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ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) comparison

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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

ServiceNow Cloud Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
64th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk ITSI (IT Service Int...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
IT Alerting and Incident Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)0.8%
ServiceNow Cloud Observability0.7%
Other98.5%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Uday-Thentu - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Automation has reduced incident impact and is driving proactive self‑healing across hybrid services
ServiceNow Cloud Observability's valuable features include AI agents that can be integrated and triggered with workflows for evaluating and taking the right action in both process and technical aspects. On the process side, it ensures the right approvals are triggered. From the technical aspect, it allows integration for taking relevant action without human intervention, moving towards self-healing. The main benefit of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is real-time data, which helps us move from being reactive to more proactive. By defining and fine-tuning workflows, we were able to implement timely notification and auto-action or auto-remediations. At the same time, if anything involves additional cost or requires intervention, it helps trigger approval notifications, and once approval is received, it timely takes the action. The AI agents help define and fine-tune those workflows further.
DS
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Service health has been monitored and visual insights support proactive telecom operations
The installation process is the first aspect I dislike about Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence). If you do not configure it correctly, you will encounter issues in the search head. Because we use a distributed environment where each component has its own specific roles, installation is critical and requires careful attention. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is built with many applications. It is a compressed file, and when you extract the Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) app, you receive approximately 19 apps. Some applications, add-ons, and packages must be installed on specific components. If you do not configure an application correctly, it will not work. Sometimes we encounter issues during installation because of this complexity. I believe the installation process should be more uniform, meaning it could be deployed across all components to avoid post-installation issues. Sometimes after installation, you receive errors, and users cannot access Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence). We have experienced this type of issue due to installation errors. I believe there is currently room for improvement regarding scalability. When we create Glass Tables containing many searches, the Glass Tables sometimes fail due to memory constraints, and we receive error pages. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) should have a lightweight version to address these concerns. I would rate current scalability as medium.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The UI is very intuitive."
"To a certain extent, it is possible to save on the costs of the product."
"The main benefit of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is real-time data, which helps us move from being reactive to more proactive."
"The solution Lightstep/ServiceNow has a couple of pretty advanced functionalities to help us investigate a deviation and help the development teams have better observability in the environment using distributed and complex services."
"The ability to create a stream based on different parameters, operation name, service name, URL, tags, and URI part, is one valuable feature."
"One of the excellent features is the service analyzer, which is truly impressive."
"I like ITSI's glass tables. They're easy to navigate by clicking through them. The interface isn't that much different from other products I've used. It provides all the information we need in one place."
"Overall, it's a very stable product."
"The predictive analysis feature is quite useful, as it helps identify potential issues before they impact services and allows for proactive action."
"The most valuable aspect lies in its utilization of predictive analytics to anticipate and prevent incidents within a window of twenty to thirty minutes."
"In my opinion, Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) is better than QRadar. With the help of Splunk, we can get results."
"Splunk is not only a great product but also, as a company it really supports its users with the customer support program and all of the documentation they have available, all of the conventions that are arranged, meet the experts, case studies, use cases, and the YouTube channel."
"ITSI's most valuable feature is that it's easy to integrate DLP."
 

Cons

"The design of this solution is not very intuitive and probably could come with more friendly tips for beginners."
"In terms of licensing, users would want the product to offer them the ability to tailor the tasks offered in the solution to suit their needs."
"The support team could be better. Because of the different versions of different tactics of integrating reactive code base, the documentation is not very clear if someone has to be onboard. I would rate the documentation of Lightstep a five out of ten. It could need improvement."
"The dashboard and graphics must be improved."
"The cost could be reduced or lightweight agents and lightweight modules could be introduced, which would make it much easier to implement."
"We have problems doing upgrades and operating alternate new versions."
"Splunk ITSI consumes a lot of CPU resources."
"The UI could be updated. Some elements of the KPI section aren't where you'd expect. It looks like a website from 2010 or maybe older. You can't change some things, like if it doesn't word-wrap well. For example, if you have a long list of KPIs that exceed a character limit, you need to hover over them and wait for the HTML text to pop up to see which KPI it is."
"The end-to-end visibility in Splunk ITSI is limited and has room for improvement."
"While integrating services and KPIs in ITSI is straightforward, I found it challenging to analyze them with the service analyzers; specifically, using the deep dive feature to pinpoint the exact source and time of an issue proved difficult."
"It is pretty okay. I am not sure whether the current release has already moved to the new framework where instead of the glass tables, we can directly use the Dashboard Studio. It would be nice to have that integrated into the same framework."
"It was an intimidating tool for us to jump into at the beginning."
"We experience occasional delays in receiving solutions from Splunk technical support. Splunk's support for P3 cases seems inadequate, as they frequently switch support personnel. For instance, in a single P3 case, we had three different technical support representatives assigned. We were ultimately forced to escalate the issue to our account manager to get it resolved. In essence, we never receive complete support from a single point of contact; instead, the support team keeps changing, necessitating us to explain the problem from scratch each time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive. I rate the tool's pricing model an eight out of ten."
"It would have been good if the product cost was much lower."
"The licensing is based on data usage."
"Splunk ITSI is an expensive tool, and we need to purchase the utility license."
"Pricing has some room for improvement."
"Its pricing has been changed as per the market. You get a good support service with it as well. They have 24/7 customer support. There is a portal, and if you are having issues, they are available in order to resolve them. So, its pricing isn't too much."
"The pricing of Splunk is a bit high."
"Splunk ITSI is expensive; however, with the appropriate use case, it justifies the cost."
"It is interesting. I am not involved that much lately, but if I recall correctly, you license primarily on the volume of data that you are using in Splunk ITSI, but there is no way Splunk can ever check if that is true, so that is interesting. We are not doing it, but someone can pretend to just use 10%, and it would be super cheap. It is tricky, but it is more tricky for Splunk than for us."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise46
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with LightStep?
The cost could be reduced or lightweight agents and lightweight modules could be introduced, which would make it much easier to implement.
What is your primary use case for LightStep?
ServiceNow Cloud Observability's main use case is end-to-end automation starting from the trigger in the cloud. Currently, it focuses more on self-healing and understanding the complete uptime of e...
What advice do you have for others considering LightStep?
Regarding security, I unfortunately do not have much hands-on experience. My focus has been majorly on self-healing activities, but given what I have observed, it does provide a good opportunity in...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?
From a pricing perspective, it is not that bad because we get it from a distributor and do not purchase it directly from Splunk. We get it from a distributor who gives the pricing to a partner and ...
What needs improvement with Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?
Training the database could make Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) even better for my work. I sometimes feel a lag with Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence). I gave it a nine out of ten.
What is your primary use case for Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?
I have been using Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) for the last two to three years for my data handling. I do IT implementation with strong technical skills. I sometimes use Splunk ITSI (IT Se...
 

Also Known As

LightStep
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

InVision, Twilio, Lyft, Yext, DigitalOcean,
TransUnion, Cox Automotive, Carnival Cruises, Leidos, Econocom, National Ignition Factory, Entrust Datacard, Molina Healthcare, United States Census Bureau
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.