HeadSpin vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

HeadSpin and Splunk are both solutions in the Mobile APM category. HeadSpin is ranked #7, while Splunk is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4. HeadSpin holds a 0.2% mindshare in MA, compared to Splunk’s 27.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of HeadSpin users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

HeadSpin

Read 6 HeadSpin reviews

65 Views
33 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Splunk AppDynamics

Read 245 Splunk AppDynamics reviews

4,625 Views
2,873 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

HeadSpin

Splunk AppDynamics

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 6, 2025

AppDynamics and HeadSpin compete in the performance monitoring category, with each offering distinct strengths. AppDynamics has an upper hand in comprehensive monitoring features, while HeadSpin is noted for its integration capabilities.

Features: AppDynamics provides JVM memory monitoring, transaction tracking, and operational dashboards. HeadSpin offers advanced performance parameters, seamless automation suite integration, and testing tool connectivity.

Room for Improvement: AppDynamics could improve its integration with cloud solutions and simplify its licensing model. HeadSpin's user interface and testing hardware, especially for iOS, could be refined for a better user experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AppDynamics excels with varied deployment options including on-premises and cloud environments, supported by responsive customer service. HeadSpin, primarily cloud-based, is also commended for its excellent customer service and issue resolution.

Pricing and ROI: AppDynamics is a high-cost solution with complex licensing but offers ROI through enhanced troubleshooting. HeadSpin is not the cheapest but provides competitive pricing and good ROI, showing value in performance monitoring.

To learn more, read our detailed HeadSpin vs. Splunk AppDynamics Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HeadSpin vs. Splunk AppDynamics

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

HeadSpin

Ranking in Mobile APM

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Functional Testing Tools (30th), Mobile App Testing Tools (11th)

Splunk AppDynamics

Ranking in Mobile APM

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

245

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Container Monitoring (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Mobile APM category, the mindshare of HeadSpin is 0.2%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 27.2%, up from 24.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Mobile APM

Featured Reviews

Abhishek-Mehta

Associate Vice President at Onnivation

An advanced platform that provides visibility into the performance in the real world and enables us to test AV content

There is definitely room for improvement in terms of marketing. Marketing is something that is not that great. If you look at some of the other companies in the space, they have a lot of published case studies and tested models. They make a lot of noise. They have got some of their best customers talking about them, which is where HeadSpin needs to work. They should automate their onboarding. A lot of things are still manual. They can create a video assistant or something like that to completely automate the entire process. There is a great scope to improve professional services. The time to deploy is quite long. They can increase and improve the scope of their professional services and set up automation through scripts. They do it at this stage, but they're very expensive. I would love to see them come up with project-based costing for companies that are startups or low on funds. Apart from these, they have been on top of the game in terms of features. I can't think of any other new set of features at this point in time because they're already on top in terms of innovation.

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Muhammad Zeeshan Siddiqui

Head of Technology and Services at arwentech

Dynamic mapping enhances workflows that are user-friendly

One aspect that requires improvement is the agent. Without an agent, gathering sufficient information on applications is challenging. Additionally, the agent sometimes creates performance issues in production environments. If AppDynamics could develop a means to monitor without an agent, it could significantly improve application performance and reduce potential problems. Moving to an agentless solution, like what some competitors are doing, would be beneficial.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of the product are the performance parameters it gives us."

"The initial setup of HeadSpin was very easy and user-friendly. It was easy to configure and write a script."

"It has an interesting feature called AV box testing. A lot of companies that are in the OTT segment don't really understand what their streaming is like. They can't test for streaming quality. There are restrictions where you cannot simulate live streaming. For example, on Netflix, you can't simulate how a movie is being streamed on a remote device. That's why HeadSpin has got this AV box testing feature. It is a patented feature. They send an AV box to your location, and you can test live streaming, which is something that no other company does."

"The most valuable feature of HeadSpin it's the integration with other solutions. It is great. I can search for an element or do a quick debugging on the application right on HeadSpin. It's very useful."

"The most valuable feature is that this is the first connected intelligence all-in-one platform."

"The technical support is really helpful because we can set up direct calls with them if we want to. We can use Zoom or Google Meet to interact with them directly, and if there is an issue in our system, they will help us by reproducing the issue in their machines and trying to figure out a solution. The support is really smooth, and we like that they're very supportive."

"The product is stable and the technical support is good."

"The most valuable feature is the live reporting on the current health\performance of our application"

"This solution gives us quite good insights that we might otherwise overlook, or it might take a really long time to debug those issues."

"The transaction snapshots let you find out where the application broke; it pinpoints where in the call stack, and then how long it took to resolve."

"In AppDynamics, everywhere I go, there's some sort of grouping and aggregation function, or there's some sort of timeline that lets me zero in more quickly on the traces that I need. They go to more pains to aggregate and bubble the important ones to the top. That removes a lot of manual work."

"The most valuable feature is that we can see how our end-users are interacting with our application across regions."

"Capacity planning is, in my opinion, the most useful."

"AppDynamics provides us with detailed information about the performance of the underlying infrastructure, including servers, databases, and external services."

More Splunk AppDynamics pros

Cons

"Support and pricing could be improved."

"If you want to do some testing or check the devices manually or check the application in a particular device manually, it is really laggy. That's a disappointment because sometimes we would like to do manual testing when our local devices are not available."

"HeadSpin needs to improve the hardware. With the mobile, the battery life reduces and must be continuously charged."

"Sometimes, devices go offline and some features are not functioning on some devices, specifically on iOS."

"They should automate their onboarding. A lot of things are still manual. They can create a video assistant or something like that to completely automate the entire process."

"HeadSpin could improve on the user interface because it is very poor. The checks that are done on the iOS devices are very difficult, but for Android, it runs great. For all iOS devices, the user interface and how it interacts with the device are very poor."

"There are certain limitations with the agents in the solution"

"AppDynamics Database Monitoring could improve the price of the solution, it is costly."

"AppDynamics is new to the cloud and could improve its cloud services, they are following a monolithic monitoring approach."

"I am not very impressed with support. The service could be better."

"I have found it sometimes a bit difficult to trace the transaction all the way through to the application. I'm not sure if that problem is on the database side or on the application side, but that would be something that I would like to be improved. The traceability from the application to the database, sometimes, is a bit of a challenge. If you're using AppDynamics, with the Java agent, for instance, you need to be able to trace it through."

"There may be some older technologies that are still covered, however, it's not as plug-and-play. You can still do it, however, it takes slightly more effort for engineers to cover old technologies such as C++, Delphi, and so on. It still can be done. It's just not as easy as, for example, covering Java."

"The Log Analytics feature is a bit complicated."

"Customization requires a few manual tweaks."

More Splunk AppDynamics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a yearly license for 16 devices."

"I believe the licensing cost is cheap because it's a total solution, hardware, license and software."

"It's not cheap, but there are a few different packages and different prices for enterprises with different product versions."

"It has a yearly license. There is no other option. It is expensive. There are a lot of other cheaper players in the market, but it is like a Mercedes. You pay an extra premium for it, but you get the benefits. I would love to see them come up with project-based costing. Companies that are low on funds or new-age can do with pricing that is easily digestible. They can give them a pricing model for three months. They can provide a startup package."

"AppDynamics Database Monitoring is expensive. I rate it a seven to eight out of ten."

"AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring does have licensing cost associated with it."

"The licensing scheme is very complex. They need to make it easier."

"AppDynamics Database Monitoring requires a license for database monitoring and other features, while Dynatrace provides monitoring and other features out of the box without additional costs. Sometimes this makes it more challenging to pitch AppDynamics Database Monitoring to customers, especially because you need to buy a separate license. As an implementer, I have yet to learn about the pricing for AppDynamics Database Monitoring. Pricing is taken care of by the sales team."

"You are required to purchase licenses whether you use it or not. It is not pay-as-you-use."

"AppDynamics is one of the most expensive solutions on the market."

"The pricing needs to come down."

"Our purchasing experience through the AWS Marketplace has been pretty painless."

More Splunk AppDynamics pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Educational Organization

48%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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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...

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APM tools for a Managed Service Provider - Dynatrace vs. AppDynamics vs. Aternity vs. Ruxit

Hi Avi! It's great to see your thorough approach to selecting an APM package for your MSP company. Considering your focus on SMBs and enterprises in Israel, Dynatrace seems like a solid choice with...

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What do you like most about AppDynamics?

The solution saves time and cost.

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Comparisons

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Splunk Enterprise Security vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 8% of the time

New Relic vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 7% of the time

Grafana vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HeadSpin

April 2025

Download HeadSpin product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk AppDynamics

March 2025

Download Splunk AppDynamics product report

Overview

Headspin is a data science-driven Mobile APM platform that leverages an AI platform to combine global device infrastructure, test automation, machine learning-driven performance, and quality of experience analytics. HeadSpin was founded to answer the demand for a global testing, performance monitoring, and quality of experience (QoE) management platform to assist businesses in ensuring optimal digital experiences across mobile, audio, online, and video delivery channels.

Headspin facilitates seamless collaboration between product managers, SREs, developers, QA/release engineers, and support staff to:

Quicken development times using intelligent automation in test and production.
Optimize digital performance across devices, networks, and apps.
Automate insights discovery with practical, context-aware AI and analytics.

Headspin Features

Headspin has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Global device infrastructure allows end-to-end monitoring and testing with thousands of devices in numerous locations on real carrier and WiFi networks around the world. SDK is not required.
Test automation and APIs integrate into CI/CD workflows to enable functional and performance testing pre and post release. Support for all testing frameworks.
Performance, QoE, and machine learning automatically expose issues and points to underlying root causes across all layers of the stack, from quantifying audio/video quality of experience to code and packet visibility.
Insights-to-actions delivers regression and aggregation insights throughout the digital experience lifecycle. These insights take you from planning and development to troubleticketing and operations. Trending, alerts, and analytics.

More features include:

Hosted Device Cloud
On-prem Device Appliance
Performance & Experience Analytics
Professional Services & Support
Education, Certification & Training

Headspin Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Headspin. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Use data science to identify problems and root cause analysis

Empower QA and DevOps teams with data science insights and test automation

Global teams can work together using remote access

Capture performance and UX issues

Reviews from Real Users

Headspin stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Some of these include its easy setup, scalability, and robust customer support. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

Abhishek M., Associate Vice President at Onnivation, notes, “A lot of companies that are using other solutions do not get access to the kind of metrics that HeadSpin captures…HeadSpin is highly advanced. It has got all the performance structures to provide visibility into how my app is performing in the real world. It also helps to identify the gaps.”

Shiba S., Automation Engineer at GlobalLogic India, writes, “The technical support is really helpful because we can set up direct calls with them if we want to…They support multiple devices. Plus, they support distribution testing.”

HeadSpin

Splunk AppDynamics enhances application performance monitoring with advanced diagnostics and real-time insights, offering seamless end-to-end transaction tracking and infrastructure visibility.

AppDynamics provides critical tools for businesses to analyze application behavior and performance. Through innovative features like transaction snapshot analysis and adaptable dashboards, users can quickly identify and address issues, ensuring high levels of system uptime and efficiency. It is designed to support complex environments including Kubernetes and AWS, enhancing user experience by detecting performance issues early. Despite needing improvements in network monitoring and integration, it remains a robust option for tracking application health.

What are the key features of AppDynamics?

Real-time Performance Monitoring: Offers immediate insights into application behavior.
Business Transaction Tracking: Tracks transactions from start to finish for bottleneck identification.
JVM Memory Monitoring: Provides detailed JVM metrics and memory use information.
Deep-dive Diagnostics: Enables in-depth analysis of code and stack traces.
Adaptable Dashboards: Customizable views for better data interpretation.

How does AppDynamics benefit users?

Improved Incident Resolution: Faster problem detection and solution implementation.
Enhanced Application Performance: Real-time monitoring optimizes system operations.
Comprehensive Visibility: Provides a full view of application infrastructure.
Informed Decision Making: Detailed analytics guide performance improvements.
Customer Satisfaction: Enhances user experience through faster issue resolutions.

In industries like financial services and e-commerce, AppDynamics facilitates performance tracking across distributed systems, optimizing infrastructure to meet consumer demands. It excels in environments needing precise transaction monitoring and is pivotal in delivering high value and satisfaction.

Splunk

Sample Customers

Zynga, Tinder, Pinterest, Akamai, Microsoft, Airbnb, Jam City, TMobile, Mozilla, CNN, Cognizant, Yahoo!, ebay, Quora, Walmart, Kohls, Telstra

Cisco, Sony, Nasdaq, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Edmunds.com, Puma, Fox News, DirecTV, Pizza Hut, T-Systems, Cornell University, OpenTable, BITMARCK, Green Mountain Power, Care.com, Overstock, Paddy Power, eHarmony, Kraft, The Motley Fool, The Container Store, and more See more customers

Buyer's Guide

HeadSpin vs. Splunk AppDynamics

April 2025

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