What needs improvement with AppDynamics?

The infrastructure is not as good as other solutions. AppDynamics is designed for application performance. Some solutions also cover infrastructure and server performance. AppDynamics specializes only in application performance. The product is not easy to use.

The solution's user interface should be improved. Since it's a GUI tool, traversing from the error to the root cause can sometimes be difficult if you are not thorough with AppDynamics. This could slow down the tool, thereby causing you trouble.

The solution is available at an inflated cost.

The integration ability of AppDynamics with other performance testing tools is an area with shortcomings where improvements are required.

There could log management features included in the product.

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.

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.

AppDynamics should improve its ability to track all the transactions.

AppDynamics is new to the cloud and could improve its cloud services, they are following a monolithic monitoring approach. It's an agent-based software that must be deployed multiple times whereas competitors have one agent that can deploy everywhere.

One area for improvement is the MST model. It would be more helpful if it could be offered as a managed service provider model with more multi-tenancy and features. The focus is still limited to application monitoring. However, in the next release, I want to see if it could be integrated with any other infrastructure monitoring tool or provide better deliverables in terms of absorbency layers; that would be a great option. I'm not sure how AppDynamics delivers that, and it's an approval delay. That use case will integrate with any monitoring tool to provide the absorbent layer; that is the better option, which I look forward to.

The price of the solution could improve.

The documentation and training material have room for improvement. Some of our people struggle with the onboarding process because there is a lack of documentation or videos. I would like AppDynamics to become one unified monitoring solution that does not focus primarily on performance monitoring.

AppDynamics is agent-based, so some customers are reluctant to install the agents in all their production environments. It would be helpful if they had an agentless version. It covers applications on the server, but the solution is weak on the network side. The agent is not deployed on the network components, so it cannot provide complete information about issues on the network layer.

What needs improvement in AppDynamics is installation. The installation process needs to be more straightforward. Deploying the product is also tricky, so this is an area for improvement. Pricing is another area for improvement in AppDynamics because its current pricing model is no longer suited to containers and technologies. The product used to be the best in the market ten years ago, but it now needs to regain its position as the leading product in its niche.

The Log Analytics feature is a bit complicated. There are also some bugs in the solution that need to be fixed.

AppDynamics' modules and hardware resources are very high.

AppDynamics's agent management could be improved. They could also manage their licenses by host count rather than CPU core counts and on independent container count instead of for five containers. In the next release, AppDynamics should include AI modules in the on-prem environment.

AppDynamics is a solution that requires extra learning and could be more user-friendly. Additionally, automated reports would helpful similar to have they have in Google Analytics.

Compared to Dynatrace, which is the biggest competitor to AppDynamics, Dynatrace is a one-agent tool. You don't have to put an agent in every single server or app. However, the monitoring is less effective in Dynatrace. If AppDynamics could do a one-agent function with their actual monitoring effectiveness, it will be the greatest tool.

The overall performance of this solution could be improved. The hot-hot infrastructure features could also be improved. If one goes down, the other should pick up automatically. When we patch one data center, the other primary or secondary center needs to be manually started. We need to do a manual sync between the database and the AppDynamics applications.

The Kubernetes cluster agent has not yet matured. That's one area that requires a lot of improvement. You have two options for implementing the Kubernetes agent. One is deployed in DocCloud, but you can't download those images from DocCloud for security reasons at most organizations, so this option isn't that useful. The installation for the second option isn't that user-friendly. Transition tracing for the Kubernetes application is challenging. You have to navigate to a new set of user interfaces in AppDynamics, so that's the pain point. There is an icon you need to click on to get a newer user interface.

The end-user monitoring needs improvement in this solution. There are many KPIs that are not available in AppDynamics. The mobile apps also need improvement. The solution should have an option to aggregate the services based on the header values.

AppDynamics not so great with cloud technology. AppDynamics works very well with the on-premise technologies, but it is behind the curve in the emerging cloud features. The cloud is one area where I think AppD is not that great. Basic monitoring is the main thing, but nowadays, everybody talks about observability. I'm not sure how well AppD fits into the so-called observability trend. The track-and-trace mechanism works very well with on-premises technologies but not so great with the cloud. Cloud monitoring is becoming more critical. Competitors can pose a big challenge. AppDynamics is a top product, but they need to maintain the same trend in the cloud area, where it's not that great.

Their support should be improved. Clusters and monitoring can also be improved.

The end-user experience is not really good because we can't catch all of the transactions. We only can catch the full stack of flow transactions, but I think that this is caused by the technology they use. If they will catch every transaction, it will cause a very big load on the performance of applications. The monitoring of all transactions needs improvement.

Its resiliency can be improved. We're told that the best we can do with an on-prem solution is to have a hot standby that requires a manual switchover. So, it is a do-it-yourself Ikea model of maintaining data consistency between two servers, without having low balance or failover considerations for an on-prem solution. There are a lot of capabilities and features that I need on a day-to-day basis that just are not included in the product. I have seen these capabilities and features in multiple other solutions. For number one, it has to be FedRAMP certified. We've been working around that with security and everything else. So, we need a solution that is fully supported in a secure federal environment.

The solution could be more user-friendly for diagnostic purposes. Anyone who is using the solution should be able to infer what that error is about, they should be able to troubleshoot it better.

While it is scalable, it could be better.

We do have a combination of areas that need improvement. We do have the integration, such as end-user integration and experience that could be better. It is not just from the response point of view; it is more from the error and error detection point of view. This is due to the fact that these are all the banking applications as used by the banking staff, not by the end-user directly. Based on the banking staff feedback, based on the staff security or maybe dealing with the capital market, there needs to be some improvement. They do provide the input growth on a daily basis in terms of what is coming in and how we receive the applications and how many we have. We've now started looking for a particular product that can make sure that it should connect with files and statements inside the product. The IO ratio, which we are looking for in terms of a report, is one of the concerns. We do monitor those details from AppDynamics, however, reporting and monitoring could be better. There needs to be more analytics. That is what we are missing from the tool point of view. We need more information geared more towards helping us in making better decisions. When you do the coding that's for a banking situation or maybe in the incidents or capital market, it becomes very important that how much time I'm investing inside the transaction. A transaction which needs to be carried out for either confirming the payments or maybe either releasing the payments - these kinds of things. What I have seen with the use, as of now, is a bit of a lag when we are running on the global cloud or the public clouds, like Azure or the Google platform. Right now, we are fighting between three different stakeholders. With the networks, we have a different chat, with the vendors we have a different chat, and with the application team, we have a different chat. This approach doesn't provide a holistic view. Everyone has their own excuses and everyone has their own reasoning and conditions. If it can be able to intelligently provide all the things we need to look at, from a data point of view, that would be very useful.

The solution could improve by covering more technologies. For example, it does support .NET Core applications. However, it could be a bit better. Additionally, there are some outdated technologies which are not covered out of the box with this solution, such as C++ which is old technology. They can be monitored but it takes a bit more effort. They have done a decent job but they could improve.

The solution is complex. We'd like the solution to offer more AI features. The initial setup could be easier. They need to improve the infrastructure and make it less complex. There are too many modules and components. It would be helpful if the product had local support in our area.

At first, I thought it had a high learning curve. However, it's not so much. It's just different. It's different from all the other tools and it's just not as intuitive as it could be. I'm not sure how you fix that. For instance, the training on the dashboards that is provided could be a little bit better, as could the use cases. They should have some good examples out there. As it is right now, I had to scour YouTube to find some stuff.

The dashboard can be better. Also, the automated reports could be improved. The UI in Dynatrace is more user-friendly. I would like to see more automated reports.

There are too many installers available for this solution. There is a separate installer for many things, for example, .net. There should be one installer for each operating system, such as Windows and Linux. They then can let you choose what options that you want for that particular operating system because trying to find all the different pieces separately is more complicated than it needs to be. In an upcoming release, there could be better integration with the infrastructure. Currently, the solution is able to tell you where the problem is but it is not narrow enough. For example, it can show that the issue is in the data server and it took a certain time to process, but that does not necessarily narrow it down to the query where it actually was. You just know that the problem is within the database server. Sometimes it is very obvious it was the query, but other times it could be just that the server is light on resources. It would be beneficial if it could integrate more with some of the infrastructures to have the ability to correlate between the two to see whether the problem is actually with the code or it is a problem with the underlying infrastructure.

From an AppDynamics point of view, and possibly based on the fact that it's now part of Cisco, is that Cisco may fundamentally have a different view of the world. If you compare AppDynamics with Foglight, as an example, Foglight's got the ability (even the old versions of the product that we currently work with) to offer visibility within the inherent infrastructure which is certainly lacking on the AppDynamics side. I know that there're other products on the Cisco side that can do similar things as Foglight. If it would be able to give you more infrastructure visibility in this solution, it would certainly make the product stronger. The cost element is an issue. I can't expect the company to change its way of work. However, given the fact that we earn and do all our business in South African Rand, I would prefer to buy in Rand as opposed to the American dollar or British pound. In our case, dollars are preferable. The exchange rate between our currency and the international currency makes planning much more difficult, and socio-economic changes heavily impact our commercial planning and budgets. From my perspective, that would be a step in the right direction. Quite often we are asked to do a POC or POV, proof of value, or show that the technology works, and we are given licenses to do that. However, the current commercial model with AppDynamics is that you buy a year or three years. There's nothing more and nothing less available. Some of our customers would prefer a five-year engagement. Some of our other customers would prefer a shorter duration. I would propose, and we actually asked AppDynamics, a dispensation where you have the licenses available in a set timeframe and you can use it as and when you require. The concept of a true-up at the end of some period, may make our lives easier with reference to having to scale up and down our ecosystem. Basically, they need to offer just a bit more flexibility on the commercial model. If it's possible to buy in Rand, or at least keep the price points for a year the same, or even over three years, that would help with currency fluctuations. We've recently sold to one of the big banks, a sizable chunk of AppDynamics. We can give them the dollar quote now for year one, certainly. That's no problem, as we know what the current exchange rate is, however, neither us nor the bank has any idea of what the exchange rate will be next year. It becomes a bit of a moving target. What do you plan for? It becomes a bit of a crystal ball exercise with reference to what the exchange rate is going to do, and therefore, what you need to do from a planning point of view, budget-wise. There must be a more elegant way to handle this challenge, although it's certainly not in our domain to do something about it. That's the OEM's prerogative.

I have not been able to really spend time on the product itself. Developers are more likely to discuss if there are any shortcomings. My usage is quite limited. It would be unfair for me to comment on missing features. I don't spend enough time with the solution, exploring its capabilities. Nothing comes to mind in terms of lack of features. I haven't witnessed any aspect that I felt was lacking. The cost is an area of concern to me on that one. The cloud licensing needs to be improved. It's quite pricey. There are cheaper options other there - including open-source options.

There could be some improvement in the constructions of the diagrams, it is too difficult currently.

We constantly need to improve our alert mechanism because we get a lot of false-positive alerts. These are not real errors. In addition, for end-user monitoring, sometimes, we are not able to catch all user activities. Because of not being able to follow the user activity from the start to the end, we are missing out on the performance issues.

An area that has room for improvement on the CR and ERP would be the addition of monitoring of the internal solution. For example, you can monitor the day-to-day and everything in the transactions with AppDynamics, but there's also a lot going on in the kernel itself that you cannot monitor. The automation needs to improve as well. As it stands, a lot of customization needs to happen before you can use AppDynamics.

The AppDynamtics on-premises platform is immature, and it does not scale. They need to improve the consolidation of agents for the agent's installation process. We would like to see one single agent to be installed and not multiple agents.

The agent deployment could be simplified by, for example, adding a GUI. Correlation should be improved. End-user monitoring should provide options for data collection, including using a JavaScript file or using a network request in the case of a mobile application. It should automatically upload the mapping file.

I am a monitoring administrator and one of the biggest issues is that it doesn't have a large environment for support. We work in a large environment with nine to ten separate controllers in different processes. We can configure but it cannot synchronize the data, so it has to be done manually. I felt that it's a bit complicated on the administration side. I would like to see more artificial intelligence and machine learning brought in to monitor the statement and payment sum issues we have. That would be very helpful.

At this time, we don't have much visibility on the virtual environment, monitoring, and all other things. We have visibility only for database monitoring, and we have noticed performance impact when deploying database agents on the database server. We got to know this from AppDynamics support also that we should not deploy database agents from the database server. When agents are deployed on the same server and the database is monitored from there, we are not getting database server metrics. Therefore, we don't have those insights, and sometimes, we struggle because of that. They can improve this functionality so that we do not have a performance impact, and we can deploy anywhere. This would help us a lot. In terms of end-user monitoring, currently, it is not working for us because there are some complexities. It is a little complicated, and it takes a little bit of time to understand where you need to make changes. It would be very helpful if they can provide some template designs for end-user monitoring. When our servers are running on VMs, we don't get many insights from the VM side. I don't know whether it is possible to have visibility beyond the database, server, and application and whether there are some features where we can deploy AppDynamics on VMs as well. Such functionality would give us more control over storage, VM, OS, and database. It will also provide complete visibility of our hardware and software.

More native support for other hardware is needed because having to install various extensions and perform extra setup for different devices is really challenging, and not as easy or straightforward as it is in other products.

AppDynamics is dealing with a lot of products and technologies, so we need to have clear documentation. The community support needs to be a little bit better. In the future, I would like to see the inclusion of better programming language options. This would allow for wider use, and make it more versatile.

Needs more integration with applications suites, like Oracle Enterprise Server or BMC Remedy.

As per my experience, the drill-down feature can be improved at the class level. It should generate a report similar to what Oracle provides.

Upgrading application and machine agents on a large scale is a nightmare; we cannot push upgrades through the platform, meaning, manual upgrades each time a new major release is out. Each time we have a new major release, we need to do a Rollout. The Mobile AppDynamics app is a "Thing of the Past". AppDynamics should evolve the features presented by it; redesign it. Dashboards are impossible to read, and drilling down issues through it is impossible. The worst part is that the AppDynamics SaaS Environment has a lot of downtimes, and AppDynamics, despite our efforts, does not give us any feedback on these downtimes/incidents.

Rolling out version upgrades is a difficult job at times.

It could do with more than one data centre/multiple AWS accounts in a pane of glass. Also, improved scalability to large environments would be helpful.

What I would like to see might exist, but if it does I haven't seen it. I would like to see something that lets me set real dollar figures, not just to outages, but to the solutions as well. It seems like a gimmicky feature, but for anyone who has to justify their budget within a larger area of the company, or to a client, it would be helpful. I don't want to have it in my face constantly, but I want to be able to access it when I'm looking at problems and have found a problem that I know I need to address. I could flag it off and have AppDynamics estimate how long a person would have taken to find that without it. That would give me a lot of leverage for justifying the existence of APM, which I really need. Also, I know this is a holdout, we saw this ten years ago, where APM products were starting to crosstalk between each other. I would like to see a return to that because we do use multiple products. I understand that some of the information is in silos, but some of it isn't. If some of this exists, I might have missed it, but I would love to have an integration where I'm looking through logs in Elasticsearch and I could click on my AppDynamics link, because they have a little module, type in the credentials and be logged into AppDynamics. And similarly with the AppDynamics interface: "Oh, look. This server is having an issue. Okay. All this is good info, but maybe I want to take a look in Grafana." I would click over and it would take me to that spot in Grafana: the same time frame, the same filters and place to get me to that particular server, or instance, or container, etc. I would like to see that cross-functionality with some of the more common tools. Most people run Elasticsearch or Kibana or similar things. Most people run a Grafana or something like that. I'm not expecting them to integrate with their competitors - that might be a hairy situation, although a nice one for us, on the consumer side - but if that type of integration was possible with some of the major, open-source, complementary products, that would be nice, and some of the commercial ones too. We saw that in the APM space ten years ago, a little bit. There were a couple movements towards that, but I haven't seen that since as much.

Transactions are not collected across the board. Your application needs to fail before AppD starts collecting deep metrics.

They are using Flash for their website, which is very slow. We had hoped the website would be much faster to use, and that is definitely what we want to see. Their agents sometimes claim to be very lightweight, especially with databases, but they are very heavy. They can take up more compute than the actual work that we need to do. I do hope that they can improve on this.

Sometimes, it is hard to navigate through and find if something is wrong or figure out where an error stemmed from. I would like AppDynamics to be easier to navigate in.

The integration with cloud services is still pending with AppDynamics. We would like the product to be serverless.

The UI could use a little help.

I would like them to change their business model for scalability to accommodate growing companies. The business model should be more flexible.

Its cost: Most of the customers do not have enough budget to deploy the APM agent to their whole applications.

I would like to be able to monitor both cloud an on-prem infrastructures, displayed in one dashboard. I would also like more flexible pricing: A pay-per-use model, rather than just a fixed-price model.

* IT department * Software production * Test environment * QA testing * KPIs of the business * Heatmap * An APM

The cost is prohibitive.

The GUI can be overwhelming at first to a novice Dev or Ops support person, and the possible root causes of an issue do not bubble up to the first screen you see. We usually walk everyone through a few simple steps: * Click here to see errors and exceptions. * Click here to see what is causing response time problems. * Click here to view the timeframe of a past issue. * Click here to drill down into the root cause at the method level snapshot.

AppDynamics should try to find some measure of support or functionality in an SAP and Peoplesoft environments- however with the introduction of C++ agents- the PeopleSoft realm will be covered shortly. Additional support for NextGen mobile platforms also needs to be high in the roadmap prioritizations