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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
7.2
Number of Reviews
350
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (5th), Mobile APM (2nd), Container Monitoring (1st), AIOps (2nd)
SolarWinds AppOptics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
56th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (58th), Cloud Monitoring Software (44th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Dynatrace is 8.9%, down from 12.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.4%, up from 0.3% 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 (%)
Dynatrace8.9%
SolarWinds AppOptics0.4%
Other90.7%
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 spend less time on troubleshooting issues since Dynatrace proactively informs us of an impending bottle neck."
"The memory dumps, the tracing, and PurePath. All the tracing that you can do with the tool is, for us, our life. It's our daily job and it saves us a lot of time looking for performance issues."
"In terms of AI, I love the base-lining Dynatrace provides us. It baselines the application over a seven-day period; we have it at the default of seven days. The artificial intelligence is so amazing because it can automatically track each transaction and their response times: how much CPU they use, how much memory, resources that they use. If there’s any deviation from that Dynatrace will tell me like right away. If there’s a deployment and the deployment has increased response time or is taking up CPU or has caused a memory leak, I can say, “Hey guys, you need to look at this, it’s this function on this page in this microservice, in this docker container. You need to go here, you need to fix it, it’s not going live.” It has just increased our productivity off the charts."
"Dynatrace is a single platform. It has all these different tools but they are actually all baked into the OneAgent technology. Within that OneAgent... you have the different tool sets. You have threat analysis, memory dumps, Java analysis, the database statements, and so on. It's all included in this OneAgent. So the management is actually quite easy."
"The most valuable function is the ability to replay a customer session."
"Auto alerting and reporting on the application and the infrastructure aid us in delivering our service with greater value."
"Dynatrace gives us and our clients information about all layers and components of their platform, including the most important starting point for us: real-time and historical end user experience."
"It is cleaner and more compact with good UX/UI."
"The product has a great dashboard."
"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 sum solution, NTA, and DPA."
"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
 

Cons

"Infrastructure monitoring could be improved."
"We called support mostly about implementation issues. Docker was one which was early on and the support structure for Dynatrace. Typically, they were trying to help us figure out third-party applications and where the monitoring agent should be located."
"DevOps ​plugin monitoring tools need improvement."
"With Linux or Windows, it automatically takes care of everything, so there's no need for you to do any manual config changes. But when it comes to AIX - because I implemented it two weeks back - you have to go back to kind of an AppMon approach, where you instrument agents for .NET applications. So if Dynatrace could make those changes and make it automated, that would be one of the biggest action items."
"You have got cloning at one level, but it would be nice to have cloning at deeper levels. Or, as you are doing the cloning, it would be nice if you could select different options. Then, you are not having to sit there and build dashboards, and spending a lot of time in the cloning area."
"I would like to see the Business Transactions made easier, so you can distinguish users and companies (this can get very hairy for a large multi-tenant application)."
"They need to develop how to capture the JDBC and MBeans metrics."
"The initial setup was relatively complex because we were trying to implement into environments that they did not yet support."
"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."
"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."
"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."
"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."
"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 solution should be more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Dynatrace is the most expensive APM that we sell, compared to competitors' products. The license pricing could be improved. My customers pay for licensing yearly."
"The product is pricey, but it is feature-rich, which is why we probably haven't looked away from it."
"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."
"​A Dynatrace partner will always be willing to give you a trial. Go through the trial to see if there is a benefit for your company."
"Dynatrace is an expensive solution."
"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace is excellent."
"Everything is great, but the licensing could always be cheaper. With the every growing tool set of Ops teams, we find it harder to budget for tooling while ensuring we still have the proper insight into our applications."
"Our annual costs were about the same for both AppDynamics and Dynatrace."
"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."
"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."
"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
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Government
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business77
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise289
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
 

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
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: September 2025.
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