ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. Splunk AppDynamics

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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

46th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Splunk AppDynamics

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

253

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Mobile APM (1st), Container Monitoring (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 4.1%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Splunk AppDynamics	4.1%
ServiceNow Cloud Observability	0.5%
Other	95.4%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

VinayKumar16

Senior DeliveryManager at ITC Infotech

Provides ease of use in areas like analytics and reporting

The feature of the tool that is more impactful for cloud performance stems from the area revolving around analytics and reporting. It is an easy-to-use tool. There is something known as performance analytics within ServiceNow that offers complete analytics, which offers end-to-end analytics along with the KPI metrics with what we have in place and so on. With the aforementioned aspects of the tool, I think we should be able to create a dashboard according to the operations view called the operation dashboard view, specifically for C-level executives.

Read full review

Gyanesh Rahatekar

Back office at Reliance Industries Ltd

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"To a certain extent, it is possible to save on the costs of the product."

"The ability to create a stream based on different parameters, operation name, service name, URL, tags, and URI part, is one valuable feature."

"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 UI is very intuitive."

"The alert mechanism in AppDynamics enhances server management tasks by using agents installed on each server."

"The transaction snapshots let you find out where the application broke; it pinpoints where in the call stack, and then how long it took to resolve."

"The solution helps us with performance testing by enabling us to monitor applications."

"The solution is very, very stable. We haven't faced any bugs or glitches on the system."

"We can see the customer's path from their computer to the backend systems."

"The ability to identify the top running queries has been extremely valuable for us."

"Before we moved the code to AppDynamics, we had to compare the agile process and also had to make sure that they're following the standards."

"The features of Splunk AppDynamics that I prefer most are the monitoring aspect, making sure we can drill down and find problems."

More Splunk AppDynamics pros

Cons

"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 design of this solution is not very intuitive and probably could come with more friendly tips for beginners."

"The dashboard and graphics must be improved."

"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 AppDynamics installation process needs to be more straightforward. Deploying the product is also tricky."

"I have found it sometimes a bit difficult to trace the transaction all the way through to the application. I'm not sure if that problem is on the database side or on the application side, but that would be something that I would like to be improved. The traceability from the application to the database, sometimes, is a bit of a challenge. If you're using AppDynamics, with the Java agent, for instance, you need to be able to trace it through."

"AppDynamics is dealing with a lot of products and technologies, so we need to have clear documentation."

"Their agents sometimes claim to be very lightweight, especially with databases, but they are very heavy. They can take up more compute than the actual work that we need to do."

"The price of the solution could improve."

"SQL statement monitoring"

"I am not very impressed with support. The service could be better."

"Maybe some more CPU power or something like that could be an area to improve."

More Splunk AppDynamics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive. I rate the tool's pricing model an eight out of ten."

"One of the main downsides to the solution is its cost."

"The pricing for AppDynamics Server Monitoring in Africa and the Middle East is too expensive, so it's very hard to sell it to customers. If there could be different pricing or package for the region, that would be great. My company pays for the license of AppDynamics Server Monitoring on a per-agent, per-server basis. It's $700 to $1000 per server, and it's paid annually. My company is on a subscription model for the solution. On a scale of one to five, where one is expensive and five is cheap, my rating for the price of AppDynamics Server Monitoring is a two."

"AppDynamics is what I would consider an enterprise-level solution. This means that it's a solution that is intended for use by larger organizations, while small or medium-sized businesses may find it difficult to afford. The number of agents required will also impact the pricing, and smaller companies may only be able to afford a limited number of agents. Essentially, the cost of the solution is not within the reach of every organization, and only some may be able to afford it."

"AppDynamics Server Monitoring is an expensive solution."

"There is a license to use this solution. However, the clients pay for the licenses we are the service provider."

"I rate AppDynamics Mobile Real-User Monitoring's pricing as seven out of ten. Mobile monitoring is paid based on the number of instances utilizing the mobile monitoring service, which increases as the scale grows. Consequently, your mobile user count can proportionally surpass all other applications."

"We have purchased a few licenses for AppDynamics Database Monitoring and the price is high."

"This solution is not the cheapest but it works well. You will end up doing more work with a cheaper solution than if you just spent the extra money on a better solution like this one."

More Splunk AppDynamics pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

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869,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

28%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	55
Midsize Enterprise	36
Large Enterprise	188

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about LightStep?

The UI is very intuitive.

What needs improvement with LightStep?

There are a lot of workflows and connectors. 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.

What is your primary use case for LightStep?

I use the solution in my company since it has multiple tenants available. Basically, what happens in business is that you have a hybrid setup model, and for that, you extensively use a cloud platfo...

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...

What do you like most about AppDynamics?

The solution saves time and cost.

Datadog vs ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Comparisons

Compared 28% of the time

Snyk vs ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Compared 22% of the time

Grafana vs ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Compared 17% of the time

Dynatrace vs ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Compared 15% of the time

IBM Instana Observability vs ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Compared 10% of the time

More ServiceNow Cloud Observability Competitors

Dynatrace vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 14% of the time

Datadog vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 8% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 8% of the time

New Relic vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 8% of the time

Grafana vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 4% of the time

More Splunk AppDynamics Competitors

Product Reports

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Download ServiceNow Cloud Observability product report

Splunk AppDynamics

Download Splunk AppDynamics product report

Also Known As

LightStep

No data available

Overview

ServiceNow Cloud Observability is a comprehensive platform designed to enhance visibility, control, and performance monitoring of your IT infrastructure and applications. It seamlessly integrates log management, trace management, metrics monitoring, and infrastructure monitoring in real-time, leveraging AI and machine learning for automated tasks and actionable insights. With benefits including improved visibility, faster incident resolution, enhanced application performance, simplified IT operations, and reduced costs, this cloud-native solution is ideal for businesses of all sizes with complex IT infrastructures. It integrates seamlessly with ServiceNow IT Operations Management (ITOM), supports OpenTelemetry standards, and provides AI-powered insights along with pre-built dashboards and reports.

ServiceNow

Splunk AppDynamics enhances application performance monitoring with advanced diagnostics and real-time insights, offering seamless end-to-end transaction tracking and infrastructure visibility.

AppDynamics provides critical tools for businesses to analyze application behavior and performance. Through innovative features like transaction snapshot analysis and adaptable dashboards, users can quickly identify and address issues, ensuring high levels of system uptime and efficiency. It is designed to support complex environments including Kubernetes and AWS, enhancing user experience by detecting performance issues early. Despite needing improvements in network monitoring and integration, it remains a robust option for tracking application health.

What are the key features of AppDynamics?

Real-time Performance Monitoring: Offers immediate insights into application behavior.
Business Transaction Tracking: Tracks transactions from start to finish for bottleneck identification.
JVM Memory Monitoring: Provides detailed JVM metrics and memory use information.
Deep-dive Diagnostics: Enables in-depth analysis of code and stack traces.
Adaptable Dashboards: Customizable views for better data interpretation.

How does AppDynamics benefit users?

Improved Incident Resolution: Faster problem detection and solution implementation.
Enhanced Application Performance: Real-time monitoring optimizes system operations.
Comprehensive Visibility: Provides a full view of application infrastructure.
Informed Decision Making: Detailed analytics guide performance improvements.
Customer Satisfaction: Enhances user experience through faster issue resolutions.

In industries like financial services and e-commerce, AppDynamics facilitates performance tracking across distributed systems, optimizing infrastructure to meet consumer demands. It excels in environments needing precise transaction monitoring and is pivotal in delivering high value and satisfaction.

Splunk

Sample Customers

InVision, Twilio, Lyft, Yext, DigitalOcean,

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

ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. Splunk AppDynamics