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Datadog vs New Relic 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Organizations experienced diverse returns with Datadog, reporting time savings, reduced blindspots, enhanced visibility, integration benefits, and efficiency improvements.
Sentiment score
7.0
New Relic improved server response, product reliability, and development efficiency with valuable insights, despite some challenges in quantifying its benefit.
Sentiment score
7.2
Users reported improved productivity and cost savings with AppDynamics, noting enhanced monitoring and up to 20% cost reductions.
According to errors, exceptions, and code-level details related to their application performance on a daily basis, the application development team tries to help with Splunk AppDynamics to reduce errors and exceptions, which helps the end users get application availability and feel more confident.
To understand the magnitude of it, when the company asked to replace Splunk AppDynamics with another tool, I indicated that for the proposed tool, we would need five people to do the analysis that Splunk AppDynamics enables me to do.
It's very hard to find ROI because we are currently focused only on the on-premises applications.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Datadog customer service is responsive and professional, offering proactive support despite occasional delays in their ticket system.
Sentiment score
7.6
New Relic's customer service is responsive and reliable, with quick assistance, though live chat options are lacking.
Sentiment score
7.3
Splunk AppDynamics is praised for responsiveness and support but criticized for inconsistent response times and acquisition-related service quality issues.
Issues that could be solved quickly sometimes take longer because they go around in circles.
AppDynamics is much more helpful.
We got a contact, an account manager, to work directly with for technical support.
They help us resolve any issues raised by our team relating to operations, application instrumentation, or any other issues.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Datadog scales efficiently with diverse technologies, though rising costs and limited API capabilities remain concerns for some users.
Sentiment score
7.8
New Relic is highly scalable and adaptable, efficiently managing large applications and diverse environments with reliable performance.
Sentiment score
7.4
Splunk AppDynamics is scalable and competitive but faces cost and configuration challenges in large, on-premise deployments.
We have reached maximum capacity in our tier, and extending capacity has not been cost-effective from Splunk's perspective.
I would rate the scalability of Splunk AppDynamics as a nine out of ten.
I did not find any Docker solution available with it, and a separate instance has to be installed.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Datadog offers reliable performance with minimal downtime, resolving integration issues promptly and maintaining consistent uptime even during peak traffic.
Sentiment score
7.9
Users report New Relic as stable, reliable, with minor issues; recent updates boost performance during high-demand without data loss.
Sentiment score
7.7
Splunk AppDynamics is highly stable, with occasional issues, needing enhancements in agent stability and SaaS environment during heavy use.
It is necessary to conduct appropriate testing before deploying them in production to prevent potential outages.
There are no issues or bugs with the 20.4 version; it is very stable with no functionality or operational issues.
I can rate it nine out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Datadog struggles with performance, usability, and cost issues, requiring improvements in integration, documentation, and user interface.
Users seek better privacy controls, lower costs, improved functionalities, and enhanced support, reporting, and performance in the system.
Users criticize Splunk AppDynamics for complexity, outdated tech, integration issues, challenging licensing, cost, and limited customization and support.
The documentation is adequate, but team members coming into a project could benefit from more guided, interactive tutorials, ideally leveraging real-world data.
There should be a clearer view of the expenses.
Email alert customization is limited; it cannot be tailored much, which makes the system more rigid than optimal.
Splunk AppDynamics does not support the complete MELT framework, which includes metrics, events, logging, and tracing for the entire stack.
If AppDynamics could develop a means to monitor without an agent, it could significantly improve application performance and reduce potential problems.
A good integration with Splunk would be very interesting, as Splunk is a good product for logs, and that part is currently missing in Splunk AppDynamics.
 

Setup Cost

Datadog's pricing model is flexible yet can be costly, requiring careful planning to optimize its comprehensive features and avoid surprises.
Enterprise users find New Relic's pricing complex and expensive, but appreciate its comprehensive features and competitive value compared to competitors.
Enterprise buyers find AppDynamics valuable but face high costs and complex licensing, requiring negotiation for better pricing.
The setup cost for Datadog is more than $100.
Customers have to pay a premium price, however, they receive considerable value from the product.
All these solutions at the moment are cheap, but it is like paying for insurance; you pay insurance to avoid major damage.
We find its pricing reasonable and competitive.
 

Valuable Features

Datadog excels in integration, monitoring, and data visualization, enhancing system reliability and efficiency with seamless AWS synchronization.
New Relic offers real-time monitoring, detailed insights, and integration tools, enhancing application performance management with user-friendly scalability.
Splunk AppDynamics provides real-time monitoring and analytics to identify performance issues, offering user-friendly operation across various platforms.
Our architecture is written in several languages, and one area where Datadog particularly shines is in providing first-class support for a multitude of programming languages.
The technology itself is generally very useful.
Using New Relic speeds up troubleshooting and resolution, giving us a clearer picture of where issues are, thus saving time and effort.
We have multiple tools, but end users prefer to use Splunk AppDynamics because their portal navigation is very simple and clear.
The feature that I appreciate in AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring is the intuitive and user-friendly dynamic mapping it creates for workflows.
What I like the most about Splunk AppDynamics is the end-to-end observability for the application, along with traces.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Datadog is 8.6%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of New Relic is 6.1%, down from 9.5% 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
 

Q&A Highlights

BH
Dec 10, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Rahul -Jain - PeerSpot reviewer
Good for application Performance Monitoring but not stable
There are two types of teams we have in every organization. One is for DevOps, and the second one is for performance testing. Those who are using these tools, like AppDynamics, Dynatrace, or whatever tool we have on the APM side. These tools are used by two teams: one is the performance team, and another one is the DevOps team. So, the setup and the alert system belong to the DevOps team, not for performance. So, I don't use any alerts in AppDynamics, Dynatrace, or any of the tools.
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.
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Answers from the Community

BH
Dec 8, 2020
Dec 8, 2020
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 monitoring. We maintain critical processing on our mainframe so there was a desire to include this in our transaction trace. Due to a highly mature ELK implementation, we are not trying to incorporate log ...
2 out of 5 answers
reviewer802371 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 20, 2020
Could you please share your requirements ? There are a lot tools can be added to the list. I spent almost 6 months to test and check many tools then I select eG enterprise.
reviewer1352679 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 20, 2020
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 monitoring.  We maintain critical processing on our mainframe so there was a desire to include this in our transaction trace.  Due to a highly mature ELK implementation, we are not trying to incorporate log analytics into solution buy may consider in the future.  We had AppD, Dynatrace, New Relic, and CA Wily all in house at the time of our evaluation.  We eliminated Datadog due to a lack of real user monitoring and AppD based on experience and licensing.  Between Dynatrace and New Relic, Dynatrace won based on the automation, integrated AI, support for "old" techs, and confidence we could eliminate multiple APM and infra monitoring tools.   I would not include products like BigPanda, MoogSoft, in this analysis. They are not monitoring solutions but event correlation solutions.  You will need additional monitoring products to capture data and feed them.  Having said that if you cannot consolidate tools you will likely need to purchase an event solution to make sense of all the alarms. We did evaluate these products but with Dynatrace AI did not feel the business value was there for the investment. Here's a quick pro/con list on Dynatrace & New Relic from our analysis. New Relic Pros: Insights is an awesome product and capability. Lots of capabilities and plugins to extend data collection. The APM dashboard is aesthetically pleasing and intuitive. Good training and documentation are available to support the product. New Relic Cons: Requires lots of manual configurations to implement and support.  Insights product requires an investment of time to achieve value. Licensing is a nightmare as there is virtually no transparency in what you are being charged for. Lack of solution to consolidate alerts across implementation other than significant investment in insights to manually achieve this.   Dynatrace Pros: Very simple to implement and maintain with out of the box automation which supports modern (cloud/Kubernetes) and "old" (mainframe). In-app chat is helpful.  High integration of infra and APM data for full-stack observability and engineering.  Topology and trace discovery is more reliable than other products or our CMDB.  Synthetics are easy to set up for any user. AI-assisted problem analysis on the trace discovery streamlines troubleshooting.  AI includes "events" in an analysis like VMotion, deployment events. Have not done yet but looking to leverage monitoring as code for a fully integrated and automated delivery pipeline. See keptn.sh open source project. Dynatrace Cons: User SQL lacks some functions of NRQL for user analysis.  Host, process, and service data is not available to query within the product.  Alarm processing lacks some granular controls. The Plug-in library is less robust. Good luck with your decision!
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
32%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
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

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...
What do you like most about New Relic Insights?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What needs improvement with New Relic Insights?
Email alert customization is limited; it cannot be tailored much, which makes the system more rigid than optimal. The...
What is your primary use case for New Relic Insights?
I use New Relic for the creation of dashboards, alerts, and any type of observability resources that are relevant for...
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 ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
New Relic Browser, New Relic Applied Intelligence, New Relic Insights, New Relic Synthetics, New Relic Servers, New Relic APM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
World Fuel Services, Verizon, FootLocker, McDonald's, Trainline, Mondia Media, Confused, Costa Coffee, Ryanair, Marks & Spencer, William Hill, Delivery Hero, Skyscanner, BASF, DAZN, Veygo, Virtuo, movingimage, talabat, Australia Post, Tokopedia, Seven Network, Virgin Australia, Zomato, BigBasket, Mercado Libre, Lending Club
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.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.