Chronosphere vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

Chronosphere and Splunk are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Chronosphere is ranked #33 with an average rating of 9.0, while Splunk is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.2. Chronosphere holds a 0.4% mindshare in APM, compared to Splunk’s 4.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Chronosphere users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

Chronosphere

Read 1 Chronosphere review

774 Views
689 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Splunk AppDynamics

Read 250 Splunk AppDynamics reviews

11,969 Views
9,575 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Chronosphere

Splunk AppDynamics

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 17, 2025

Splunk AppDynamics and Chronosphere compete in monitoring and observability solutions. Chronosphere stands out due to its scalability and cost-effectiveness, while Splunk AppDynamics is notable for its integrated analytics capabilities and extensive ecosystem support.

Features: Splunk AppDynamics features full-stack observability, real-time data analytics, and comprehensive dashboards. Chronosphere focuses on cloud-native environments, offers scalable monitoring, and provides a robust event management system.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Splunk AppDynamics provides a comprehensive deployment model with dedicated support channels. Chronosphere simplifies deployment in cloud-native setups with streamlined integrations and efficient customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk AppDynamics may involve higher setup costs but offers potential high ROI with its service coverage in complex ecosystems. Chronosphere provides cost-effective pricing appealing to businesses with cloud-native strategies aiming for optimal performance monitoring with minimal overhead.

To learn more, read our detailed Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

August 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

Chronosphere

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

33rd

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (29th), AIOps (16th)

Splunk AppDynamics

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

250

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Mobile APM (1st), Container Monitoring (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Chronosphere is 0.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 4.6%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Arvind Pant

Senior Data Engineer at DoorDash

Monitors pipelines with real-time alerts and good documentation

It isn't very easy. It's not easy for everyone. It would be much easier if there could be a simpler version, like a data number version or an SQL version. It's hard to debug if you don't know the syntax. Also, I saw the Slack alerts feature, which is pretty cool, but I cannot customize my messages on the Slack alerts. It would be great if it were possible to tag people in the alerts. At DoorDash, we have hundreds of pipelines, and if something fails, I want to tag specific people so they can start working on the issue immediately.

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Gyanesh Rahatekar

Back office at Reliance Industries Ltd

Application performance management and error resolution improved with data-driven insights

Dynatrace has multiple functions compared to Splunk AppDynamics, so Splunk AppDynamics should add those functions, which are not available as of now. Dynatrace has a universal agent that collects all information related to their CI, and if one CI has multiple languages, then there is no need to instrument multiple agents. However, Splunk AppDynamics requires multiple agents; if I have one server with multiple applications in different languages, then I need to instrument different agents for each application. Splunk AppDynamics should work with Dynatrace with one single universal agent that works with all application languages, eliminating the need for multiple implementations.

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

"The alerting features are good"

"The most valuable feature of AppDynamics is Proactive Monitoring and Alerting."

"The best features of AppDynamics would be the code application monitoring capabilities."

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

"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."

"In 2014 and 2015, AppDynamics was one of the best products on the market."

"The product's initial setup phase is easy since a separate machine is required, and it is not directly installed on a database as it is a type of proxy."

"It is easy to gain visibility into complex environments with AppDynamics. It has the ability to combine operation information of the environment and business information with strong business IQ support."

"The features that I like best are the dashboard and Business Journey."

More Splunk AppDynamics pros

Cons

"It's not easy for everyone."

"Application Analytics' performance in pure and native cloud environments could be improved."

"I could not find a user-friendly interface for querying, and analytics sometimes gives the wrong results...I feel that analytics could have been better in searching and running the analytical queries."

"The documentation and training material have room for improvement."

"Improvements can be made in the area of AI integration."

"The dashboard can be better. Also, the automated reports could be improved."

"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."

"It is stable, but the only downside is the licensing part."

"The discovery is acceptable, however, users need to configure many things if they want good discovery."

More Splunk AppDynamics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"This solution is not the cheapest but it works well. You will end up doing more work with a cheaper solution than if you just spent the extra money on a better solution like this one."

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

"I would like more flexible pricing: A pay-per-use model, rather than just a fixed-price model."

"We have two different licensing models for this solution. One of them is the agent based model, which requires payment per agent. The other is an infrastructure based model, where the price is based on the CPU core. For the infrastructure model wholesale level pricing applies. All of the up to date licensing prices for this product are available on the manufacturers website."

"As compared to other applications, its price is moderate. Its price is neither very high nor very low."

"The solution is highly expensive"

"The product’s licencing policy is competitive. However, properly identify and size your needs to get the best rate."

"The license fee for Application Analytics is in the range of 2.5 million over three years, with extra fees for service contingencies."

More Splunk AppDynamics pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Retailer

18%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

29%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Chronosphere?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Chronosphere?

I work as a data engineer, and we have many streaming pipelines. We use Chronosphere to monitor various metrics, such as how much data our pipeline is processing in each batch, the volume of incomi...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Chronosphere?

If you want to monitor pipelines and use something like Kafka or any streaming platform, Chronosphere is the best option for monitoring pipelines with real-time alerts. It is loosely coupled with y...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about AppDynamics?

The solution saves time and cost.

See all answers

Comparisons

Splunk Observability Cloud vs Chronosphere

Compared 27% of the time

Datadog vs Chronosphere

Compared 25% of the time

Honeycomb Enterprise vs Chronosphere

Compared 20% of the time

Grafana vs Chronosphere

Compared 20% of the time

Dynatrace vs Chronosphere

Compared 9% of the time

More Chronosphere Competitors

Dynatrace vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 14% of the time

Datadog vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 8% of the time

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 4% of the time

More Splunk AppDynamics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

August 2025

Download Chronosphere product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk AppDynamics

July 2025

Download Splunk AppDynamics product report

Overview

Chronosphere provides a robust platform for managing and monitoring cloud-native applications with features like real-time observability, incident management, and capacity planning. It offers scalable, detailed observability across complex systems, an intuitive interface, and cost-efficient resource management. Users report enhanced productivity, improved collaboration, and better decision-making, bolstering operational capabilities and organizational growth.

Chronosphere

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

Information Not Available

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

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

August 2025

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