Akamai mPulse vs Dynatrace comparison

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Akamai mPulse

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

Dynatrace and Akamai mPulse are both performance monitoring solutions. Users report a preference for the extensive capabilities of Dynatrace, while Akamai mPulse is noted for its robust real-user monitoring features.

What features are offered by Dynatrace in comparison to Akamai mPulse?

Dynatrace users appreciate its AI-driven problem detection, automated root cause analysis, and proactive system management. Akamai mPulse is valued for its real-time user monitoring, deep analysis of user experience, and live performance tracking.

What areas of improvement can be found in Dynatrace in comparison to Akamai mPulse?

For Dynatrace, areas needing improvement include cost management, configuration settings, and the need for enhanced user-friendly configuration. Akamai mPulse users seek better data visualization, integration with third-party tools, and improved integration capabilities.

How is the ease of deployment and customer service of Dynatrace in comparison to Akamai mPulse?

Dynatrace is straightforward to deploy due to its automated setup and comprehensive support. Akamai mPulse is more complex in its deployment process but receives high marks for responsive and knowledgeable customer service.

What setup costs and ROI can be seen with Dynatrace in comparison to Akamai mPulse?

Dynatrace users report higher setup costs but justify this with strong ROI due to its extensive feature set and automation. Akamai mPulse users find it more affordable initially but note that the ROI depends heavily on the specific use case.

To learn more, read our detailed Akamai mPulse vs. Dynatrace Report (Updated: August 2026).

Akamai mPulse vs. Dynatrace

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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

Akamai mPulse

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

58th

Average Rating

6.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Dynatrace

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

2nd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

359

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (6th), Mobile APM (3rd), Container Monitoring (2nd), AIOps (2nd), AI Observability (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Akamai mPulse is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dynatrace is 5.0%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Dynatrace	5.0%
Akamai mPulse	0.6%
Other	94.4%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Arivu Arumugam

Staff Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Lacking in regard to observation of the entire platform but does dynamic injections from within

There is little that's unique about mPulse but since the solution is part of Akamai, you can do dynamic injections from within the product which is a great feature. the UI is quite good. It offers a basic set of features but nothing unique other than that as part of Akamai, you can do dynamic injections.

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Manish Indupuri

senior DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

AI-driven insights have reduced downtime and improved cross-team collaboration

We encountered some challenges while using Dynatrace. Although the initial setup was smooth, fine-tuning alert thresholds and custom metrics took some time. Another challenge was that Dynatrace charges based on host units, so we had to carefully plan our agent deployments. The licensing model is expensive. Additionally, the complexity of setup is an issue. While OneAgent and auto-discover services are powerful, the setup is more complex compared to other tools such as Prometheus and Grafana. These integrations are simple and basic, but Dynatrace setup requires more complexity based on the environment. For new users wanting to use Dynatrace, it is difficult. However, the AI-related solutions and metrics took us to the next level for identifying and fixing things. Dynatrace requires an agent for operation. OneAgent is powerful, but it is also resource-heavy. On lightweight nodes or older systems, the agent can slightly impact performance. If Dynatrace could implement a lightweight agent behavior, we could make things faster. Additionally, if Dynatrace could add a long-term retention policy so that we could store more data and find fine-grained details, that would help us. While Dynatrace managed edition supports on-premises deployment, the SaaS version depends on cloud connectivity. For highly regulated or air-gapped environments, setup and updates can be challenging. Although the initial setup is smooth, if someone wants to fine-tune it and fully understand the tool end-to-end, it could be tricky.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It’s a very good product for performance tracking, I haven’t used many others, so I can’t comment on a competitive level."

"There is little that's unique about mPulse but since the solution is part of Akamai, you can do dynamic injections from within the product which is a great feature."

"The most valuable feature is the solutions overall performance. It is very efficient and accurate for our usage."

"Enables dynamic injections from within the product which is great."

"It provides a great overview for management regarding user experience."

"It provides real-time monitoring for performance and availability of specific portions of the website without a significant data overhead."

"There's a good relationship between the price and the licences."

"We are a worldwide company and we need to have a solution with good performance which the solution is providing us with; it has helped our company."

"It's great tool for building dashboards related to application performance."

"Email alert and mobile app alert are very useful for informing the team that something is going wrong."

"UEM can be used for user impact analysis and troubleshooting."

"We serve multiple customers and everyone wants to use Dynatrace, and it has paid for itself because we can now figure out issues so much quicker."

"The most valuable features are end user visibility, Smartscape, and the entire visibility of our data center, including SQL queries."

"The most valuable feature is the fact that you can drill down to the code level and get a breadth of information."

"As compared to New Relic and other providers, it is more expensive, which is its biggest disadvantage, but its biggest advantage is its capability because it is more feature-rich."

"Real user monitoring is one of the best things in solution. The possibility to analyze any particular user session is wonderful."

More Dynatrace pros

Cons

"The solution didn't help us much and that's the reason we never used mPulse on a full scale and why we chose to go with Dynatrace."

"They work very well, only thing is they need more time to improve and fix all the issues."

"In the next release, I would like to see the possibility of sharing the metric from this solution with other solutions."

"Scalability to larger volume of data seems to be hit or miss."

"The end-to-end distributor tracing connectivity isn't there."

"It needs a more intuitive GUI and more customization options."

"I haven't had a chance to go through all of it, but I would like to see the ability, from an administrative standpoint, for it to collect statistics."

"The initial setup was relatively complex because we were trying to implement into environments that they did not yet support."

"Dynatrace can be improved by fine-tuning AI-based settings."

"In the new Dynatrace solution, support for legacy applications is still not there. "

"They've leveraged those security gateways and renamed them ActiveGates, and now there are different web plugins we can run on it... Sometimes the development of those seems to be running very fast and it's not complete. They don't yet function quite as easily as the OneAgents do. But I have hopes that that's going to get better. We have tried the MQ, the Citrix, and the Oracle ActiveGate plugins. They could be sharper. It's the right direction to go. It just seems like it could be smoother."

"Documentation could be improved. E.g., you don't know how to properly use Dynatrace because documentation is almost lacking behind the features being deployed."

"The one area that we get value out of now, where we would love to see additional features, is the Session Replay."

"Dynatrace needs to improve its configuration."

More Dynatrace cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The limitations I see are more to do - and maybe it's because of the nature of the job I have - but they have to do with pricing. It's a little bit pricey. It's a very good tool. It's worth the price, to a certain degree. But it's hard to justify when it's that costly."

"It's expensive."

"I would like to see them improve on their licensing and the cost. It's been a challenge for us because the way they have it broken out right now, you have to buy it by units. It's hard for us to know where to put those units because our company is broken up into all these different business units, so it's been challenging in that sense. I just would like to see them improve that model a little bit."

"The setup costs for Dynatrace are low, however licensing costs are high."

"As compared to New Relic and other providers, it is more expensive, which is its biggest disadvantage. Its biggest advantage is its capability. It is more feature-rich."

"Licensing is very interesting, as you pay only for what is being monitored. A lot of things are given away for no additional cost. If you have a great IT consolidation, it will be pretty cheap. If you have a lot of servers, it will be heavier."

"The product is pricey, but it is feature-rich, which is why we probably haven't looked away from it."

"The product is definitely worth taking a look at. Be aware that it is probably more pricey than other options on the market, but there are a lot of capabilities. Dynatrace has an eye toward the future and the computing and monitoring needs that we are gonna need for the cloud. "

More Dynatrace pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Construction Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	80
Midsize Enterprise	50
Large Enterprise	299

Questions from the Community

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Earn 20 points

Any advice about APM solutions?

The key is to have a holistic view over the complete infrastructure, the ones you have listed are great for APM if you need to monitor applications end to end. I have tested them all and have not f...

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What cloud monitoring software did you choose and why?

While the environment does matter in the selection of an APM tool, I prefer to use Dynatrace to manage the entire stack. Both production and Dev/Test. I find it to be quite superior to anything els...

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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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Comparisons

New Relic vs Akamai mPulse

Compared 13% of the time

OpenText Real User Monitoring vs Akamai mPulse

Compared 9% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs Akamai mPulse

Compared 6% of the time

Grafana vs Akamai mPulse

Compared 5% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Akamai mPulse

Compared 5% of the time

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Datadog vs Dynatrace

Compared 6% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs Dynatrace

Compared 4% of the time

New Relic vs Dynatrace

Compared 4% of the time

Avantra vs Dynatrace

Compared 3% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Dynatrace

Compared 3% of the time

More Dynatrace Competitors

Product Reports

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Download Akamai mPulse product report

Download Dynatrace product report

Also Known As

SOASTA mPulse

No data available

Overview

Akamai mPulse delivers real-time data on web performance, helping businesses optimize user experience to drive engagement.

Designed for performance analytics, Akamai mPulse offers in-depth insights into user interactions with digital assets. By monitoring real-time performance metrics across devices, it delivers actionable data that supports enhanced decision-making processes, enabling improved site efficiency.

What are the key features of Akamai mPulse?

Real-Time Monitoring: Provides instant performance insights to address issues promptly.
User Journeys: Tracks detailed user interactions, offering a comprehensive view on user behavior.
Customizable Dashboards: Lets users tailor data displays for specific needs and focus areas.
Anomaly Detection: Identifies and alerts deviations in normal performance metrics.
Advanced Analytics: Delivers data-driven insights for strategic planning and optimization.

How does Akamai mPulse improve ROI?

Reduced Downtime: By promptly identifying and resolving performance issues, availability remains high.
Enhanced User Satisfaction: Optimized load times and performance boost user engagement and retention.
Data-Driven Decisions: Insightful analytics guide strategic initiatives, fostering growth.
Cost Efficiency: Identifying inefficient areas allows targeted improvements and cost reductions.

In e-commerce and media industries, Akamai mPulse is often utilized to ensure seamless user experiences, crucial for retaining customers and viewers. This is achieved by leveraging its robust data analytics to fine-tune web performance, meeting industry-specific demands for speed and reliability.

Akamai

Dynatrace offers AI-driven root cause analysis, full-stack observability, and more. Its seamless integration and automated alerts enhance operational efficiency for application performance monitoring across diverse environments.

Dynatrace provides users with comprehensive tools for proactive monitoring, leveraging AI-powered insights to detect bottlenecks and monitor user behavior. It enhances system dependency visualization via Smartscape and offers deep transaction insights through PurePath. Session Replay captures real user experiences, while custom dashboards emphasize essential metrics. Integration capabilities and seamless deployment are key, though users face challenges with navigation, integration, and licensing. Enhancing third-party training tools and optimizing real-time AI diagnostics is desired, with demands for better database monitoring reports and simpler UI.

What are Dynatrace's key features?

AI-Driven Root Cause Analysis: Identifies issues with precision.
Full-Stack Observability: Monitors across all platforms.
Smartscape: Visualizes system dependencies.
PurePath: Provides transaction flow insights.
Session Replay: Captures user interactions.
Custom Dashboards: Focuses on essential metrics.
Automated Alerts: Minimizes downtime.

What benefits should users consider?

Operational Efficiency: Enhances performance management.
Seamless Deployment: Reduces manual intervention.
Integration Capabilities: Ensures smooth system coexistence.
User Experience Insights: Tracks behavior and reliability.

Dynatrace is implemented in industries like finance for monitoring infrastructure and user experience. In manufacturing, it helps ensure system reliability. Its AI-driven approach is crucial for cloud deployments, supporting performance optimization and proactive monitoring.

Sample Customers

Nordstrom, Gatwick, DirecTV, MSN, SquareSpace, SAP, Lenovo, Hallmark, myspace, Intuit, Kentucky Derby, Toys "R" Us, Netflix, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Lowe's, Nike, REI, Apple, Sears, Verizon, Wendy's, Huawei

Audi, Best Buy, LinkedIn, CISCO, Intuit, KRONOS, Scottrade, Wells Fargo, ULTA Beauty, Lenovo, Swarovsk, Nike, Whirlpool, American Express

Akamai mPulse vs. Dynatrace