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Datadog vs Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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

Datadog
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
187
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (2nd), Log Management (3rd), Container Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st), AIOps (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th)
Splunk Real User Monitoring...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
39th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Datadog is 8.7%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Kevin Palmer - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful log aggregation and management with helpful metrics aggregation
Datadog provides us value in three major ways: First, Datadog provides best-in-class functionality in many, if not all, of the products to which we subscribe (infrastructure, APM, log management, serverless, synthetics, real user monitoring, DB monitoring). In my experience with other tools that provide similar functionality, Datadog provides the largest feature set with the most flexibility and the best performance. Second, Datadog allows us to access all of those services in one place. Having to learn and manage only one tool for all of those purposes is a major benefit. Third, Datadog provides significant connectivity between those services so that we can view, summarize, organize, translate and correlate our data with maximum effect. Not needing to manually integrate them to draw lines between those pieces of information is a huge time savings for us.
Sathis-Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless issue detection with user time tracking and application load analysis
We primarily use Splunk Real User Monitoring to analyze performance bottlenecks and application transactions. It allows us to see how applications are experienced on the user side, making it easy to capture any bottlenecks or performance issues The most valuable features include user time…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has turned into an operational dashboard. If you felt something is going wrong, you can immediately open up Datadog. It has been our go to application because we know the answer will be there."
"I like how we can customize alerts, and when alerts have become too noisy, we turn their threshold down fairly easily."
"We integrate our application logs. It is great to be able to tie our metrics and our traces together."
"Dashboards are the most valuable."
"The most valuable feature I have found is the elastic container service."
"I have found error reporting and log centralization the most valuable features. Overall, Datadog provides a full package solution."
"We've found it most useful for managing Rstudio Workbench, which has its own logs that would not be picked up via Cloudwatch."
"The network map is crucial in identifying bottlenecks and determining what needs more attention."
"The initial setup of Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) was easy."
"The most valuable features include user time tracking and the ability to analyze application load times."
"The most valuable features include user time tracking and the ability to analyze application load times."
 

Cons

"They need to implement template variables into the message response body."
"In some ways, the tool has a pretty steep learning curve. Discovering the various capabilities available, then learning how to utilize them for particular use cases can be challenging."
"The documentation could be improved regarding setting up the agent properly and debugging."
"One area where the product could be improved is Application Performance Monitoring (APM)."
"It does not have the best interface."
"The cost does add up quickly, so it can be some effort to justify the necessary outlay to those paying the bills."
"I've found that the documentation is lacking in certain regards."
"I often have issues with the UI in my browser."
"There is room for improvement in customer support due to delays and standard feedback responses."
"The initial setup of Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) was easy. The solution is deployed on-premises."
"It would be beneficial to have more enhanced features with capabilities to adapt more integrated applications. Improvements in dashboard configuration, customization, and artificial intelligence functionalities are desired."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing is based on the retention period of logs and metrics."
"Our licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis."
"While it is an expensive product, I would rate the pricing level at four out of five."
"The solution is fairly priced but history and log storage can get costly depending on your needs."
"Sometimes it's very hard to project how much it will cost for the monthly subscription for the next month when you add certain features. Having better visibility of the cost would give a better experience."
"Pricing is somewhat affordable compared to other solutions but in order to really lower the costs of other products you need to plan very carefully your resources usage, otherwise, it can get expensive real quick."
"At my last company, we did see ROI, specifically around response time. We could get to mission critical things that were down and losing revenue on immediately. So, the product paid itself back."
"I am not satisfied with its licensing. Its payment is based on the exported data, and there was an explosion of the data for three or four weeks. My customer was not alerted, and there was no way for them to see that there has been an explosion of data. They got a big invoice for one or two months. The pricing model of Datadog is based on the data. The customer was quite surprised about not being alerted about this explosion of data. They should provide some kind of alert when there is an increase in usage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Retailer
12%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Dynatrace. Dynatrace offers network ...
What do you like most about Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM)?
The initial setup of Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) was easy.
What needs improvement with Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM)?
It would be beneficial to have more enhanced features with capabilities to adapt more integrated applications. Improvements in dashboard configuration, customization, and artificial intelligence fu...
What is your primary use case for Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM)?
We primarily use Splunk Real User Monitoring to analyze performance bottlenecks and application transactions. It allows us to see how applications are experienced on the user side, making it easy t...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Adobe, Samsung, facebook, HP Cloud Services, Electronic Arts, salesforce, Stanford University, CiTRIX, Chef, zendesk, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, mercardo libre, Slashdot, Ziff Davis, PBS, MLS, The Motley Fool, Politico, Barneby's
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Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog vs. Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.