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DX SaaS vs Grafana comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

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

DX SaaS
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
61st
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (18th)
Grafana
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of DX SaaS is 0.8%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana is 2.6%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Grafana2.6%
DX SaaS0.8%
Other96.6%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

JM
Technical Manager at Tech Mahindra Limited
It's highly customizable but lacks many features of available in competing solutions
DX SaaS is a latecomer to the APM market. Some things that are straightforward in Dynatrace are complicated in DX. For example, upgrading the agents is a seamless process in Dynatrace, but it's a pain in DX SaaS. You should be able to upgrade in the Application Command Center. However, it is not working correctly. They upgrade the product every 15 to 30 days, and the process isn't seamless. It's like implementing the solution all over again. We monitor around 1,000-plus applications and have more than 100,000 agents, so we require a smooth upgrade process. It's nearly impossible to stay updated on the latest version. Upgrading the Dynatrace agent is smoother. You don't need to worry about it. If the agent is on the Dynatrace server, you only need to push it. After that, you will be notified to reboot the APM or CLM. That's it. It took us three years to deploy the agent on 1,000-plus applications across 40,000-plus servers. Now, they are saying they are ending support for 7.0.49, and we need to upgrade. The path to upgrading isn't straightforward. The first process is manual, and we can push it to different servers so it is visible. What's our configuration? Who is going to do the configuration? It's not typical or practical. I don't understand how product teams don't see that. That feature is not there. We hope they add this feature to the new product called DX Platform, which consists of net apps. All those network monitoring tools will be combined into DX Platform. All the monitoring functionality is moved to DX Platform. You can't see a trend of your metrics grouped according to the last month, six months, one year, etc. The resolution is not there. I want granular visibility into data captured in the last 15 seconds. Those are essential features. I am not saying that DX lacks solid features, but they need to consider it. Some core functionality of the product is missing. We have around 50-plus requests to add previously available features in the on-premise version. That is one reason application teams are reluctant to go to DX SaaS. We are struggling to make them understand and trying to find alternatives for the existing features. We've had many discussions with the product team, telling them we need this functionality. However, they tell us it's not on their product roadmap. They are gradually adding other features, but we need our requirements to be a priority. You cannot say you will try to add those requested features that aren't on your product roadmap. There is always a catch in the product. We use around 10 tenants in production and six in the test run. First of all, there is nothing in the pane. If we are trying to see the data from an application, how do we know which tenant and application are reporting? There was a feature called Enterprise Team Center, but that functionality has been removed. All the applications are connected to the manager, which is connected to ETC. If you go to ETC, you can find the server and see your data, but that functionality was not there. Every product should have a management feature, but that is missing, and they are saying that it is not there in the roadmap. It is a basic requirement. You need to understand that. That is not there, manager, and they are saying that is not there in the roadmap as well. They have created a new tenant page temporarily. It is not there currently. It is not a required thing. There is a feature called Domain, but that concept is gone. We've struggled a lot, and what they provided in the initial migration stage is no longer working. We were delayed for two months because we didn't give them the correct input. They don't know their product. We tell them there is a problem, and they say they're fixing it. Are we their Guinea pig? You cannot treat your customers like this.
Vitthal Gole - PeerSpot reviewer
Devops Engineer at AIQOD
Proactive monitoring has transformed how our teams detect issues and resolve incidents faster
For improving Grafana, the alert configuration could be more intuitive for new users. Dashboard management becomes complex in large environments. So if we have multiple environments and we have to manage our dashboards for them, sometimes it becomes complicated to manage all the dashboards. The learning curve is steep for beginners. More built-in reporting and analytics features would be helpful. Documentation for advanced features could be more detailed. Role-based access management could be simpler to configure. Performance could be optimized for very large dashboards with high cardinality data sources. Grafana could improve its alert configuration workflow and make advanced dashboard management easier for new users. More built-in reporting features would also be beneficial. A simpler onboarding experience for first-time users and more built-in dashboard templates for common monitoring scenarios would be helpful. Grafana is a powerful monitoring platform, but it could improve dashboard organization in large environments, simplify alert management, provide more built-in reporting capabilities, enhance plugin compatibility during upgrades, and offer better AI-driven insights for fast root cause analysis. For example, if we are hitting a CPU metric of ninety to ninety-five percent or a system load of seventy to eighty percent, we have to act on that. But if Grafana suggests something on that metric, such as an AI suggestion, it would be more helpful. We could get an idea of how to solve that issue. For the Grafana dashboards, they could provide more built-in compliance and audit reporting, enhance AI recommendations with clearer explanations of why an issue was flagged, enhance accessibility and keyboard navigation, add more native integrations with emerging cloud and DevOps tools, and improve scalability for very large enterprise deployments. Grafana is a mature platform, but it could benefit from better dashboard version control, simpler environment migration, enhanced AI explanations, more built-in reporting, and improved performance for large-scale deployments with complex dashboards.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"DX allows you to customize and gives you a high degree of control."
"Actionable insight is the most valuable feature."
"It supports numerous platforms."
"Enterprise scalability is good and we use 3 data centers with each have its satellite or poller server to limit the network transaction as locally as possible"
"Visualisation: It is easy to create beautiful, understanding graphs, snapshots to share the graphs with people who do not have access to Grafana, and templating to create powerful graphs."
"With Grafana, we can identify in detail where issues come from and solve the problem."
"It's easy to make changes. We can put many dashboards in one place. There's no delay in showing data - what you see on Grafana matches the server metrics."
"Grafana integrates with some of the tools we've chosen beforehand, and while I'm not the right person to elaborate on this since I'm more focused on managing big teams, the teams working with it seem happy."
"The integration between Loki and Tempo is valuable."
"It excels in providing comprehensive details when there are downtimes or fluctuations, offering thorough reports."
"Grafana provides a user-friendly interface for viewing infrastructure metrics through dashboards."
"Grafana has delivered a strong return on investment by reducing troubleshooting time, improving incident response, and minimizing manual monitoring efforts through centralized dashboards and automated alerts."
 

Cons

"The ability to scale presents a challenge as the cost of handling vast amounts of data in the cloud must be taken into account."
"DX SaaS is a latecomer to the APM market. Some things that are straightforward in Dynatrace are complicated in DX. For example, upgrading the agents is a seamless process in Dynatrace, but it's a pain in DX SaaS. You should be able to upgrade in the Application Command Center. However, it is not working correctly."
"Its good for a small or homogenous platform, but for a complex platform involving different application services, root cause identification and reading the instrument through the web can be cumbersome and not very user friendly."
"Old user interface and dashboards could be improved."
"We tell them there is a problem, and they say they're fixing it. Are we their Guinea pig? You cannot treat your customers like this."
"For improving Grafana, the alert configuration could be more intuitive for new users."
"They should improve the functioning of its editing tool."
"Grafana could consider building its own metrics system to eliminate the reliance on other tools like Prometheus, providing a one-stop solution."
"Grafana could improve by having its own query language. Currently, it uses languages like Prometheus or InfluxDB, which not everyone knows. Their query language should be easier."
"The solution has room for improvement with a better API to help automate the construction of the dashboards easier."
"Lacks event management which affects our DevOps people."
"I would like the ability to download my results into any format in order to share the information with my clients."
"In the area of documentation, they must do a better job."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our monthly cost for DX SaaS is approximately $5 per user, which I considered affordable."
"For me, Grafana is a cheap tool because I don't have to spend much time learning the product since it is a simple solution."
"My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."
"I use the open source model so it is free."
"It's free of cost; it operates as an open-source tool."
"The solution is expensive."
"We use the open-source version of Grafana."
"I am using an open-source version"
"Since Grafana is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is very reasonable and has excellent community support.
What needs improvement with Grafana?
Currently, I do not think that any improvement is required, but there are multiple use cases.
What is your primary use case for Grafana?
My main use case for Grafana is to create and design dashboards based on the metrics provided by different exporters via Prometheus. We have different exporters, and we are creating different dashb...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

CA DXI, CA Digital Experience Insights
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CNN
Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about DX SaaS vs. Grafana and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.