Splunk AppDynamics vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

Splunk and VMware are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Splunk is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.3, while VMware is ranked #18 with an average rating of 8.8. Splunk holds a 4.0% mindshare in APM, compared to VMware’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Splunk users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Splunk AppDynamics

Read 252 Splunk AppDynamics reviews

12,248 Views
9,676 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Read 14 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews

2,704 Views
1,514 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Splunk AppDynamics

VMware Aria Operations for ...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 17, 2025

Splunk AppDynamics and VMware Aria Operations for Applications are contenders in the application performance management sector. Splunk AppDynamics has a slight advantage with its real-time transaction monitoring and user experience insights.

Features: Splunk AppDynamics provides detailed transaction visibility, code-level deep dives, and extensive application performance surveillance. It offers business transaction tracking, database monitoring, and user experience insights. VMware Aria Operations for Applications integrates strongly within VMware ecosystems, providing a holistic view of virtualized environments. It excels in advanced capacity planning and operational efficiency for VMware infrastructure users.

Room for Improvement: Users of Splunk AppDynamics point to complexities in features like async monitoring, improvements needed in licensing, and better cloud integration. VMware Aria Operations for Applications can enhance application-specific monitoring and third-party platform integration, as well as improve automation and intuitive dashboards for multi-cloud management.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Splunk AppDynamics offers diverse deployment options but can have a complicated setup. Its support is knowledgeable but sometimes slow. VMware Aria Operations for Applications integrates seamlessly with VMware setups, simplifying deployments. Its customer service is prompt and effective, with room for improvement in third-party integration support.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk AppDynamics is seen as expensive with complex licensing, though it offers high ROI through feature richness that reduces resolution times. VMware Aria Operations for Applications provides competitive pricing and good value through cost-management features, though costs can rise with additional licenses for advanced features and integrations.

To learn more, read our detailed Splunk AppDynamics vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Splunk AppDynamics vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

September 2025

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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

Splunk AppDynamics

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

3rd

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

5th

Ranking in Container Monitoring

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

252

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

17th

Ranking in Container Monitoring

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Monitoring Software (14th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 4.0%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 1.0%, up from 0.8% 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	4.0%
VMware Aria Operations for Applications	1.0%
Other	95.0%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

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.

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ToniLindberg

senior consultant at Virtual Consultants Sverige AB

Troubleshooting capabilities have improved application monitoring and support engagement

I can see what happens end to end, which is pretty beneficial. The solution has troubleshooting capabilities, providing a direct connection to knowledge base articles from VMware Broadcom. When I encounter an error, I can search directly within the system to see what solutions have been employed by others. It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started.

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

"The product provides a nice end-user experience."

"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."

"This solution gives us quite good insights that we might otherwise overlook, or it might take a really long time to debug those issues."

"Data monitoring is the most valuable feature."

"The most valuable feature of AppDynamics is its ability to track the transactions between different applications."

"It provides everything into one view, so we can track information from one place to another."

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

"The product is easy to install, it took about half an hour. The use and the configurations are simple as well."

More Splunk AppDynamics pros

"The features I find most valuable is the querying and alerting capabilities."

"For us, the ease of deployment in combination with TMZ was the most important part because we don't have to manually deploy a complex monitoring solution. We can more or less do that with the click of a button, and we are not dependent on the developers to provide us with all the necessary features and functions to make that work. We can just deploy it on a workload cluster and monitor at least a good part of the workload. If we want to go into detail, we clearly need to make changes, but for a good part of application monitoring, it gives us good insights."

"People are very pleased with the implementation."

"The solution is great for virtualization and preparing the infrastructure in Tanzu to test products. It's very fast and has good visibility."

"VMware Aria Operations for Applications offers significant features such as real-time statistics, the ability to identify possible issues within the VM environment, and helpful heat maps."

"I find VMware Aria Operations for Applications to be very stable, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."

"The stability of Aria Operations for Applications has improved significantly over the years."

"It significantly improves application performance management by offering recommendations for resource allocation to avoid wastage or overcommitment."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros

Cons

"AppDynamics Database Monitoring would be a better product if it could support new technology, such as cloud technology. Even Dynatrace lacks support for newer technologies."

"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."

"AppDynamics Server Monitoring has room for improvement in terms of pricing. If the price could be cheaper, it would be great for both the customer and the integrator. What I'd like to see in the next release of AppDynamics Server Monitoring is a better dashboard for the customer. The dashboard should be more interactive."

"The synthetic scripting for end-user monitoring could be a little bit broader. Instead of using just Python, they can include a few other languages so that not everyone has to jump on the bandwagon for Python and do Selenium scripting. They can open up that a bit to make it simpler for people to do the scripting."

"AppDynamics's agent management could be improved."

"Application Analytics' performance in pure and native cloud environments could be improved."

"I would like to be able to monitor both cloud an on-prem infrastructures, displayed in one dashboard."

"The integration with cloud services is still pending with AppDynamics. We would like the product to be serverless."

More Splunk AppDynamics cons

"In the new version, I would love to see more prediction capabilities. It would be great if one could see the alerts get a little more enriched with information and become more human-friendly instead of the technical stuff that they put in there. I think those would be really awesome outcomes to get."

"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."

"I would like to see integration with Kubernetes cluster and APIs so that you can manage the entire stack."

"VMware technical support has declined since the Broadcom acquisition. Previously, they were more focused on issue resolution, but now they prioritize licensing verification before providing support."

"The solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."

"The initial setup should be easier and more seamless."

"I find that there could be improvements in the support service response time, as the urgency varies unless specified as Priority 2 or 1 cases."

"The solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There were no added costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"It is expensive. However, our time to recover has been reduced, and this product has helped recuperate costs and provided us with ROI."

"AppDynamics Database Monitoring is expensive. I rate it a seven to eight out of ten."

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

"We find its pricing reasonable and competitive. After it was acquired by Cisco, we found it acceptable."

"There is a license for the solution and we paid approximately $2,000. There is also an additional cost above the standard license which cost us approximately $3,000."

"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."

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

More Splunk AppDynamics pricing and cost advice

"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."

"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."

"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

28%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	54
Midsize Enterprise	36
Large Enterprise	188

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	10

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about AppDynamics?

The solution saves time and cost.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dynatrace vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 14% of the time

Datadog vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 9% 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

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Grafana vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 10% of the time

Dynatrace vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 9% of the time

Zabbix vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 7% of the time

Datadog vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 5% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 4% of the time

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Splunk AppDynamics

August 2025

Download Splunk AppDynamics product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations for Applications

August 2025

VMware Aria Operations for Applications report

Download VMware Aria Operations for Applications product report

Also Known As

No data available

Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability

Overview

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

VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront is a powerful tool for monitoring and analyzing the performance and availability of applications and infrastructure in real-time.

With its comprehensive monitoring capabilities, visualizing and analyzing data becomes effortless. The real-time alerting system ensures timely issue resolution, while scalability and a user-friendly interface provide a seamless experience for smooth operations.

VMware

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

Buyer's Guide

Splunk AppDynamics vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

September 2025

Free Report: Splunk AppDynamics vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

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