."

"Splunk could be better integrated with configuration manager solutions so we can automatically resolve issues without human interference."

"The UI enhancements could be a way to improve the solution in the future."

"Splunk isn't an ideal tool for application performance management due to the extensive setup required."

More Splunk Observability Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the pricing is at a fair value for what it is."

"Dynatrace is an expensive solution."

"It is quite expensive for startups."

"The solution has saved us money through the consolidation of tools. With a hybrid landscape, we had multiple tools. When we consolidated, we removed four or five other monitoring tools with one. For the last ROI calculation that I did, Dynatrace was saving us up to $500,000 per year."

"Financially Dynatrace was a lot more expensive than AppDynamics."

"We license it for two environments, typically all of production and all of one lower environment, usually our staging environment. If there is a downside to Dynatrace, the only thing I can think of would be the cost. If it were cheaper, I'd have it in all my environments. I don't think they're charging more than it's worth, by any means. It's just that good software costs money."

"Do a PoC and see if you like it."

"Getting the first agents installed, getting information, and coverage in a initial set of systems can be done in hours and with a low cost entry point."

More Dynatrace pricing and cost advice

"This is an expensive solution."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"Splunk APM is a very cost-efficient solution."

"The price of Splunk APM is less than some of its competitors."

"I would rate the price of Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring as an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."

"It appears to be expensive compared to competitors."

"Splunk's infrastructure monitoring costs can be high because our billing is based on data volume measured in terabytes, rather than the number of devices being monitored."

"Splunk APM is expensive."

More Splunk Observability Cloud 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

18%

Computer Software Company

15%

Retailer

Government

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 SignalFx?

The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SignalFx?

There is room for improvement in the alerting system, which is complicated and has less documentation available. We sometimes encountered issues in setting up alerts. The custom detector could be m...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SignalFx?

The main purpose of using Splunk APM is to optimize our application. We use Splunk APM primarily to understand how the application works, how it uses resources, and its response time in connection ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Datadog vs Dynatrace

Compared 12% of the time

Azure Monitor vs Dynatrace

Compared 6% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Dynatrace

Compared 6% of the time

New Relic vs Dynatrace

Compared 6% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs Dynatrace

Compared 5% of the time

More Dynatrace Competitors

Observe vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 20% of the time

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon CloudWatch vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Rancher Labs vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

ServiceNow IT Operations Management vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

More Splunk Observability Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dynatrace

April 2025

Download Dynatrace product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Observability Cloud

March 2025

Download Splunk Observability Cloud product report

Also Known As

No data available

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring

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

Splunk Observability Cloud combines log search, data integration, and dashboards for seamless monitoring, enhancing infrastructure visibility and security. Its cloud integration and scalability support diverse environments, improving operational efficiency.

Splunk Observability Cloud offers comprehensive monitoring tools with user-friendly interfaces, enabling end-to-end infrastructure visibility. Its real-time alerting and predictive capabilities enhance security monitoring, while centralized dashboards provide cross-platform visibility. Users benefit from fast data integration and extensive insights into application performance. Despite its advantages, improvements could be made in integration with other tools, data reliability, scalability, and cost management. Users face challenges in configuration complexity and require better automation and endpoint protection features. Enhancing AI integration, alerts, and adaptation for high-throughput services could further improve usability.

What are the key features of Splunk Observability Cloud?

Log Search: Efficiently search and analyze log data for enhanced insights.
Data Integration: Fast integration across platforms for comprehensive visibility.
Custom Dashboards: Powerful and adaptable dashboards for real-time monitoring.
Cloud Integration: Seamless integration with cloud services for scalable solutions.
Application Performance Monitoring: Advanced tools for improving application performance.

What benefits and ROI should be expected?

Infrastructure Monitoring: Improved visibility and monitoring across infrastructure components.
Operational Efficiency: Enhancements in data analysis lead to efficient operations.
Business Resilience: Supports adaptability and swift responses to changing needs.
Security Management: Enhances threat identification and response through real-time alerts.
Compliance Support: Aids in meeting compliance and auditing requirements effectively.

In industries like finance and healthcare, Splunk Observability Cloud is implemented for application performance monitoring and infrastructure metrics. Its ability to track incidents and analyze machine data benefits network infrastructure, while distributed tracing and log analysis aid in tackling security threats. Organizations often integrate it for compliance and auditing purposes, enhancing visibility into network traffic and optimizing performance.

Splunk

Sample Customers

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

Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara

Buyer's Guide

Dynatrace vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

April 2025

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