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Splunk AppDynamics vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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

Splunk AppDynamics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
1st
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
4th
Ranking in Container Monitoring
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
278
Ranking in other categories
IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Mobile APM (1st)
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
18th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
13th
Ranking in Container Monitoring
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 5.0%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Splunk AppDynamics5.0%
VMware Aria Operations for Applications1.3%
Other93.7%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

YA
Sr. Solution Architect, Project Manager at The National Commercial Bank
Root cause analysis has become possible but complex setup and agent issues still slow investigations
The limitations I notice include the instability of the agent, which crashes, and the application itself consuming memory under heavy loads. Additionally, the customizations are not easy to build, especially for new parsers and functionalities that are just supported out-of-the-box. Splunk AppDynamics needs to be more user-friendly so that even someone who does not know what is happening should be able to easily find the root cause of issues, as the tool is specifically designed for application developers, not from a user perspective for problem identification. My experience with the application performance monitoring capabilities of Splunk AppDynamics indicates that it is complex. The correlation from the front end to the back end is not working properly. In an application using the EUM feature and having the app agent, the app agent gives me the transaction data, but the EUM data does not correlate to the backend transactions, and I do not know why. It can be very complex to find the root cause in those scenarios, as there is a disparity in metrics, making it challenging. Even though Splunk AppDynamics is trying, my very large environment presents hurdles that medium-scale organizations might not experience. After spending around three to four years trying to get value from it, I still feel a lack of satisfaction. To get closer to a rating of 10 in the future, I would like to see whatever features are being provided made to work, particularly in large environments. Splunk AppDynamics claims it can do 100 things, but if those things are not functioning cohesively, it is ineffective. Instead of offering 100 features that do not work together, it would be better to focus on a smaller set of features that operate effectively. Changes happen daily with new applications and technologies, and Splunk AppDynamics needs to adapt more swiftly to keep up. The feature that helps detect and protect against vulnerabilities does raise concerns. I experience vulnerabilities in Splunk AppDynamics that I communicate to support for fixes, and they often respond by indicating that some fixes are available in new versions. This creates a continuous cycle of raising issues and waiting for resolutions through version updates.
AS
Consultant at HCLTech
Automation and insightful diagnostics elevate operations while improvements are welcome
The new version 8.18 has brought significant improvements. The main purpose of using this tool is having a single console to manage all entities. The cloud integration capabilities, including private, public, and hybrid, are already well-implemented. The ability to manage multiple vCenters across different geographical locations is very effective. The new Skyline health feature and certificate and licensing management are particularly useful improvements. The dashboard's overview tab provides comprehensive information about current vCenter status, resizable amounts, reclamation opportunities, anomalies, diagnostics, licensing, and certificates. However, there is room for improvement in application analysis. The current functionality lacks detailed monitoring at the kernel level, focusing mainly on CPU, memory, and storage matrices. Enhanced application monitoring capabilities, including tracking downtime for specific types of applications such as transactional or e-commerce applications, would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature that I appreciate in AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring is the intuitive and user-friendly dynamic mapping it creates for workflows."
"We like the ability to drill down into the method level to identify where the real issue is, as other tools just show the slowness at the transaction level only."
"The product is easy to install, it took about half an hour. The use and the configurations are simple as well."
"The team really enjoyed being able to track a transaction from start to finish."
"In a critical project where, along with the monitoring solution, RUM is also deployed, it gives you complete clarity why my business transaction failed and what is technically causing that to occur."
"The most valuable features of AppDynamics Database Monitoring are you can configure the performance and see in real-time what is exactly happening with the applications. Additionally, the dashboards are good."
"It has been stable, scalable and manageable."
"It allows us to configure health rules so that we can, based on our own experience, determine when an application is behaving incorrectly."
"People are very pleased with the implementation."
"The solution provides single-console management for multiple VMware environments and cloud integrations, whether hybrid, private, or public cloud."
"Wavefront's monitoring tools and visibility into public cloud platforms are competing with the best out there."
"I find VMware Aria Operations for Applications to be very stable, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"VMware comes with a support team, and if you have trouble, you can easily create a ticket, and VMware will help you. Therefore, the best aspect is the support."
"Using Wavefront, we have been able to reduce the complexity of our pipeline."
"The stability of Aria Operations for Applications has improved significantly over the years."
"This solution will give you a single pane of glass for everything, and centralized monitoring."
 

Cons

"I haven’t rated the product higher basically because of the synthetic monitoring piece."
"I would like to see more of a unified platform. They're very, very new on the server side, machine agents. I want them to be more mature in this area."
"The worst part is that the AppDynamics SaaS Environment has a lot of downtimes, and AppDynamics, despite our efforts, does not give us any feedback on these downtimes/incidents."
"If we consider the implementation of alternative solutions, such as Dynatrace, there is a notable difference in the approach to agent-based service monitoring. For instance, Dynatrace employs a single-agent solution, which can pose security concerns. When installing Dynatrace, granting the agent ld pro payload rights is a requirement. In contrast, our solution ensures a more secure approach by not requiring root and administration access. While we currently utilize an agent-based solution, there may be a shift in the next one or two years, possibly with the adoption of Open Telemetry. It's anticipated that many APM vendors, including Dynatrace, may alter their structure or strategy for implementation. However, as of now, the trend is towards an increasing number of implementations daily."
"We’re having difficulty with the Apache web agent. It seems to be consuming too many resources of AppDynamics."
"There may be some older technologies that are still covered, however, it's not as plug-and-play. You can still do it, however, it takes slightly more effort for engineers to cover old technologies such as C++, Delphi, and so on. It still can be done. It's just not as easy as, for example, covering Java."
"Things are being done differently in the industry now, and many of these problems are being solved with cloud databases."
"The configuration is tricky and requires a lot of tools."
"I would like to see integration with Kubernetes cluster and APIs so that you can manage the entire stack."
"The initial setup should be easier and more seamless."
"The implementation is a long process that should be improved."
"The return on investment is best suited for organizations that do not have the resources for a dedicated VM environment team. However, the cost of the product doesn't show significant benefits."
"Its billing model is consumption-based. I understand the consumption-based model, but it is not necessarily easy to estimate and guess how many points or how much we are going to consume on a specific application up until we get to that point. So, for us, it would be helpful to have more insights or predictability into what we can expect from a cost perspective if we are starting to use specific features. This can potentially also drive our consumption a bit more."
"It could use a URL document server. Everything in the market is moving towards automation and everybody's looking for the single click operations as well relational data locality."
"They just need more capability. A few areas still need more enhancements in the technology capability space."
"They could make it more easy to plug-in data so that a nontechnical person will be able to use it, like accountants or finance people. That way they don't have to ask us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are looking forward to purchasing the solution on the AWS Marketplace."
"I believe there was probably an extra charge whenever I wanted to contact the support team."
"We have a license-based solution. That means you need a license for each server you monitor."
"Purchasing the product through the AWS Marketplace was good."
"The product is a bit expensive compared to other tools."
"The licensing cost is fairly high"
"It is not a cheap tool, but you also save in manpower to setup because it is easy and fast. At the end of the day, I think the revenue is much better. BUT, they have an awful co-term mode of licensing."
"I was not involved with the procurement of AppDynamic, but I believe it's expensive."
"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."
"The licensing costs are very high, particularly when you consider that we have to purchase a level 1 license for every integration, such as the load balancer, HAProxy, and the MSSP. And if you want to use vSAN, that's another license. Then, of course, Tanzu Observability has its own separate license."
"I would rate the pricing as three out of five."
"I don't have the details. In our case, there is a mixture in place. We have production usage, and we are also doing training for VMware. So, we also have a training instance. It is worth the money you would spend on it. That's because if you were to build all of this yourself by using some of the open source tools, then you would need a lot of time."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise208
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

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 AppDynamics Server Monitoring?
There is room for improvement in auto-discovery and mapping. While it is very good, sometimes we need customization to match our application or business needs, but currently it is satisfactory. If ...
What is your primary use case for AppDynamics Server Monitoring?
I use Splunk AppDynamics data collection features with agents. It is on-premises, particularly in hybrid and on-premises environments. I have used Splunk AppDynamics for business transaction monito...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
The solution includes cost drivers that can be configured according to your environment. You can input server-wise, CPU-wise, storage, and memory costs per hour or day. Once cost drivers are provid...
What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
The new version 8.18 has brought significant improvements. The main purpose of using this tool is having a single console to manage all entities. The cloud integration capabilities, including priva...
What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
I have been involved in several projects where I had to implement automation and monitoring alerting. I performed automation using VMware Aria Operations for Applications. There is an automation ta...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
1. Atlassian 2. Cisco 3. Databricks 4. DigitalOcean 5. Equinix 6. Fidelity Investments 7. Google 8. Hewlett Packard Enterprise 9. Honeywell 10. IBM 11. Intel 12. JetBlue Airways 13. LinkedIn 14. Lyft 15. Mastercard 16. Microsoft 17. MongoDB 18. Netflix 19. Nvidia 20. Oracle 21. PayPal 22. Pinterest 23. Qualcomm 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. SAP 27. Spotify 28. Square 29. TMobile 30. Twitter 31. Uber 32. VMware
Find out what your peers are saying about Splunk AppDynamics vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.