Google Kubernetes Engine vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

December 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

4.8

Google Kubernetes Engine offers cost efficiency and productivity, though additional service costs and competition may affect returns.

Sentiment score

6.9

Splunk Observability Cloud boosts visibility, efficiency, and financial returns with faster debugging, reduced downtime, and improved collaboration.

By migrating from AWS to Google Cloud Platform, we have saved a lot of time and money.

For more quotes and insights, download the Google Kubernetes Engine report

Director at Taotesting

Using Splunk has saved my organization about 30% of our budget compared to using multiple different monitoring products.

For more quotes and insights, download the Splunk Observability Cloud report

Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Anyone working in front-end management should recognize the market price to see the true value of end-user monitoring.

EdwardShim

General Manager at MOCOMSYS

I have definitely seen a return on investment with Splunk Observability Cloud, particularly through how fast it has grown and how comfortable other teams are in relying on its outputs for monitoring and observability.

Taiwo Ige

IT Operations Engineer at ABC Supply Co. Inc.

Customer Service

Sentiment score

3.3

User satisfaction with Google Kubernetes Engine support is mixed, with some praising efficiency and others noting delays and challenges.

Sentiment score

7.1

Splunk Observability Cloud generally receives positive customer support reviews, citing prompt, knowledgeable assistance, despite occasional resolution delays.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Google Kubernetes Engine report

On a scale of 1 to 10, the customer service and technical support deserve a 10.

reviewer2755917

Systems Administrator at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees

They have consistently helped us resolve any issues we've encountered.

Juan Baez

Software Engineer at UKG

They often require multiple questions, with five or six emails to get a response.

For more quotes and insights, download the Splunk Observability Cloud report

Splunk Observability Expert

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

5.0

Google Kubernetes Engine excels in scalability, supporting dynamic scaling for enterprises and cloud platforms, ideal for diverse applications.

Sentiment score

7.3

Splunk Observability Cloud scales efficiently with organization needs, though costly, offering flexible integration and handling large deployments seamlessly.

The autoscaling capabilities of Google Kubernetes Engine have significantly impacted our operations.

For more quotes and insights, download the Google Kubernetes Engine report

Director at Taotesting

We've used the solution across more than 250 people, including engineers.

Splunk Observability Expert

As we are a growing company transitioning all our applications to the cloud, and with the increasing number of cloud-native applications, Splunk Observability Cloud will help us achieve digital resiliency and reduce our mean time to resolution.

Lalatendu Swain

Application Developer at UMB Financial

I would rate its scalability a nine out of ten.

For more quotes and insights, download the Splunk Observability Cloud report

Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.4

Google Kubernetes Engine is stable, with minimal downtime and consistent performance, appreciated for scalability and adaptability across environments.

Sentiment score

7.7

Splunk Observability Cloud is praised for stability and reliability, with occasional performance issues managed effectively by support.

If I have 100 replicas of containers and the traffic suddenly pushes to 1,000 within a fraction of a second, the selected machine type must be fast.

Parthasarathy T

Cloud Associate DevOps at Publicis Sapient

For more quotes and insights, download the Google Kubernetes Engine report

I would rate its stability a nine out of ten.

Muhammad M

Head of DevOps at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

We rarely have problems accessing the dashboard or the page.

For more quotes and insights, download the Splunk Observability Cloud report

Splunk Observability Expert

Unlike NetScout or regular agents for APM, RUM has many problems during the POC phase because customer environments vary widely.

EdwardShim

General Manager at MOCOMSYS

Room For Improvement

Users suggest improvements in pricing, upgrades, interface, security, support, integration, backup, and performance visibility for Google Kubernetes Engine.

Splunk Observability Cloud needs better integration, automation, user interface, Azure support, and enhanced log analysis for improved user experience.

When looking at the web interface, it feels kind of slow due to the many features involved.

Immánuel Fodor

Product Manager at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees

Log observability could be made easier so someone from high school can use it without having technological expertise.

Rakesh-Tomar

Consultant at HSBC

It would be helpful if I could easily find log information in a particular namespace without needing to write certain labels.

For more quotes and insights, download the Google Kubernetes Engine report

Director at Taotesting

The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders.

Taiwo Ige

IT Operations Engineer at ABC Supply Co. Inc.

The next release of Splunk Observability Cloud should include a feature that makes it so that when looking at charts and dashboards, and also looking at one environment regardless of the product feature that you're in, APM, infrastructure, RUM, the environment that is chosen in the first location when you sign into Splunk Observability Cloud needs to stay persistent all the way through.

Sarah Van Zee

Systems Monitoring Engineer II at a government with 10,001+ employees

There is room for improvement in the alerting system, which is complicated and has less documentation available.

Muhammad M

Head of DevOps at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Splunk Observability Cloud report

Setup Cost

Google Kubernetes Engine offers usage-based pricing with flexibility, but costs may rise with robust configurations and small deployments.

Enterprise users see Splunk Observability Cloud as costly but valued for features, though some explore alternatives due to expenses.

Instead, we only pay for the hardware we use, which results in cost-cutting.

Parthasarathy T

Cloud Associate DevOps at Publicis Sapient

Google is considered cheaper compared to AWS, making it suitable for smaller to medium companies concerning cost.

Immánuel Fodor

Product Manager at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees

The on-demand nodes are quite expensive.

For more quotes and insights, download the Google Kubernetes Engine report

Director at Taotesting

Splunk is a bit expensive since it charges based on the indexing rate of data.

For more quotes and insights, download the Splunk Observability Cloud report

Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

It is expensive, especially when there are other vendors that offer something similar for much cheaper.

Ernesto Gutierrez

Solutions Architect at Ikusi

It appears to be expensive compared to competitors.

Muhammad M

Head of DevOps at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Valuable Features

Google Kubernetes Engine excels with auto-scaling, easy deployment, integration, security, and reduced complexity for seamless application management.

Splunk Observability Cloud offers real-time monitoring, data integration, and APM with machine learning for scalable, user-friendly performance insights.

The most valuable aspect of Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is its managed nature, which significantly reduces the burden on our platform team.

Immánuel Fodor

Product Manager at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees

The best advantage of Google Kubernetes Engine is that it manages Kubernetes for you, making everything related to the master nodes managed for you with automatic updating and upgrading.

Amr Ehab

Solution Architect at Rutotech

GKE is easier to understand and use than Elastic Kubernetes Service.

Rakesh-Tomar

Consultant at HSBC

For more quotes and insights, download the Google Kubernetes Engine report

Splunk provides advanced notifications of roadblocks in the application, which helps us to improve and avoid impacts during high-volume days.

Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

For troubleshooting, we can detect problems in seconds, which is particularly helpful for digital teams.

For more quotes and insights, download the Splunk Observability Cloud report

Splunk Observability Expert

It offers unified visibility for logs, metrics, and traces.

Mary Vasantha Golleru

Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Categories and Ranking

Google Kubernetes Engine

Ranking in Container Management

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Splunk Observability Cloud

Ranking in Container Management

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (8th), Network Monitoring Software (6th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Google Kubernetes Engine is 2.3%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud	0.7%
Google Kubernetes Engine	2.3%
Other	97.0%

Container Management

Featured Reviews

Parthasarathy T

Cloud Associate DevOps at Publicis Sapient

Managed solutions enable efficient handling of web applications and migration projects

Google Kubernetes Engine can be improved by enabling the in-place upgrade of the machine type of an existing node pool since I currently need to destroy and recreate it. There is no feature present where I can upgrade directly, and having more than 1,000 to 2,000 workloads in one node pool makes changing the node pool name difficult for all those workloads. I choose eight out of ten mainly because of the node pool upgrade challenge I mentioned, but also because of the existence of Anthos service mesh, which is the ingress controller available only for the enterprise Kubernetes Engine. It would be beneficial if it could be offered in the normal Kubernetes Engine with any limitations.

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Dhananjay Dileep

Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

Unified monitoring has improved end-to-end visibility and reduced detection time across apps

When we have too many detectors in place for one particular app, such as when I have created 50+ detectors through my account, the entire page becomes a bit loaded when creating the 51st detector, feeling heavy and taking time to load. Additionally, it throws random errors; for example, when we try to save one detector, it might throw some random error which is not even related, with something else being wrong, not that particular error, but the underlying root cause might be different. Sometimes the error is just "some problem occurred," and we are not able to point out what the real cause is. This mainly happens when we have too many detectors or too many alerts in place rather than a standard number. One more thing is in the alert rules; if we have a main general alert, and instead of creating a new detector, we are adding a new rule under one detector, when the number of rules also increases, such as when we have 10 or 15 rules under one generic detector, that again creates the same kind of problem, taking some time to save that particular newly added rule, and it might not save at times, just keeps on spinning. Those are the two drawbacks which I spotted recently; other than that, everything looks perfect.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

27%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	21
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	47

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Kubernetes Engine?

The product has no downtime.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Kubernetes Engine?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Google Kubernetes Engine is straightforward, as I previously indicated. The need for humans is reduced with GCP since there is no need for ...

What needs improvement with Google Kubernetes Engine?

The price could be a bit cheaper. I don't see anything with Google Kubernetes Engine that needs to be improved. I think they are already implementing Kubernetes itself, so they are the owners. Howe...

What do you like most about SignalFx?

The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.

What needs improvement with SignalFx?

Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and pr...

What is your primary use case for SignalFx?

The solution involves observability in general, such as Application Performance Monitoring, and generally addresses digital applications, web applications, sites, and mobile applications. I worked ...

Kubernetes vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Comparisons

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 12% of the time

Docker vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 12% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 12% of the time

More Google Kubernetes Engine Competitors

Sentry vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

Avantra vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Observe vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Cribl vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Honeycomb Enterprise vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

More Splunk Observability Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Download Google Kubernetes Engine product report

Google Kubernetes Engine

January 2026

Splunk Observability Cloud

December 2025

Download Splunk Observability Cloud product report

Also Known As

GKE

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring

Overview

Kubernetes Engine is a managed, production-ready environment for deploying containerized applications. It brings our latest innovations in developer productivity, resource efficiency, automated operations, and open source flexibility to accelerate your time to market.

Google

Splunk Observability Cloud offers sophisticated log searching, data integration, and customizable dashboards. With rapid deployment and ease of use, this cloud service enhances monitoring capabilities across IT infrastructures for comprehensive end-to-end visibility.

Focused on enhancing performance management and security, Splunk Observability Cloud supports environments through its data visualization and analysis tools. Users appreciate its robust application performance monitoring and troubleshooting insights. However, improvements in integrations, interface customization, scalability, and automation are needed. Users find value in its capabilities for infrastructure and network monitoring, as well as log analytics, albeit cost considerations and better documentation are desired. Enhancements in real-time monitoring and network protection are also noted as areas for development.

What are the key features?

Log Searching: Efficiently search and analyze logs from various sources.
Data Integration: Seamlessly integrate with multiple environments.
Dashboard Customization: Tailor dashboards to specific monitoring needs.
Monitoring Capabilities: Provides comprehensive insights into application performance.
Security Features: Analyze and address security threats across systems.
Visualization Tools: Enhance data analysis and system performance optimization.

Why consider this for ROI?

Comprehensive Visibility: Gain complete insights into IT infrastructure.
Performance Optimization: Improve overall system performance and efficiency.
Rapid Deployment: Quick setup to meet organization demands swiftly.
Enhanced Security: Strengthen security measures through detailed analytics.

In industries, Splunk Observability Cloud is implemented for security management by analyzing logs from detection systems, offering real-time alerts and troubleshooting for cloud-native applications. It is leveraged for machine data analysis, improving infrastructure visibility and supporting network and application performance management efforts.

Splunk

Sample Customers

Philips Lighting, Alpha Vertex, GroupBy, BQ

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