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Dynatrace vs IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager 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

Dynatrace
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
358
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (6th), Mobile APM (2nd), Container Monitoring (1st), AIOps (2nd), AI Observability (3rd)
IBM Tivoli Composite Applic...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
56th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Dynatrace is 6.6%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dynatrace6.6%
IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager0.6%
Other92.8%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Manish Indupuri - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
CC
Sales manager at Prodeo Innovation
Integrates well with IBM technologies, but it's outdated and lacks essential features
Implementing synthetic monitoring for our Internet banking site has been challenging. The installation process is difficult, requiring continuous support and specialist expertise due to our limited knowledge of managing it effectively. I have concerns about the complexity of the tool and the challenges in managing it effectively. The support provided is not satisfactory, and the specialists available lack sufficient training and expertise in using the tool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The comprehensive application topology visualization in Dynatrace, called Smartscape, has benefited my understanding of system dependencies, and since we are using Dynatrace primarily for observability, we can get top-to-bottom visibility, from infrastructure to network to application front end."
"Email alert and mobile app alert are very useful for informing the team that something is going wrong."
"We have configured the alerting so the error or the incident will go to the respective team. Then, the team can contact the user once they see that they have an issue and ask if they can them resolve the issue."
"Dynatrace's new AI stuff really out shines its competitors. ​"
"The alerting systems are definitely the most valuable feature. The AI engine, "Davis," has proved to be a game-changer for us, as it helps to alert us when there are anomalies found in our applications or in their performance... letting the Davis engine find those anomalies and push them to the top, especially as they relate to business impact, is very valuable to us."
"In my experience, Dynatrace is scalable."
"Since we have been receiving alerts from Dynatrace, we go ahead and fix them without the user knowing about them."
"We can go back to when a specific user had an issue and trace the entire transaction from the client to the database."
"IBM's main value lies in its integration with its own technologies, which can be seen as a benefit in environments where IBM products are extensively used."
"The solution is very stable. We never had any issues with stability."
 

Cons

"The heavy client is not really user-friendly and the concepts (while powerful) are unintuitive."
"This solution needs more powerful database monitoring capabilities."
"Scalability has improved quite a bit from the beginning."
"This tool had a feature of doing load test in production or lower environment, which was shut down earlier this year. We are missing that feature badly and we definitely want to see that feature back."
"I have not had very positive experiences with tech support in the last year. I found them to be arrogant, rude, not solving my problems, and not interested in solving my problems."
"​The integration between the web monitoring of Dynatrace and OneAgent. ​"
"Adding people to alerts has not been very intuitive. That's really my only negative feedback."
"The other feature that Dynatrace should have is - from what I see in Dynatrace in our PoC - when you auto-upgrade the agents, the JVM or the application has to be restarted. But if you have something like an "auto-attach" feature, to attach the agent for the running process, it would not require a JVM restart. That would be nicer. That is a killer point."
"The user interface was not good."
"The installation process is difficult, requiring continuous support and specialist expertise due to our limited knowledge of managing it effectively."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have not fully been able to get the full value out of the product. It is expensive compared to other things that we have had in the past. Paying that much and not being able to get the full return on the product is a downgrade. ​"
"​I would recommend doing a PoC."
"Dynatrace is very good and it's provided a lot of information, it plays a positive role in making your application up to date in the market. If you want to monitor some applications only, it would be cheaper if you did cloud monitoring, but the price benefit depends on the use case."
"It is quite expensive for startups."
"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."
"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was a pretty straightforward process. We had no hiccups."
"​Make sure your leadership buy-in is in place. Ensure leadership understands that an APM solution is a fairly expensive, so they know what they are getting into."
"Its price is quite high. Although it is worth it, it would be better if its price is reduced. They base their prices around licensing. Their prices are based on agent licensing and consumption licensing. Both of these can be a bit cheaper, but if they are the best in the market, as I consider them to be, I assume that their prices will be higher. They are delivering the product for that price."
"I would rate the pricing a nine to ten. It is very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Government
11%
Healthcare Company
9%
Non Profit
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business78
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise298
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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...
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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Also Known As

No data available
Tivoli Composite Application Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Audi, Best Buy, LinkedIn, CISCO, Intuit, KRONOS, Scottrade, Wells Fargo, ULTA Beauty, Lenovo, Swarovsk, Nike, Whirlpool, American Express
Michelin Tire Corp
Find out what your peers are saying about Dynatrace vs. IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.