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Grafana vs Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) 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

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
Splunk ITSI (IT Service Int...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
IT Alerting and Incident Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Grafana is 6.3%, up from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Sunil K R - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps improve our incident response time, and our mean time to resolve, but visibility is limited
In my previous project, I successfully led the end-to-end deployment of a Splunk migration. The process went smoothly thanks in part to Splunk's professional services team. They conducted a thorough assessment, identified all our potential pain points, and developed a tailored solution and migration plan. This comprehensive approach ensured a seamless transition. Our core deployment team consisted of 5 internal members and two specialists from Splunk. Additionally, the project included a project manager and a product owner. We also benefited from the expertise of two professional service consultants and two representatives from the customer's side. An on-site admin architect further provided valuable technical support. Throughout the deployment process, we leveraged support from various resources whenever necessary. This included assistance with configuration changes, deployments, and other related tasks. We also collaborated effectively with our teammates to ensure a smooth and successful implementation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Compatibility with Prometheus databases and the Spring Boot application make it the first choice when moving toward an SRE model."
"The dashboards are very easy to work with."
"Grafana provides a user-friendly interface for viewing infrastructure metrics through dashboards."
"The best thing about Grafana is the visualization. The colors and the ease of use make it very user-friendly."
"Grafana's best features are live monitoring and alerts."
"We like the alert features."
"This solution provides valuable insights into the health of our infrastructure in real time."
"I find Grafana beneficial due to its numerous plugins."
"Alerts and episodes are valuable to me."
"We liked the built-in calculation of health scores."
"The most valuable features are the service analyzer and Glass Tables."
"We save substantial time on monitoring tasks because we don't have to search for what we need. Everything is packed, so you can drill down to the end values by just doing the kit. We don't spend a lot of time on this. Splunk ITSI is easy to use and not time-consuming."
"The feature that stood out to me most from Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) was automated dashboarding or reporting. The solution lists the severity level of issues, and the response times."
"I particularly like the preview feature because it provides a prompt experience for impact analysis."
"Splunk ITSI can be easily integrated with the incident management platform. You can automate workflows and certain actions can be taken."
"I find the episode review, glass tables, and correlation search features very useful."
 

Cons

"Writing queries can be a bit difficult because the syntax must be maintained."
"There is room for improvement when using multiple dashboards because they can become complicated to keep track of and use."
"The solution should include online support."
"The formatting could be better."
"Its UI features to create charts can also be improved. Some features could have a link to the documentation."
"The features are complicated and not intuitive."
"The main drawback is the necessity for endpoint monitoring."
"The interface is not well-liked by my customers."
"I believe the refresh time should be faster."
"Currently, Glass tables in ITSI only display metrics related to KPIs."
"When we check the service analyzer, and we have custom inputs, there are issues."
"We experience occasional delays in receiving solutions from Splunk technical support. Splunk's support for P3 cases seems inadequate, as they frequently switch support personnel. For instance, in a single P3 case, we had three different technical support representatives assigned. We were ultimately forced to escalate the issue to our account manager to get it resolved. In essence, we never receive complete support from a single point of contact; instead, the support team keeps changing, necessitating us to explain the problem from scratch each time."
"The problem becomes the price, as Splunk is an expensive product."
"It is pretty okay. I am not sure whether the current release has already moved to the new framework where instead of the glass tables, we can directly use the Dashboard Studio. It would be nice to have that integrated into the same framework."
"Splunk ITSI lacks out-of-the-box solutions for enterprise users."
"Integration is the most critical area to improve in Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI). It wasn't a great experience because you had to do a little back and forth to integrate the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"I use the open source model so it is free."
"We are using the open-source license."
"I am using an open-source version"
"You need to purchase the solution's license for its commercial use."
"​Grafana is free and open source.​"
"I give the price an eight out of ten."
"Splunk ITSI is a pay-per-use service that is priced fairly based on the amount of data we use."
"Its pricing has been changed as per the market. You get a good support service with it as well. They have 24/7 customer support. There is a portal, and if you are having issues, they are available in order to resolve them. So, its pricing isn't too much."
"The pricing of Splunk is a bit high."
"Splunk ITSI is expensive; however, with the appropriate use case, it justifies the cost."
"The cost of the modules is a bit high for non-global companies, making it difficult for them to afford Splunk ITSI."
"It depends on how big an organization is. If we have a lot of resources, the licensing needs to be upgraded. If we have a small environment, the licensing cost is definitely going to be less."
"It is interesting. I am not involved that much lately, but if I recall correctly, you license primarily on the volume of data that you are using in Splunk ITSI, but there is no way Splunk can ever check if that is true, so that is interesting. We are not doing it, but someone can pretend to just use 10%, and it would be super cheap. It is tricky, but it is more tricky for Splunk than for us."
"Pricing was pretty good, and it is possible to just add on the features we want."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What needs improvement with Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?
Currently, Glass tables in ITSI only display metrics related to KPIs. I proposed adding an option to show metrics related to entities. This would eliminate the need for custom SPL to achieve this f...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.
TransUnion, Cox Automotive, Carnival Cruises, Leidos, Econocom, National Ignition Factory, Entrust Datacard, Molina Healthcare, United States Census Bureau
Find out what your peers are saying about Grafana vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.