Dynatrace vs Splunk APM 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 8.3, while Splunk is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.2. Dynatrace holds a 12.4% mindshare in APM, compared to Splunk’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Dynatrace users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

Dynatrace

Read 344 Dynatrace reviews

35,807 Views
21,723 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Splunk APM

Read 18 Splunk APM reviews

1,254 Views
848 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Dynatrace

Splunk APM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

We compared Dynatrace and Splunk based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

Ease of Deployment: Users find the initial setup for Splunk uncomplicated and direct, facilitated by package installers and Puppet integration. The deployment process is generally quick, although the speed may differ. Setting up Dynatrace is also simple, requiring no technical configuration. The deployment is minimal and can be accomplished within a month by a team of two individuals for a hundred servers.

Features: Splunk is compatible with ServiceNow and easy metric searches. It provides various visualization choices and effectively manages many metrics and traces. In contrast, Dynatrace excels in monitoring actual users, utilizing AI for automation, and its exceptional Kubernetes component. It offers session playback, synthetic monitoring, AI-powered root cause analysis, and straightforward management and deployment.

Splunk could benefit from enhancements in workload monitoring, custom metrics, log readability, configuration options, documentation, and accessibility. On the other hand, Dynatrace needs improvements in testing, cost display, accessibility, time zone handling, licensing, customization, cloud support, infrastructure monitoring, network performance monitoring, container platform, dashboard design, third-party integration, and reporting capabilities.
Pricing: Splunk and Dynatrace differ in terms of costs. Users have expressed that Splunk requires a significant upfront investment, while Dynatrace is more cost-effective to set up.

ROI: The ROI of Splunk is unclear as one user has not assessed it, while another user has seen a positive outcome. In contrast, Dynatrace has shown a positive ROI with various benefits such as time savings, enhanced quality, reduced mean time for identification and repair, improved uptime, and cost savings.

Service and Support: Users have generally had positive experiences with Splunk's customer service, citing good technical support and a helpful team. However, there have been delays in updates and issue explanations. In contrast, Dynatrace's customer service is highly praised for being very good, responsive, and always available. Some customers do mention the need for faster support and better documentation.

Comparison Results: Users appreciate Dynatrace's ability to track real users, AI capabilities, proactive feedback, and cost savings. It also provides a comprehensive view of infrastructure topology and microservices interaction. Users find it easy to manage, with a user-friendly interface and scalability. Dynatrace needs improvements in testing modules, cost reduction display, accessibility, user interface, and time zone handling. Despite some difficulties in pricing and licensing, users have seen a positive return on investment with Dynatrace.

To learn more, read our detailed Dynatrace vs. Splunk APM Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Dynatrace vs. Splunk APM

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Dynatrace

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

2nd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

344

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (4th), Mobile APM (1st), Container Monitoring (2nd), AIOps (2nd)

Splunk APM

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

13th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Dynatrace is 12.4%, down from 14.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk APM is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Sathis-Kumar

Senior Manager at Bank of America

The single-agent format is easy to use and accurately captures issues

We are currently migrating from AppDynamics to the solution. AppDynamics is moving toward a fast model and has a few issues with vendor support. It also requires multiple agents for each function. For example, a Java-related APM requires the installation of another agent. The solution is a bit higher priced than AppDynamics but is more user friendly and only requires one agent, so our application teams prefer it.

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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

"Some of the troubleshooting features for development, the PurePath technology in AppMon, are valuable. The dashboarding gives us some good insight into some fluctuations in some of the application areas."

"The stuff that's coming with the new pieces around the Dynatrace Managed SaaS implementation. The ease of implementation there is significant. We've spent a lot of time with AppMon and DC RUM - that's a lot of time to set up, configure. With Managed solution, you just drop it in and everything pretty much auto-instruments."

"I'm also involved on the practical side, putting in all the automation, that automation platform. To have a tool like Dynatrace, where I don't have to work out for hours how to configure and set up alerts and monitoring - especially in a solution that is not completed yet - it's not only a major time-saver, but I know going forward that it will be able to learn how the system operates. Day one, we're getting all of that stuff for free, out-of-the-box."

"Dynatrace's new AI stuff really out shines its competitors. "

"It helps our organization identify potential problems by doing thorough analysis of systems which integrate with one another."

"We're able to tell them which calls, which methods, which interface were the problem."

"It gives us all the data on all the calls, which is something that is very different from any other APM solution that I have seen or used in the past."

"Since we moved to OneAgent, we are much quicker to address live incidents and problems that occur in our systems."

More Dynatrace pros

"The most valuable features are troubleshooting and optimizing application performance."

"Splunk's dashboards are great."

"The product's deployment phase is good and very easy because it is done with OpenTelemetry for most of the parts."

"It supports proactive management, enhances security, and improves operational efficiency."

"The volume it handles is very good, including the number of metrics, the volume number of traces, and more."

"I like the fact that Splunk APM makes it easy to connect to the application database and run queries against the data."

"This solution is very quick to deploy as it is a SaaS solution and integrates with tools like ServiceNow."

"The features are pretty much ready out of the box."

More Splunk APM pros

Cons

"We have had problems with our middle layer application implementation."

"It does not have mature enough dashboards."

"Pretty much every month there are new features. However, its information on those new features is scarce."

"There continues to be some opportunity to expose the infrastructure from a broader reporting standpoint. Overall, the opportunity is in the reporting capability and the ability to more flexibly expose or pivot the data for deeper analysis. Oftentimes, the solution is good at looking narrowly at information, but when you want to broaden that perspective, that's where the challenges come in. At this point, it requires the export of data to external systems to do this."

"Documentation could be improved. E.g., you don't know how to properly use Dynatrace because documentation is almost lacking behind the features being deployed."

"The one area that we get value out of now, where we would love to see additional features, is the Session Replay. The ability to see how one individual uses a particular feature is great. But what we'd really like to be able to see is how a large group of people uses a particular feature. I believe Dynatrace has some things on its roadmap to add to Session Replay that would allow us those kinds of insights as well."

"I would like a tool that can give me a one page view of all the problems and issues."

"If you have many distributed servers, you will need to install or migrate every agent. This can be a problem if you have too many, and it takes time."

More Dynatrace cons

"The dashboards are used mainly to visualize information about the infrastructure, but it isn't easy to construct or use the dashboards. While we tried to resolve the issue by calling support, it would be easier if they had an AI co-pilot to identify the problem and help you solve it."

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

"The monitoring of workloads when using SignalFx could be improved."

"There are always areas for potential improvement to enhance its functionality and user experience."

"The cardinality is pretty low."

"They can improve the flow system and the keyword language. It has predefined keywords, but they can be improved."

"We currently lack log analysis capabilities in Splunk APM."

"There are some predefined metrics.......we may want to create customized metrics."

More Splunk APM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Everything is great, but the licensing could always be cheaper. With the every growing tool set of Ops teams, we find it harder to budget for tooling while ensuring we still have the proper insight into our applications."

"Always gives good ROI and total cost of ownership."

"The limitations I see are more to do - and maybe it's because of the nature of the job I have - but they have to do with pricing. It's a little bit pricey. It's a very good tool. It's worth the price, to a certain degree. But it's hard to justify when it's that costly."

"While it is quite good in respect to its functionality, there are few area in regards to pricing that they can look at how to possibly change. I have heard it's costly."

"The licensing model is confusing in solutioning clients for the number of hosts needed to deploy."

"We purchased a subscription for one year and it is an expensive solution for a large enterprise like ours."

"The product is pricey, but it is feature-rich, which is why we probably haven't looked away from it."

"Just go with Dynatrace. Just start with Dynatrace. Do not go into AppMon. Start with Dynatrace, because AppMon is going to give you so much extra stuff that 99% of your user base will not need it, including yourself."

More Dynatrace pricing and cost advice

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

"The pricing is based on several factors, including the scale of deployment."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"Splunk offers a 14-day free trial and after that, we have to pay but the cost is reasonable."

"Splunk APM is expensive."

"It appears to be expensive compared to competitors."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

34%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Retailer

11%

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 13% of the time

Azure Monitor vs Dynatrace

Compared 8% of the time

New Relic vs Dynatrace

Compared 7% of the time

AppDynamics vs Dynatrace

Compared 7% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Dynatrace

Compared 6% of the time

More Dynatrace Competitors

Observe vs Splunk APM

Compared 30% of the time

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) vs Splunk APM

Compared 12% of the time

Monte Carlo vs Splunk APM

Compared 7% of the time

Sentry vs Splunk APM

Compared 6% of the time

Elastic Observability vs Splunk APM

Compared 4% of the time

More Splunk APM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dynatrace

December 2024

Download Dynatrace product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk APM

October 2024

Download Splunk APM product report

Learn More

Dynatrace

Splunk

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."

Splunk APM is a comprehensive application performance monitoring solution that provides real-time insights into the performance and availability of your applications.

It offers end-to-end visibility across the entire application stack, from the front-end user experience to the back-end infrastructure. With Splunk APM, you can proactively identify and resolve performance issues, optimize application performance, and ensure a seamless user experience.

Splunk APM leverages machine learning and AI-powered analytics to automatically detect anomalies and provide actionable insights. The product supports a wide range of programming languages and frameworks, making it suitable for both monolithic and microservices-based architectures. It also integrates seamlessly with other Splunk products, allowing you to correlate APM data with logs, metrics, and other operational data for a holistic view of your application environment.

With its intuitive interface and powerful features, Splunk APM empowers developers, operations teams, and business stakeholders to deliver high-performing applications and drive better business outcomes.

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 APM

December 2024

Free Report: Dynatrace vs. Splunk APM

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