Splunk AppDynamics Reviews

We use AppDynamics to monitor application performance.

I like how the AppDynamics dashboard portrays the information flows. When a task is executed, various flows between different applications and databases happen in the background. The dashboard is intuitive and helps visualize the connections, the directions of the flow, and the information related to these specific sessions. 

AppDynamics is agent-based, so some customers are reluctant to install the agents in all their production environments. It would be helpful if they had an agentless version. It covers applications on the server, but the solution is weak on the network side. The agent is not deployed on the network components, so it cannot provide complete information about issues on the network layer.

I have used AppDynamics for about a year.

I rate AppDynamics six out of 10 for stability. The agent sometimes stops working when users perform upgrades on the application side. We have to restart it. 

I rate AppDynamics seven out of 10 for scalability. I haven't had any difficulty receiving information on the main controller and propagating it on the dashboard. It also has a high-availability option. 

I rate AppDynamics support nine out of 10. 

SolarWinds monitors the applications, but it only provides information within the system and does not tell you about information flows. 

We can roll it out in a week if everything goes smoothly. However, we sometimes have compatibility issues with the agent. If the agent is not working correctly and providing the information, we might need to develop a customized agent or get one from the user community. 

The customers are happy, and we hear positive feedback from the users. It helps the application team and the developers by providing an excellent tool for troubleshooting performance problems. 

I rate AppDynamics seven out of 10 for affordability. AppDynamics is an expensive solution. The price depends on the size of your environment. It's about $500,000 for a large enterprise. 

I rate AppDynamics eight out of 10. It's on the high end of the Gartner quadrant, but it's lacking some features. 

Our company uses the solution to track abnormalities and check connections for critical applications.

We had the solution on-premises but recently moved it to the SaaS platform. 

The solution offers great visibility that allows you to track where errors originated. 

The solution's features could be more mobile friendly.

I have been using the solution for four years. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is very scalable. 

I have used technical support and rate it an eight out of ten. 

Positive

The setup was easy. 

It is difficult to quantify the amount of time needed for setup because ours depended on the development team's plans. 

We implemented the solution in-house. 

Although the solution is expensive, the ROI makes it more cost effective. 

The solution has a high cost. 

I recommend the solution because it is good for observability and drilling down to find the cause of issues. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. My rating would go up if the solution were more mobile friendly and cost effective. 

We use AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring to monitor the performance of applications. We use the solution to see the errors, snapshots, and exceptions in the backend and front end of our applications. We also use AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring for frontend monitoring, end-user monitoring, checking the response time, and other frontend metrics. We also use the dashboard in AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring and also use the solution for sending error or issue alerts to our clients.

The best feature of AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring is that it lets you find errors in synthetic jobs ahead of the users. The solution shows you all front-end metrics. You can also see JavaScript errors and jQuery errors through AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring. You can also do a correlation between the front end and the backend, or from the user to the navigator, to the backend through the solution.

What could be improved in AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring is for the synthetic jobs or synthetic agents, in particular, you can't do a lot of tests with just one agent. You have to install a lot of agents if you want to do more tests, so this is an area for improvement in the solution.

Another area for improvement in AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring is that you're only able to see basic metrics in the absence of server or database visibility.

For the SaaS version of AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring, my team just downloaded then installed the extension in an application in Azure to see the application on the controller, so if this can be done in the on-premise version of the solution as well, without needing to install the agent on the machine, then it would make AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring better. Currently, the .NET agent consumes the CPU or memory and clients usually raise this issue with my team, so it would be good if the on-premises version doesn't require agent installation on the machine.

Another functionality I'd like to see in the next release of AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring is for it to receive updates from the file config without needing to reset IIS because right now when you do a modification in IIS, you have to restart IIS. When you add a service to the agent config, you have to restart IIS. For the product server, it's not possible to reset IIS after you make changes to the config file, so if this could be improved, then it would make AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring a better solution.

I have about two years of experience with AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring.

AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring is a stable solution.

AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring has good scalability.

Support for AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring is always available. My team does a lot of Webex with support. Whenever you have a problem with the solution, you can always contact support.

As a developer, I have no idea about the pricing for AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring. Another team is in charge of the licensing for the solution.

Currently, AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring is deployed on-premises, but my team is also testing its SaaS version.

My advice to anyone considering AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring is that it's a very important product because you can use it to troubleshoot and detect errors in your applications.

I'm rating AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring as ten out of ten.

We were using an ID integration, and we were monitoring and using the EPM, et cetera. AppDynamics is able to provide us with in-depth insight into the bottlenecks in the system.

It allows us to understand what is causing latency in the system. Using AppDynamics, we can drill down to the code on which the bottleneck is seen, and the developers can fix the issues, increasing the overall application's performance.

The tag and follow aspects are very good. Basically, how the transaction is moving through various servers. We can see everything via a dashboard, a visual dashboard, that can showcase transactions.

It's pretty stable.

We can scale the solution as needed. 

We'd like to see features that could support IBM's Integration Bus. AppDynamics is unable to provide the details for all the flows in the system transaction flow. That component needs work.

The initial setup is a bit complex.

It was quite expensive.

I've been using the solution for two years. 

We only really run into issues during the upgrade process. Other than that, it is stable and reliable. the performance is good, and there are no bugs or glitches. 

It's a scalable product. If a company wants to expand, it can do so. 

We have between 150 and 200 users right now. We do not have plans to increase usage. 

Technical support has been helpful in general. 

Positive

We were using DynaRisk. However, it did not meet the needs of our use cases. 

We found the initial setup to be a bit difficult. It's not perfectly straightforward. 

There are two or three people on hand that can handle deployment and maintenance tasks.

We handled the setup ourselves in-house. We did not need any outside assistance.

We have not really noted any ROI.

It's a very expensive product. Each of the licenses after this month for one server is around $9,000 or $10,000. Therefore, monitoring one server concerning analytics or server monitoring is pretty expensive.

Before beginning, a new user should take time to understand the product. They need to analyze a few options and see which best fits their use case and go with that. There are many on the market to look at, including DynaRisk and DataDog.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

We are using many business applications, and the backend databases are very critical for them. So, everybody's using AppDynamics Database Monitoring.

The good thing with AppDynamics Databases is that it will give you a pretty good overview of the data, all the database-like tables, long-running queries, jobs running on the databases, and the queries that are taking more time. So, it's at a deeper level with all the database functionalities, and you will get that information. So, it's a pretty good tool in that sense.

It could be more user-friendly for beginners.

I have been using AppDynamics Database Monitoring for six months.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring is relatively stable.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring is a scalable solution. We are monitoring over 200 applications.

Technical support is okay. 

On a scale from one to five, I would give technical support a four.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. The thing is, it has some prerequisites. That means you need to get some prerequisite access. Once the database team is done, it's pretty easy to configure. You can deploy this solution within an hour or two.

We have a license-based solution. That means you need a license for each server you monitor.

I would tell potential users that AppDynamics Database Monitoring is not just for database monitoring. If you need to monitor your entire application stack, for example, you need to monitor how that website is performing at the backend or how applications are performing. Infrastructure monitoring means everything has to be monitored and is offered in the bundles. 

That's what AppDynamics does. It's like an application performance monitoring solution. If you need to monitor all this and use all these capabilities, then AppDynamics is a very good solution.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give AppDynamics Database Monitoring an eight.

Our use case depends on whether the client has revenue on their primary revenue-generating websites. For example, we previously implemented for Aviva Financial, and their primary revenue-generating website was their Aviva website. They primarily do home, medical, motor, and car insurance and use this solution to download insurance quotes. This solution is also used to monitor the end-user activity, website speed, product details and quotes.

We use the solution for end-user performance monitoring to monitor customers' browsers, like Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer. So we're able to get details, and each transaction gets monitored, and the information gets captured and presented to management.

The management observes the end-user activity, which helps get quotes signed and monitor the payment system gateways.

It has a lot of features, and it provides a lot of data, so it helps businesses identify their user base, business parameters and key business metrics.

The solution is very scalable, and you can get the performance data from the end users. So it provides a proper way to analyze data from different regions. Most of the users download the data, which helps them understand the business strengths and monitor traffic from each region and maximum users.

A problem with App Dynamics is that they do not have robust documentation, making it difficult for start-up organizations who may need guidance. In addition, their documentation is complex and not easy to understand.

Another problem with AppDynamics is the agents of division. There is no central distribution system to update all the endpoints, so we need patch mechanism updates to do those activities. It is cumbersome, and it's not easy, so they lag in that area.

We have been using this solution for the past six months. It's a SaaS product only, and AppDynamics is according to the agent version. It is on cloud.

The initial setup was very easy. Deployment depends on how many applications you need to monitor. Initial data collection can take up to two to three weeks. Then, like any end-user application, it will be implemented in a test environment. Once the test environment is a success, it moves to production, which takes one to two months.

The support and management team primarily have access to the data, and we collect the story at the back end. For example, we do this for Aviva, which has an approximately 300,000 user base. So the information on whoever visits Aviva's website is passed on to AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring.

They have licenses. Technically, AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring is a Cisco product. When using this application, we need to install the agents on each server, and there is a transaction cost. End-user monitoring requires purchasing millions of transaction licenses, but infrastructure monitoring costs are based on the agent. So everything is licensed, and it's a costly solution.

I rate this solution a seven out of ten. We decided to use this solution because they are market leaders. Appdynamics and Dynatrace are the main application performance monitoring solutions and have been for the last five to six years.

I would recommend this solution. First, you need to analyze multiple tools in the market based on your requirements. For example, if you need an enterprise monitoring system, go for AppDynamics or Dynatrace, but if you have fewer applications, you can choose other end-user monitoring solutions like Site24x7.

I am the coordinator of the implementation of AppDynamics in our customers' companies. 

The most valuable feature of AppDynamics is that we can see all query times. If a particular query is taking too much time, we can alert it. 

For example, for a particular transaction, if it is related to the database we know that the slowness is coming from the database and can see the relevant details. In the application flow map, we are able to see that the flow is going to the database and how much time it is taking. We can understand if the database is responsible for the slowness or not. This also enables us to create a ticket.

AppDyanmics requires better technical people to support the solution. It is not as simple as just implementing and walking away. You need someone to maintain the solution. The day-to-day activities should be less complicated so that anyone can manage them. The administration should not be an overhead.

Our organization has been working with AppDynamics for more than six months.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring is stable.

The solution is scalable.

Customer service and support are okay. They are willing to help and were able to solve our concerns. However, some of the issues we raised took a long time to get the solution. Some issues took several months to resolve. 

The initial setup of AppDynamics Database Monitoring is neither easy nor complex. Our database server is set up on-premise, so we needed to configure a few parameters. Once the database agent part is complete, then it is easy. We just needed to add the database one by one. 

We worked very closely with AppDyanmics through the implementation. They helped us with the configuration. By working with them, we didn't face many technical glitches.

The entire implementation, not only for the database, took three months.

The license for AppDynamics is procured by our customers.

Prior to implementing AppDynamics, we did evaluate New Relic and Instana. 

If you are talking only from the database perspective, I would recommend AppDyanmics Database. It is very helpful because it gives you more insight. 

Overall, I would rate AppDynamics Database Monitoring a seven out of 10.

We use this product for the public sector and for really big data centers and infrastructure.

We implemented it for a big bank in Morocco and it monitors all the web interface interfaces. It also monitors solutions like Salesforce, SAP, these kinds of solutions, and it describes the problem really from the root.

You can use one module for each server, for each application, and for each API.

It can monitor the income and the outcome. For example, when you have a website that has online payments, if there are bugs in the online payment for the provider, it will check it, see the problem, and send you an alert.

If the development team makes a mistake with this tool, it points really the mistake and sends it to the manager and it provides also a solution too, as it monitors the code. It provides solutions to make the code more effective.

The initial setup is simple. 

With the solution you can put add-ons on it and it's very customizable. You can customize it easily. If you want something that the tool doesn't have, you can add it easily.

It is stable.

The solution can scale. 

Compared to Dynatrace, which is the biggest competitor to AppDynamics, Dynatrace is a one-agent tool. You don't have to put an agent in every single server or app. However, the monitoring is less effective in Dynatrace. If AppDynamics could do a one-agent function with their actual monitoring effectiveness, it will be the greatest tool.

I've been dealing with the solution for two years now. 

The solution is stable. It's reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The product is scalable. 30% of our team uses the solution. They are IT experts and they are DevOps. You have to know how to code and you have to know how to deal with infrastructure servers, et cetera, and you have to know how to put KPIs and everything that the client needs into place.

I'm not sure if clients have any plans to increase usage at this time. 

Technical support is very, very good. 

I'm also familiar with Dynatrace.

The implementation is straightforward. There may be a bit of complexity here and there. You just have to buy the license with the number of agents that you want to install. It's more complex than the Dynatrace setup. It's complex in terms of the fact that you have to know the tool and you have to know how to code. If you want to customize it, you have to know development also, those parts can be very complex, or more complex than Dynatrace, for example.

The deployment takes from one to six months. 

The implementation strategy is, first, we take notice of the entire IT infrastructure, the entire digital environment. When the audit is complete, then we proceed to the tool installation.

We have ten people that can handle deployment and maintenance tasks. 

Most of the implementation was handled in-house. We have a delivery center in Tunisia that can handle the setup. We provide assistance to our clients. 

Clients have seen an ROI. For example, we had a client who had to troubleshoot a website and its banking application, and it was buggy all the time. It was not working. I was a client of this bank. Since we implemented this solution, it's been one of the best banking apps in Morocco.

They had great ROI in terms of client satisfaction. For the user, the banking administration processes are easier. You do everything on the app, which now works well.

The return on investment is huge.

The licensing is paid yearly. It depends on the size of the environment, and the number of apps or IT infrastructure that is monitored. It can cost from $30,000 to $500,000. Larger companies, like, for example, Facebook or Amazon, would likely one million dollars. It really depends on the size of the company.

There are some add-ons to put back robots that make tests on the website on something, to see if there is some risk, bugs, or whatever could damage the website.

We didn't evaluate other options.

We're resellers. 

We deal with various versions of the product. The on-premises deployment we had we stopped using a few months ago. Now, we only deal with SaaS deployments. 

In this digital era, this tool is not nice to have, it's a must have. If a company works 100% on digital and they have websites to make SaaS solutions, everything which is on internet can be hacked, can have bugs, et cetera. This tool is really the tool that you must have to prevent this type of risk.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use it for performance and transaction trace monitoring. We use it for .Net and the JVM-related work. We look at all the heat maps and the Garbage Collection to see if there are any failures. 

It gives me the ability to trace logs between transactions, for example, a DB transaction or JVM transaction from one hub to the other. I can easily find out where the problem is or where the bottleneck of the issues lies. 

The overall performance of this solution could be improved. The hot-hot infrastructure features could also be improved. If one goes down, the other should pick up automatically. When we patch one data center, the other primary or secondary center needs to be manually started. We need to do a manual sync between the database and the AppDynamics applications.

I have been using this solution for four years. 

This is a stable solution. The only drawback is that it is not a cluster environment and it doesn't have hot-hot features.

This is a scalable solution but we would like more options to hold more licenses. Right now we have 30,000 agents using this solution.

The technical support for this solution is good.

Positive

Before AppDynamics we used a product called BlueStripe that was acquired by Microsoft. 

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward. The deployment is also straightforward because we used some of the provisioning tools to package the software and distribute it. Creating dashboards and fine-tuning JVMs took some time. 

This solution has really helped us to improve some of the performance of the JVMs at an early point in coding.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

I work with a global bank that operates across Asia, the United States, and Europe. It's a few thousand people. We primarily use AppDynamics for Kubernetes, web applications, middleware APIs, Java, etc. In terms of technology, it's either Java Spring Boot or some of the API calls, and some of the use cases include continuously checking API availability. 

Some use cases are related to front-end tuning or the user experience across the globe. The applications are used across America, Europe, and some parts of Asia. It's a global system, and user experience is what we wanted to measure. AppDynamics is SaaS. I've never used an on-prem version. The controllers are mostly on AWS, while the agents are deployed on-premises.

Transition tracing is the most valuable is pretty easy and useful, but the user experience piece is also good. 

The Kubernetes cluster agent has not yet matured. That's one area that requires a lot of improvement. You have two options for implementing the Kubernetes agent. One is deployed in DocCloud, but you can't download those images from DocCloud for security reasons at most organizations, so this option isn't that useful.

The installation for the second option isn't that user-friendly. Transition tracing for the Kubernetes application is challenging. You have to navigate to a new set of user interfaces in AppDynamics, so that's the pain point. There is an icon you need to click on to get a newer user interface.

I've been using AppDynamics for almost five years. 

AppDynamics scaled well up to around 3,000 agents. The performance deteriorated after that, while Dynatrace could support more than 10,000 agents. We were surprised that AppDynamics' scalability is not so good.

I had a good experience with tech support. When we raised a ticket with AppDynamics, we usually got a response within a few hours. If we set up a call, their engineers will get on the phone with us. That was also reasonably good. 

Setting up AppDynamics is relatively straightforward except for the Kubernetes part. It was all easy for the Kubernetes cluster agent part. We implemented thousands of agents using Ansible, so it was automated. It was about 15 to 20 minutes in terms of pipeline and restarting because a lot of the scripting and automation were already done. 

The AppDynamics license is divided. It isn't one all-inclusive license. Dynatrace has one agent, but AppDynamics has different sets of licenses. You need to define your use case and what you want to monitor. That is something you need to be clear about. Once you know your use case clearly, take time to figure out your target state metric, and go for AppDynamics. 

I rate AppDynamics seven out of 10. In the modern world, Dynatrace is moving toward helping the companies in the current landscape, but AppDynamics is a second-generation company. It needs to adopt more of a lifecycle perspective rather than limiting itself to triage, tracing, etc.