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Catchpoint vs Datadog vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Catchpoint is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Datadog is 8.6%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 4.6%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

AnmolRai - PeerSpot reviewer
Valuable monitoring features enhance ecommerce experience while improvement needed in region-specific insights
As part of the improvement, there are certain categories, like for the China market, where we face issues. We are currently using an external tool, Splunk, for reporting. If we could receive similar data for the China market as we do for North America and Asia Pacific, this would be helpful.
Kevin Palmer - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful log aggregation and management with helpful metrics aggregation
Datadog provides us value in three major ways: First, Datadog provides best-in-class functionality in many, if not all, of the products to which we subscribe (infrastructure, APM, log management, serverless, synthetics, real user monitoring, DB monitoring). In my experience with other tools that provide similar functionality, Datadog provides the largest feature set with the most flexibility and the best performance. Second, Datadog allows us to access all of those services in one place. Having to learn and manage only one tool for all of those purposes is a major benefit. Third, Datadog provides significant connectivity between those services so that we can view, summarize, organize, translate and correlate our data with maximum effect. Not needing to manually integrate them to draw lines between those pieces of information is a huge time savings for us.
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

"One of the features, the scatter plot, is very useful. It shows red dots wherever there are issues."
"Catchpoint helped us establish that something is in a provider network, so we could tell our customers to check their internet provider because the traffic is not getting to us. You need to be gentle when you tell them that, but the fact that we could do it was crucial."
"The drill-down feature of this product was very good. It allowed us to identify the exact page or area of the site that was causing our customers an issue."
"The most valuable features of Catchpoint are basically the transaction monitors on the API and UI."
"We really need the API monitoring, as well as client side session monitoring, the global synthetic monitoring, to track the availability of the systems from the customer side."
"The product's most valuable feature is the ability to identify and troubleshoot network issues."
"Catchpoint is very flexible and also provides logs for troubleshooting purposes. It helps us fix issues within the SLAs signed with the end users. The tool is easy to learn."
"During business hours, it has worked absolutely fine without any issues."
"It helps us better manage our logs."
"Using the data, our operation teams works with the dashboards to get their statistics, analytics, etc."
"We have found that we're able to get in and out of troubleshooting issues much more rapidly, which in turn, of course, enables us to spend more time on our products."
"Datadog has given us near-live visibility across our entire cloud platform."
"The intuitive user interface has been one of the most valuable features for us."
"With Datadog I can look at the health of the technology stack and services."
"Customizable views as well as the ability to "dive in" when we see someting anomalous has improved the workflow for handling incidents."
"Datadog's ability to group and visualize the servers and the data makes it relatively easy for the root cause analysis."
"We were able to correct problems, which led to an increase in availability, time savings, and performance for our solutions."
"The monitoring is similar to Dynatrace."
"AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring provides smooth connectivity to different applications."
"The most valuable feature is having our services being available and healthy."
"Data monitoring is the most valuable feature."
"We have been able to monitor our applications more accurately."
"AppDynamics provides us with detailed information about the performance of the underlying infrastructure, including servers, databases, and external services."
"AppDynamics is a good tool that offers excellent out-of-the-box dashboards and application topology."
 

Cons

"There are essentially a lot of quotas. Nobody wants to sit and manually create monitors for someone who uses synthetic monitoring."
"Catchpoint can be improved by focusing solely on network monitoring."
"A large selection of nodes are available but it is a challenge to test reliably in China and the Middle East."
"The product could include global monitoring and predictive analytics to identify widespread issues and cyber threats."
"There's still too much manual involvement in getting customized test configurations out there. It's good, but it still takes a lot of effort. In other words, it's when you need to configure it to collect a specific variable and that kind of thing."
"As part of the improvement, there are certain categories, like for the China market, where we face issues."
"It would be great if Catchpoint could incorporate its alerting system instead of relying on separate tools like ServiceNow."
"As part of the improvement, there are certain categories, like for the China market, where we face issues."
"The current way accounts are billed could be vastly improved - especially when involving multiple organizations across multiple accounts in combination with reserved commitments."
"Network device and performance monitoring could be improved, as we've faced some limitations in this area."
"Another issue that I have is with the search syntax, it could be simpler and it feels like there are too many ways to do the same things."
"It could probably be a little bit of a better user experience."
"I'd like to see better pricing and more integration in the next release."
"I'm not sure if Datadog can monitor K8s deployments in real-time. For instance, being able to see a deployment step by step visually. This would be helpful if there were any incidents during the deployment."
"Datadog could have a better business analysis module."
"One thing to improve would be making it easier to see common patterns across traces."
"While it is scalable, it could be better."
"I would like to see more artificial intelligence and machine learning brought in to monitor the statement and payment sum issues we have."
"The application monitoring needs improvement. It needs to be easier for someone who isn't a proficient developer."
"The resolution time takes longer than expected."
"The downside is that it's a little costly."
"The AppDynamics installation process needs to be more straightforward. Deploying the product is also tricky."
"While I am not expecting it in the next release, I would want more centralized management of the agent in the platform and better support."
"They could align the product strategy to evolve as a complete solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of licensing fees, I believe they were slightly higher."
"The pricing is based on consumption and works on a point scale. For example, let's say I want to look at www.google.com, and I'm going to test it to see if it's there. It will bring back all this data that tells me how long it took to connect and how long it took to get the first byte. It will list all the resources on the page, showing that they all work and there are no broken links. It brings that data back. That test has an assigned point value depending on what you decide to extract from that test. If all I do is check to see whether it's available, it might be one point. I don't know the exact point values off-hand. This is just an example."
"The solution's pricing is comparable to the last tool we were using."
"The price and licensing are very, very high. They have to come down on the pricing to match with the industry standard."
"The solution's pricing varies based on services and licensing models."
"While it is an expensive product, I would rate the pricing level at four out of five."
"It is easy to run up a large bill, so become familiar with the cost of each piece of your bill and use the metrics they supply to estimate and monitor your bill."
"At my last company, we did see ROI, specifically around response time. We could get to mission critical things that were down and losing revenue on immediately. So, the product paid itself back."
"The price is better than some competing products."
"It has a module-based pricing model."
"If you do your homework, you'll find that if you're really concerned with cost, it's good."
"​Pricing seems reasonable. It depends on the size of your organization, the size of your infrastructure, and what portion of your overall business costs go toward infrastructure."
"My advice is to really keep an eye on your overage costs, as they can spiral really fast."
"We buy the platform's yearly subscription."
"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."
"The license fee for Application Analytics is in the range of 2.5 million over three years, with extra fees for service contingencies."
"AppDynamics Server Monitoring is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is very competitive."
"The price of AppDynamics could be reduced in my region."
"We are looking forward to purchasing the solution on the AWS Marketplace."
"AppDynamics is priced on the higher side."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
33%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Retailer
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
34%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Catchpoint?
Catchpoint is very flexible and also provides logs for troubleshooting purposes. It helps us fix issues within the SL...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Catchpoint?
The solution's pricing varies based on services and licensing models. Clients typically see significant operational a...
What needs improvement with Catchpoint?
As part of the improvement, there are certain categories, like for the China market, where we face issues. We are cur...
Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems,...
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several time...
Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was t...
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 f...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AppDynamics?
I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten. The solution is highly expensive. Our company pays for the solution on ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Adobe, Samsung, facebook, HP Cloud Services, Electronic Arts, salesforce, Stanford University, CiTRIX, Chef, zendesk, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, mercardo libre, Slashdot, Ziff Davis, PBS, MLS, The Motley Fool, Politico, Barneby's
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 Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability. Updated: June 2025.
856,807 professionals have used our research since 2012.