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Dynatrace vs SolarWinds AppOptics 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
7.4
Number of Reviews
345
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (5th), Mobile APM (1st), Container Monitoring (2nd), AIOps (2nd)
SolarWinds AppOptics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
48th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (50th), Cloud Monitoring Software (34th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Dynatrace is 10.8%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.3%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Anand_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides a comprehensive view by integrating with other monitoring systems
There may be an issue since there are many tools like Splunk involved in network monitoring. From an IP perspective, Dynatrace is performing well. If they want to develop in network monitoring, they can, as it's part of their product line. It's not rocketry, so they can accomplish it. If I, as an SI, look at it from an enterprise perspective, considering the cost from the client, I prefer not to go with multiple systems, as they don't provide a complete 360-degree view. They need to improve on claims about being an enterprise system. The definition of enterprise is loosely used, however, from a holistic security perspective, including infrastructure, network, ports, software, applications, transactions, and databases, there are areas lacking, especially in network monitoring tools.
John Yuko - PeerSpot reviewer
Unique features allow consolidating and combing metrics into a single dashboard, but don't monitor mobile solutions
I would like to see more granular information provided on Unix applications. Also, the integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward in terms having an agent to retrieve your credentials rather than having to enter or save them for SSH on SolarWinds. From the outset, we had to set some commands to log into the search console, and they are saved on the solution, which presents a challenge in terms of exposure. The solution is unable to monitor APK solutions completely because we'd then be forced to break down the APK and provide the APIs or go through the source code. They don't have a module that can analyze an application that is maybe under-used.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We were able to decrease the number of production defects ever since we started using Dynatrace in our test environment."
"We use it to monitor over a 1000 servers in AWS."
"For cloud, AI has been pretty useful so far when it comes to IT's ability to scale."
"One thing it helped with: We should never get traffic from outside the U.S. and we were getting traffic from Europe, and that was a problem. We found out what caused it. Dynatrace helped us find that information out. We wouldn't have found it otherwise."
"It is a 100 percent stable solution...Dynatrace is a highly scalable product since it is a SaaS-based application."
"Automatic instrumentation of new services and technology without the need to install specific agents or modules."
"The most valuable things that we have seen are the user experience and capturing what the users are doing inside the browser."
"It helps our organization identify potential problems by doing thorough analysis of systems which integrate with one another."
"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."
"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
"The product has a great dashboard."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."
 

Cons

"The products or company go through a rebrand/renaming about once a year, which creates some confusion with our customers."
"I do not like after 60 days or 90 days it gets aggregated to summary data. I would like to be able to analyze specific PurePaths after 30 days or 60 days with real numbers."
"The initial setup was relatively complex because we were trying to implement into environments that they did not yet support."
"There is still a certain amount of technical skills needed to be able to understand what you are seeing on it. You also need a large amount of technical or infrastructure skills to understand how and where to install it."
"It could improve its GUI interface. The GUI design is too crowded and the icons are small. Sometimes I end up clicking on the wrong button."
"We have had problems with our middle layer application implementation."
"We need extended support for some of the agents, the one-agent technologies under Managed. We've got some old legacy platforms that don't have one-agent support yet."
"There is another challenge, which is in case of the Managed solution. In our old solution we could simply export the data as session data, and that would be imported and seen. Now, if we are using the Managed solution, then giving someone access to that solution is a challenge. We can handle it, but it's different than taking screenshots and saving that information the way we used to. The copy/paste features that were there in old application - because it was a fat app - were nice, compared to browser-based app, because you cannot really use those features anymore."
"In terms of the technology, I think they need to put some more advanced troubleshooting into SolarWinds, in terms of AI capabilities. That's the next generation, especially in the cases of APIs which have already adopted AI capabilities into their products."
"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."
"The solution should be more user-friendly."
"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."
"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."
"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license cost, which is obviously more expensive than an open-source solution, but for the return on investment from what you get from it, it's a great investment. Of course, it could always be cheaper."
"Its licensing is complicated or not transparent."
"The product is pricey, but it is feature-rich, which is why we probably haven't looked away from it."
"There is a license issue where if we increase the memory we have to up the licenses. I was unaware of that going in. I thought it was scalable without all the paperwork behind the scenes. ​​"
"Dynatrace is an expensive solution."
"Our annual costs were about the same for both AppDynamics and Dynatrace."
"The cost is somewhat high."
"Dynatrace's pricing for their consumption units is rather arcane compared to some of the other tools, thus making forward-looking calculations based on capacity planning quite hard."
"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."
"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."
"Mostly, it's a perpetual license. We don't have any customers using the subscription right now—it's mostly a perpetual license that the customers purchase. The licensing is based on the number of elements, whereas other solutions are node-based."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
36%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
60%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds AppOptics?
The solution should be more user-friendly.
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds AppOptics?
I used the solution for monitoring servers and network equipment.
 

Also Known As

No data available
AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Audi, Best Buy, LinkedIn, CISCO, Intuit, KRONOS, Scottrade, Wells Fargo, ULTA Beauty, Lenovo, Swarovsk, Nike, Whirlpool, American Express
TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista
Find out what your peers are saying about Dynatrace vs. SolarWinds AppOptics and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.