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Elastic Observability vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 6, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Elastic Observability enhances cost-effectiveness, reduces incidents, and improves efficiency, yielding significant time savings and operational benefits.
Sentiment score
7.3
Splunk AppDynamics enhances app performance, customer experience, and efficiency, offering quick ROI, cost reductions, and operational improvements.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.7
Elastic Observability's support is praised for prompt, efficient service and effective community-driven insights, enhancing overall user experience.
Sentiment score
7.3
Splunk AppDynamics support is praised for knowledge and engagement, despite occasional response time and geographical challenges.
The customer service and support are helpful and responsive.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Elastic Observability is efficiently scalable, with performance stability across varying team sizes, influenced by subscription level and infrastructure.
Sentiment score
7.4
Splunk AppDynamics is praised for scalability across environments, though pricing and large deployments pose occasional challenges.
Elastic Observability seems to have a good scale-out capability.
What is not scalable for us is not on Elastic's side.
We have reached maximum capacity in our tier, and extending capacity has not been cost-effective from Splunk's perspective.
I did not find any Docker solution available with it, and a separate instance has to be installed.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Elastic Observability is praised for its robust and stable performance, efficiently handling large data volumes across industries.
Sentiment score
7.7
Splunk AppDynamics offers strong stability and high performance, with minimal downtime and excellent support despite occasional issues.
It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it.
Elastic Observability is really stable.
It is necessary to conduct appropriate testing before deploying them in production to prevent potential outages.
I can rate it nine out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Elastic Observability needs better licensing, visualization, automation, integration, pricing, AI features, customization, and support for observability and cost transparency.
Splunk AppDynamics requires improvements in interface design, setup, mobile compatibility, real-time monitoring, and modern technology support.
It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like network observability, package flow analysis, and device performance data on the infrastructure side.
One example is the inability to monitor very old databases with the newest version.
Elastic Observability could improve asset discovery as the current requirement to push the agent is not ideal.
Splunk AppDynamics provides an end-to-end view of the application but misses the infrastructure part, which is crucial.
If AppDynamics could develop a means to monitor without an agent, it could significantly improve application performance and reduce potential problems.
 

Setup Cost

Elastic Observability offers competitive pricing with variable costs, favoring enterprises over startups, requiring premiums for advanced features.
Enterprise users find Splunk AppDynamics pricing complex and costly, requiring careful assessment and negotiation for better deals.
Elastic Observability is cost-efficient and provides all features in the enterprise license without asset-based licensing.
The license is reasonably priced, however, the VMs where we host the solution are extremely expensive, making the overall cost in the public cloud high.
Customers have to pay a premium price, however, they receive considerable value from the product.
All these solutions at the moment are cheap, but it is like paying for insurance; you pay insurance to avoid major damage.
 

Valuable Features

Elastic Observability offers scalable logging, seamless integrations, real-time visualization, and enhances system performance with a user-friendly, open-source model.
Splunk AppDynamics offers comprehensive observability, real-time monitoring, and efficient transaction analysis across development and production environments with minimal overhead.
The most valuable feature is the integrated platform that allows customers to start from observability and expand into other areas like security, EDR solutions, etc.
the most valued feature of Elastic is its log analytics capabilities.
All the features that we use, such as monitoring, dashboarding, reporting, the possibility of alerting, and the way we index the data, are important.
What I like the most about Splunk AppDynamics is the end-to-end observability for the application, along with traces.
The feature that I appreciate in AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring is the intuitive and user-friendly dynamic mapping it creates for workflows.
The real-time feature provides me with insights into what's happening.
 

Categories and Ranking

Elastic Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
7th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
7th
Ranking in Container Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (15th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
Splunk AppDynamics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
3rd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Ranking in Container Monitoring
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
245
Ranking in other categories
IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Mobile APM (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 5.4%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 4.8%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Adelina Craciun - PeerSpot reviewer
Customization enables tailored monitoring and alerting across departments
The possibility to customize it has been quite useful. Whatever the other departments want to dream up, we implement. Whatever they want to monitor, the granularity of it, the changes in the threshold, and the anomalies that they want reported all require some development. So far, every single request has been fulfilled.
Muhammad Zeeshan Siddiqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Dynamic mapping enhances workflows that are user-friendly
One aspect that requires improvement is the agent. Without an agent, gathering sufficient information on applications is challenging. Additionally, the agent sometimes creates performance issues in production environments. If AppDynamics could develop a means to monitor without an agent, it could significantly improve application performance and reduce potential problems. Moving to an agentless solution, like what some competitors are doing, would be beneficial.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
49%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Elastic Observability?
Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?
Elastic Observability is cost-efficient and provides all features in the enterprise license without asset-based licensing. However, sizing and licensing information could be clearer.
What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?
Of course, maintenance is necessary, as with any software, requiring updates with the latest features and security enhancements. It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like netw...
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...
APM tools for a Managed Service Provider - Dynatrace vs. AppDynamics vs. Aternity vs. Ruxit
Hi Avi! It's great to see your thorough approach to selecting an APM package for your MSP company. Considering your focus on SMBs and enterprises in Israel, Dynatrace seems like a solid choice with...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
Cisco, Sony, Nasdaq, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Edmunds.com, Puma, Fox News, DirecTV, Pizza Hut, T-Systems, Cornell University, OpenTable, BITMARCK, Green Mountain Power, Care.com, Overstock, Paddy Power, eHarmony, Kraft, The Motley Fool, The Container Store, and more See more customers
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. Splunk AppDynamics and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.