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SolarWinds AppOptics vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 11, 2025

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

SolarWinds AppOptics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
56th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
57th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (43rd)
Splunk AppDynamics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
3rd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
249
Ranking in other categories
IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Mobile APM (1st), Container Monitoring (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.3%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 4.6%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Gyanesh Rahatekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Application performance management and error resolution improved with data-driven insights
Dynatrace has multiple functions compared to Splunk AppDynamics, so Splunk AppDynamics should add those functions, which are not available as of now. Dynatrace has a universal agent that collects all information related to their CI, and if one CI has multiple languages, then there is no need to instrument multiple agents. However, Splunk AppDynamics requires multiple agents; if I have one server with multiple applications in different languages, then I need to instrument different agents for each application. Splunk AppDynamics should work with Dynatrace with one single universal agent that works with all application languages, eliminating the need for multiple implementations.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."
"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."
"The product has a great dashboard."
"The most valuable feature of AppDynamics is that you can easily determine the load on the application."
"The best feature of about Splunk AppDynamics is its interface, which allows me to see the full transaction, exactly what is happening, from where it starts to where the call is going, all the services involved in a call, and exactly the time it took from each node to each node along with the network delays."
"In AppDynamics, everywhere I go, there's some sort of grouping and aggregation function, or there's some sort of timeline that lets me zero in more quickly on the traces that I need. They go to more pains to aggregate and bubble the important ones to the top. That removes a lot of manual work."
"Capacity planning is, in my opinion, the most useful."
"There are many features that are very valuable to us, but the ability to monitor the status of the users' experience in real-time is one of them."
"We were able to correct problems, which led to an increase in availability, time savings, and performance for our solutions."
"Provides monitoring more around business processes versus just servers, applications, etc. E.g., with complex systems, where a business process passes across multiple applications, the business needs us to monitor the heath of the process, not just a segment of the application."
"The ability to identify the top running queries has been extremely valuable for us."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."
"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."
"Stability-wise, we experienced some performance issues when upgrading from 4.4 to 4.5."
"Its resiliency can be improved. We're told that the best we can do with an on-prem solution is to have a hot standby that requires a manual switchover. So, it is a do-it-yourself Ikea model of maintaining data consistency between two servers, without having low balance or failover considerations for an on-prem solution."
"If you have a single URL and all the operations are coming in as part of the header, you will not be able to segregate them for different actions."
"The QA and test environment need improvement."
"I would like to be able to monitor both cloud an on-prem infrastructures, displayed in one dashboard."
"AppDynamics Server Monitoring lacks investment in new technologies like Kubernetes and cloud solutions."
"Sometimes, it is hard to navigate through and find if something is wrong or figure out where an error stemmed from."
"The one thing that I find it difficult in using AppDynamics is, for any new user, it's not easy for him or her to configure the transactions in AppDynamics because the UI is pretty complex. The configuration is pretty complex for a new, fresh user. They can make the UI simpler, that'll be very helpful for anyone to configure their website in AppDynamics."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."
"Because it is priced per JVM, the price can increase pretty fast, into the millions. We have had challenges because we had to justify the price to our clients, as well, when we are putting in certain tools."
"We have two different licensing models for this solution. One of them is the agent based model, which requires payment per agent. The other is an infrastructure based model, where the price is based on the CPU core. For the infrastructure model wholesale level pricing applies. All of the up to date licensing prices for this product are available on the manufacturers website."
"Take into consideration what you get for specific pricing models and how much it costs to add on things you may need later.​"
"If one is expensive and ten is low price, I rate the product price as seven out of ten."
"I would say the solution is affordable because it is widely used across financial service sectors."
"It's a very expensive product. Each of the licenses after this month for one server is around $9,000 or $10,000."
"One of the main downsides to the solution is its cost."
"The solution has a high cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Educational Organization
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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...
 

Also Known As

AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista
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 SolarWinds AppOptics vs. Splunk AppDynamics and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.