Splunk AppDynamics Reviews

The most valuable features are transaction correlation, application flow map, business transactions, and the key metrics that are displayed on the dashboard.

It gives a complete, end-to-end visualization of an environment. That's where it is a little easier to analyze any issue in production compared to the other APM tools. That's the key difference between the other tools and AppDynamics.

The first thing is that they are going in the right direction. That's the great thing because they're linking IT with business. That's why we mostly like it because the other APM tools are just talking about your IT. They're not linking that context to the business. You have your monitoring; your instrumenting; you're doing a byte-code instrumentation; you're doing a threat analysis. You have enough information. All you need to do is just play around with the data and give the visualization of business. What other APM tools are not giving, AppDynamics is great on that point.

As far as the features that we're expecting, the main thing is the universal agent that I’ve mentioned. They're not clear on what month or what year. I think next year, but they're not clear on the release date. That's one killer that we're really expecting. Because that will save a lot of time for an enterprise like us to go for a massive deployment. That's one of the key features I can say that we're looking forward to.

Stability is good so far. We haven't experienced any issues. But after a recent controller upgrade, we experienced a couple of downtimes of the controller, which is not good. On the agent side, not much. We do not see agents stop all of the sudden. We haven't experienced any such things. But in the APM space, the agent is a little tricky, so we have to be a little careful with the agent. With the previous experience around the Dynatrace agent we had, that killed the entire box. The box was completely down.

With this tool, we are taking a few more precautions; meaning, we're not going to production with the agent as of right now. We're putting enough load, enough applications, enough boxes and testing it for 2-3 months. Once we get confident, only then are we planning to go for the production.

Apart from the stability side – as I mentioned, the controller was down a couple of times recently, and the agent is working fine – the agent overhead is not good. It's taking a minimum of 200-300 MB per JVM or per CLR, which is the case with any of the APM tools in the current market. But we expect the overhead to come down. Then, it'll benefit us a lot. For an enterprise like us, we have a lot of shared environments. A box has 50-60 JVMs. A box has 300, 400, 500 virtual machines. In that case, if the overhead is 2-3 personned, we end up killing the box because we have the VM environments.

How we look at scalability is in the controller's scalability. I think AppDynamics is not really there yet. The scalability should be very easy. I think that's what our expectation is. I think it's not even there yet. Controllers won't talk to each other. In a keynote session at a recent NetApp conference, someone was talking about or mentioned controller-to-controller communication. Once that is there, as long as controllers talk to each other, the scalability will become a little easier. That's on the controller side.

On the agent side, the scalability is the main focus area for us now, because we have 100,000 boxes, and we can't really deploy agents app-by-app, machine-by-machine, or manually. We can't really do that. Our approach is automated deployment. But with AppDynamics, the really tricky part is, they expect the application to be modeled in a certain way. They want us to define the app name, tier name, and node name, which is a little tricky.

I can just do mass deployment of agents, but then I have to do configuration also. That is where I think we're a little lagging, so we're working closely with them. We end up developing our own automation scripts to achieve that stage. Again, at that keynote session, people were talking about a universal agent. I think that might really solve the problems from both the deployment and licensing angles.

With their support, if you raise a ticket, the response is very good. But the concern is the consulting days. I think they're offering some consulting days. In the first year of a contract, they offer a certain number of consulting days. After that, the consulting days are free. But to book a consultant, I think we need to book the consultant at least one or two weeks in advance. We can't really do that in the enterprise. A lot of things will happen. All of a sudden, we need support. That's a little tricky. We shared the feedback with AppDynamics. One or two days is what we can spend, but one or two weeks is really a problem.

For us, a large enterprise, the audits and the compliance issues; these things are serious concerns. We have 6,000 applications. We have 100,000-plus boxes. If management asks us, "Hey. Can you tell me what happened with a certain number of the boxes? Why did they go down?” Or “Why did certain applications go down? Can you please pull up the reason? Or can you tell me all of the applications a X person has accessed? Which boxes did he touch? Which routers did he touch?" We have no clue in a large enterprise like us. That's where instrumentation is key for us.

Our model is, we're shifting towards platform. Once we shift towards the platform, we want to offer instrumentation as a built-in stack in it. For that, there are two key things. One is explicit instrumentation, and the other is implicit instrumentation. For the explicit instrumentation, we already developed a solution last year. We’re now planning the implicit instrumentation. That's where we did a lot of market research. Our technology labs did a lot of market research. That's when we also went to the Gartner Report. Then, we finally chose AppDynamics.

Initial setup was straightforward. There are two angles to it. The controller setup is pretty straightforward. The agent setup is also straightforward, but only if you are a simple tech startup or you have only one e-commerce application. For those kinds of companies, I think it makes sense. All they need to do is spend 2-3 days to set up everything. But in our case, we have 6,000 applications. I think AppDynamics is expecting the application to be modeled in certain way. I think we were asking them about this as well. I was expecting to get an update at that conference that they are moving away from that application modeling to something else. Once they move to that, I think that is also going to speed up the initial setup process.

There weren’t really any other vendors on our shortlist at the time. We are using Introscope extensively in production and we are using Dynatrace extensively in the lower-end environments. If this tool works out well, we're probably going to replace the other two.

As far as the most important criteria when selecting a vendor like AppDynamics, we have different stakeholders. Each stakeholder has their own use cases. The development team expects certain use cases. The support team expects certain use cases. The SWAT team expects certain use cases. Engineering expects certain things. TA expects certain things. We evaluated the tools from all the angles. On top of that, the future is cloud. The future is platform as a service. So, we want a tool that supports that era. That's where AppDynamics is the winner.

The main point is every company is a software company. Invariably, you talk about it. Every button click is important. What if a customer shares feedback with his colleagues, friends or family? Every button click is important. Having said that, you should know what is happening out in your environment, out on your machines, out on your applications. So, application performance monitoring, infrastructure monitoring, and end-user monitoring are definitely very important.

We have our own use cases. According to those use cases, we chose AppDynamics. But whatever the product, don't get married to any product; whether it is CA APM, Dynatrace or AppDynamics. Even now, we're not married to any tool. We will always go with a tool which is going to fit in to our model. That's our message to anybody who's researching this case.

One important thing to note is that my rating doesn't mean AppDynamics is not great. AppDynamics is great. It is going in the right direction. At the conference, the CEO or somebody mentioned that they can't shove this product and develop everything that people are expecting for release by 2020. It's being done in a phased manner, in iterations. So far, whatever they have release to us, that's what the rating is for. That will probably be higher in the coming years. With the features that it has and with the expectations that we have, that's the rating we can say. And on top of that, AppDynamics gets the highest rating of any vendor in the APM space. If I rated the other tools, I'd rate them lower.

The use case involves evaluating a mobile application's performance and user experience. We seek insights into peak usage hours, the application's status, and that of secondary services, such as databases and APIs, to gauge the mobile user experience.

We also want to identify potential bottlenecks and mobile degradation. We aim to ensure that mobile user monitoring is effective, similar to other forms of user monitoring. Although mobile devices present a different medium, they aim to detect errors, service degradations, slowdowns, and other issues. 

In the case of a mobile banking application, AppDynamics Mobile Real-User Monitoring successfully reduced the response time from eight seconds to just one second. In another example, the tool identified an issue within the mobile app, causing lost transactions in the billing system.

The product offers end-to-end visibility. This means seeing a user's actions, such as which mobile version they're using, their operating system, location, and the specific services they're accessing. This visibility allows for effective troubleshooting of their session. Additionally, end-to-end visibility provides insights into how the application performs across different layers, such as the backend infrastructure, including application servers, integrations, and databases.

The tool offers many entry points to observe issues from the backend, for example, through dashboards or tracking business transactions for degradation. You can then drill down to specific user sessions to identify slow ones and trace them back to the backend to understand the issue. That's the product's most useful technical feature. 

The user session tracking feature is embedded in the infrastructure and correlates all lines, including API and database calls. It also correlates with other metrics from the infrastructure and database.

The only improvement I see is intercepting calls in a mobile application without injecting additional code. Currently, when instrumenting or monitoring a mobile application, it's necessary to release updates, prompt users to upgrade, and inject code into the backend. It would be beneficial if there were a method to intercept these calls without requiring users to download and upgrade the application. However, I'm unsure about the feasibility of such an approach. 

Additionally, there's potential for enhancing the pricing structure, particularly as scaling up can become expensive. Given the continual growth of the mobile landscape, revisiting the pricing model could be beneficial. 

I have been working with the product for four years. 

I rate AppDynamics Mobile Real-User Monitoring's stability as nine out of ten. 

I rate the tool's scalability a nine out of ten. 

AppDynamics Mobile Real-User Monitoring's support tickets are tricky. We are a major partner, and we get instant support. 

Positive

I rate the tool's deployment a nine out of ten. It is easy. The deployment time for this solution is typically quite fast. Most typical technologies, such as Java or .NET applications, can take days. However, for more complex scenarios, it might take a few weeks. Overall, the deployment process is generally swift.

The usual deployment process starts with a technical assessment. Following this, the appropriate technology is acquired. Next, access to the client's systems is obtained, enabling the deployment of the agent onto their systems.

I rate AppDynamics Mobile Real-User Monitoring's pricing as seven out of ten. Mobile monitoring is paid based on the number of instances utilizing the mobile monitoring service, which increases as the scale grows. Consequently, your mobile user count can proportionally surpass all other applications.

Our customers for AppDynamics Mobile Real-User Monitoring are enterprises. If they have a critical mobile application, I think it's necessary to consider a monitoring tool. When your business relies on it, you need visibility into what's happening—peak hours, virtual access, performance, user experience, drop-off rates, conversion rate, and other relevant metrics.

Integrating AppDynamics Mobile Real-User Monitoring with existing mobile application infrastructure is generally straightforward, although there's room for improvement to make it even easier. I would rate it at nine out of ten in terms of ease of integration. However, sometimes, clients hesitate to interfere with their CI/CD pipelines. 

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten. 

The main use case for AppDynamics in our company is monitoring and managing the performance of our web and mobile applications. 

We use AppDynamics to identify and resolve performance issues, such as slow loading times or transaction errors. It also helps us track the availability of our applications and ensure an optimal user experience for our customers. 

Additionally, we use AppDynamics reporting and analytics to make informed decisions about the scalability and sizing of our infrastructure, allowing us to provide quality, reliable service as we grow.

AppDynamics has improved our organization in a number of ways. 

First, it gives us complete visibility into the performance of our applications, allowing us to proactively detect and fix issues before they impact users. This has significantly reduced downtime and improved user experience.

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

This has allowed us to identify bottlenecks and optimize resources, improving operational efficiency and reducing unnecessary costs.

The most valuable features of AppDynamics are its real-time monitoring capabilities, deep problem diagnosis, transaction mapping, reporting and analysis, and real-time alerts. These features allow us to proactively detect and fix performance issues, optimize our infrastructure, and make informed decisions to improve the user experience. 

Real-time monitoring helps us stay aware of any anomalies and respond quickly, avoiding costly downtime. 

Deep diagnostics allow us to quickly identify the root causes of problems, accelerating resolution time. 

The transaction map gives us complete visibility into the flow of our applications, helping us identify bottlenecks and prioritize improvements.

As for areas of improvement, AppDynamics could benefit from greater integration with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. This would allow the tool to automatically analyze and correlate application performance and behavior data to detect patterns and anomalies not evident to users. 

Additionally, the ability to track performance in multi-cloud environments would be valuable as many organizations are adopting hybrid cloud or multi-cloud strategies. In terms of additional features, it would be beneficial to include a capacity management module that allows operations teams to proactively plan and adjust capacity, avoiding performance issues related to lack of resources.

I have been using AppDynamics for three years

AppDynamics offers good scalability. The tool is designed to handle large enterprise environments, with the ability to monitor and manage complex, distributed applications.

We did not previously use a different solution. 

The product requires in-depth knowledge of the infrastructure and the application to be monitored. 

You need to install and configure agents on the appropriate components, which can take time and require a careful approach.

Before investing in AppDynamics, evaluate your needs, compare prices, consider long-term value, and make sure you understand the details of the licensing and support offered.

We did not evaluate other options. 

I'd advise users to make sure they dedicate enough time and resources to properly configure and customize the tool. This includes defining relevant metrics and thresholds, setting effective alerts, and customizing dashboards to reflect specific needs and goals. 

A proper setup will ensure that companies get the most value from AppDynamics and can take full advantage of its application monitoring and management capabilities.

I'm familiar with agent-based database monitoring. It easily integrates and monitors various databases like Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL, with minimal configuration. There are also some advanced, AI-infused use cases.

It's better to enable additional metrics and custom metrics if needed, depending on the specific application.

It's made a difference. The correlation between database and application performance allows us to proactively identify issues that could impact the user experience. This helps the application team improve the user experience and reduce the impact of any problems. The proactive monitoring from AppDynamics definitely helps.

ASM deployment feature is the most useful for me. As soon as you enable the prerequisites, you can deploy the tools. That's one of the major use cases.

The downside is that it's a little costly. And if you get stuck with a problem related to deployment, it can take some time to get it resolved. You need domain expertise support to troubleshoot issues. It's not easy to get things done if you run into trouble.

My experience has been good. Both are premium support users; so it's for a separate, additional price to the licensing. Since they're [Dyntrace and AppDynamics] part of the core monitoring ecosystem, especially with the premier experience.

There are different levels of supports. So, starting from your standard support to your 24/7 support, then you have your engineering support. In both cases, you have to go through an assessment before implementation in terms of what kind of application it is.

Positive

We used Dynatrace, which comes with full-stack observability. Full-stack observability has evolved to the point where, competitively, you can ask how AppDynamics and Dynatrace compare. Dynatrace takes a slight lead here. It can do dynamic baselining and anomaly detection.

It gives a little more transactional insights and is more comprehensive. There's a slight difference, but not a major impact, in terms of database monitoring on both tools. They are both competitive products. One way they try to compete is in terms of APIs, but the only difference I see is that AppDynamics has a slight advantage in one area. We don't have multiple agents, we go with the concept of one agent. Second, Dynatrace leads in observability, integrating with other on-premises and cloud systems.

They are both competitive enough in the same pricing range. They are not so different, they are both in the same range. If you go and negotiate, they are the same.

The deployment itself doesn't take much time. Once you install the agent and enable the prerequisites, you'll be able to start monitoring.

The deployment is a matter of days. If the prerequisites are in place, it's just a matter of days. But the only thing is, in most scenarios, the domain administration team might not be aware of what exactly they want to monitor. 

In that case, we have to do a detailed discovery to understand the database, the type of application it serves, and the issues they want to prioritize. Based on that, we determine the metrics to monitor from both the AppDynamics side and the database application side.

ROI depends on the criticality of the application. If your application is super critical and impacts the end-user experience, then investing in this tool will make a real impact, and you'll get good data management too.

It is expensive. If you opted for the MSP model, you will get premium support because you're already a premium customer to them. If you're not opted for the MSP model and are on a standard model, then it is a little costly. It depends upon the number of licenses you're procuring. Based on that, you might get a discount.

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

Our customers typically leverage Browser Real-User Monitoring for a variety of purposes. Primarily, they seek to gain insight into end-to-end user experiences. This entails tracking user interactions comprehensively, from frontend actions to backend system responses. They desire seamless correlation between user-triggered actions and the subsequent journey through various backend components such as servers, databases, and APIs. Additionally, they aim to contextualize this data within the broader environment, encompassing infrastructure status, network health, and application performance. Ultimately, they prioritize the ability to view these interactions as cohesive transactions, facilitating efficient troubleshooting and optimization efforts.

Our customers often rely on browser real-user monitoring primarily for troubleshooting slow web application performance. This process is streamlined, often dubbed as 'three clicks to your root cause'. Initially, they identify slow transactions or those exhibiting dependency issues. Subsequently, they employ a drill-down approach to pinpoint problematic areas. This can be executed from either the user's perspective, known as the Browser perspective, or from a session viewpoint. Moreover, they have the flexibility to delve into backend processes, identifying slow or stalled processes. This comprehensive approach enables them to correlate performance issues across all layers, spanning from business processes to infrastructure, network, database, and even security considerations.

Monitoring AJAX requests and understanding user interactions are crucial components of web application performance management. While AJAX requests may seem like standard requests, their monitoring is essential for gaining insights into how users interact with the application in real time. This functionality is a fundamental aspect of modern web development and is vital for ensuring optimal user experience and application performance.

The most valuable feature is the capability to automatically detect and identify encounter rates and problematic sections within transactions. This encompasses all systems, code, APIs, analyses, metrics, and baselines. While this feature remains unchanged, envisioning the ability to effortlessly identify slow transactions and potential causes stands out as an invaluable option. Essentially, it streamlines the management of end-to-end transactions, facilitating seamless troubleshooting and optimization.

The standout feature for real-time performance monitoring in this tool is its ability to seamlessly correlate frontend and backend functions. It provides a comprehensive view across all layers and systems, enabling users to swiftly identify the root cause of any issues. This primary function is particularly valuable, offering precise insights into problem areas and bottlenecks. Additionally, the tool facilitates the identification of peak times and other performance patterns.

The page load time traffic analysis feature has been instrumental in assisting our customers with optimizing the web experience for their users. It enables the identification of slow sessions and offers insights into the factors influencing page load times.

One noteworthy feature is user journey analysis, which enables tracking user interactions and conversion paths on a website. This capability provides insights into where users encounter obstacles or drop off, allowing for targeted optimization efforts. For instance, in an e-commerce setting, it's possible to pinpoint precisely where users abandon their purchases or encounter difficulties, facilitating improvements in those specific areas of the user journey.

I have been working with it for four years.

The stability of the system is exceptionally robust, with no reported downtime. I would rate it nine out of ten.

Scalability is a straightforward process that involves simply adding more licenses to the existing setup. There are no additional tasks or complex actions required; it's a simple and seamless adjustment. Our customer base consists of enterprises. I would rate it nine out of ten.

The technical support provided is highly professional, swift, and knowledgeable. I would rate it nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. I would rate it nine out of ten.

The deployment approach varies depending on client preferences. Some clients prefer a conservative approach and opt for on-premises deployment, while others are more open to cloud-based solutions. Regardless of the chosen deployment method, the process is relatively simple and straightforward. Typically, it can be completed within a short timeframe, such as half a day to a full day.

The pricing falls within the mid-range category. I would rate it between three to five because considering the features provided, it offers value for money. If utilized effectively, the investment is justified. However, for certain businesses, the price may be perceived as slightly high.

I would recommend it, especially if you have critical web applications or internal systems, particularly in finance or the public sector. In today's environment, troubleshooting without such a solution can be extremely challenging. Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

We use the software for proactive incident detection, root cause analysis, and fine-tuning.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring's most valuable feature is the ability of the out-of-the-box to update the information, provide various metrics, and possibly include custom metrics.

The product's drawback is the licensing pricing. It could be better.

We have been using AppDynamics Database Monitoring for five years.

We encounter stability issues related to performance.

We have 100 AppDynamics Database Monitoring users in our organization. It is a scalable product.

Sometimes, the first line of the support team takes too long to escalate the issues to the second line. This particular area could be improved.

Neutral

The initial setup is easy. It requires one executive and takes a few minutes to deploy it completely. It is a SaaS product and doesn't require maintenance.

I could implement the product myself as I have access to all environments in the company. I need the help of another team to provide credentials to proceed with the configuration.

The product generates a return on investment in terms of money and time. It reduces the average amount of time for resolving incidents. Time improvement saves around 20% to 30% of money.

AppDynamics offers a yearly basis license.

We have integrated AppDynamics Database Monitoring with ServiceNow and Grafana. We have been trying to integrate it with other ecosystems as it is mandatory nowadays.

I rate it an eight out of ten.

I use AppDynamics since all of our company's servers, applications, and services are configured with AppDynamics. In case of unavailability or when the servers go down, we log into AppDynamics in our company to check our CPU memory and file system utilization. AppDynamics helps our company understand the availability status of the servers and figure out when the server went down or came up while trying to find any HTTP errors.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the fact that it is very easy to use, making it easy to implement while configuring it with any server. The product also offers a role-based login, providing role-based access, including operator- or admin-level access. It is very easy to assign roles in AppDynamics.

The integration part in AppDynamics with other systems is an area with a little difficulty, especially when it comes to the configuration area. The integration of AppDynamics with other products takes a lot of time. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement.

AppDynamics needs to focus on its integration capabilities with cloud-based solutions. Some new features are being introduced in AppDynamics, including some DevOps tools, allowing a person to integrate AppDynamics with DevOps tools, like Docker Kubernetes and other cloud-based tools.

I have been using AppDynamics for three years. My company is a customer of the solution.

It is a very stable solution.

Currently, we are using AppDynamics on VMs and not on the cloud, so scalability is a bit tough because there will be a need for licenses, and we will have to get into the installation phase again in our company. The agents must be installed in all the servers for the product's installation, making it a bit complex.

AppDynamics has around 1,000 users in my company.

The solution's technical support is good. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

In my company, I have worked with Datadog. AppDynamics is better than the other solutions I have worked with in the past since AppDynamics can be easily installed, configurations are easy, scalability is easy, and most users use it very smoothly owing to its stability. The only area where AppDynamics lacks is its ability to integrate with other tools.

The installation phase of AppDynamics is very easy.

The installation of AppDynamics took a week.

A team of 20 people is required to manage the deployment phase of AppDynamics.

Price-wise, AppDynamics is a cheap product compared to other tools in the market, like Splunk and Datadog.

Yearly payments have to be made toward the licensing costs of the solution. The solution has no additional costs apart from the licensing costs.

The maintenance of AppDynamics is very easy since you can easily implement the patches and upgrade the solution. Around 20 people in my company are involved in the maintenance of AppDynamics.

AppDynamics is an excellent tool for any data center operations or services to monitor while providing good features like alerting capabilities. I recommend the solution to those planning to use it.

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring has multiple use cases, including long queries, database performance, and database query details, which we have shared with the operations team.

There are multiple uses related to performance. The first is the DB connection tool, in which we have shared the details related to application performance and DB performance enhancement. In most cases, they have checked their connection, sizing and acted accordingly. For the long query details, they have performed their queries, reduced the time, and enhanced their performance.

The features related to the application performance in AppDynamics Database Monitoring are the most valuable. AppDynamics Database Monitoring has corrected its application-level code and enhanced its application performance.

The application end of AppDynamics Database Monitoring needs to improve by checking which applications consume licenses. We are not getting any details from the AppDynamics Database Monitoring portal. AppDynamics Database Monitoring's agent details must be enhanced, so each agent needs to show what kind of technology is being used. I would like to have agent details from AppDynamics Database Monitoring.

We are not getting related information and agent details from AppDynamics Database Monitoring. For example, if we have one hundred APM licenses and have onboarded multiple applications, there are no details about which technology uses which kind of agent.

Other solutions have one agent that gathers information on all kinds of server components. However, with AppDynamics Database Monitoring, we don't have any universal solution related to application instrumentation, server performance, stats, server component stats, and service stats. We would like to have better server components.

I have been using AppDynamics Database Monitoring for more than seven years.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring has high stability. I rate AppDynamics Database Monitoring a ten out of ten for stability.

I rate AppDynamics Database Monitoring a ten out of ten for scalability. More than 1,500 people are using the solution in our organization.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring provides high-quality technical support.

Positive

Before AppDynamics Database Monitoring, we used a different solution. We switched to AppDynamics Database Monitoring for multiple reasons related to end user experience.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring’s initial setup needs to be made easier. I rate the solution’s initial setup a five out of ten.

We implemented AppDynamics Database Monitoring through an in-house team of three members. AppDynamics Database Monitoring’s deployment takes around five to six hours. We get the information from the end user related to their application architecture, and according to that information, we plan and perform the implementation.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring does not require any maintenance. I highly recommend others to use AppDynamics Database Monitoring.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring's end-user experience is very good. The solution's tool navigation is very simple and clear-cut. Also, the error and exception detail AppDynamics Database Monitoring shared are crystal clear.

Overall, I rate AppDynamics Database Monitoring a ten out of ten.