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AWS X-Ray vs Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

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

AWS X-Ray
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk ITSI (IT Service Int...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
IT Alerting and Incident Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of AWS X-Ray is 3.1%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Muhmad Tabrez A Deewanji - PeerSpot reviewer
Improving performance through efficient trace metrics and data insights
As an application developer and architect, I appreciate AWS X-Ray for checking latency and identifying bottlenecks. I use it for performance tuning, conducting performance testing on applications, getting real-time traces, and gaining data insights. It helps in improving throughput and tuning infrastructure. The trace metrics and data collected provide valuable insights.
Srinivasulu Soolluru - PeerSpot reviewer
It speeds up incident response by automating alerts and ticket creation
When configuring a dashboard, we can write search criteria. Based on the search criteria, the dashboard shows all the alerts, including the alert time, creation time, and a summary description of the alert. When you add an extra column, such as the user that triggered the alert, the next time he refreshes the dashboard, he wants to know that the alert is acknowledged. We want to improve that comment feature. In the Service Analyzer, we monitor the network infrastructure services and have a KPI for each service. When the value exceeds the threshold value, we can add the colors. For example, we can set it to green when the threshold value is within the limit. If it is red, then the value has passed the threshold. We want more colors in the service analyzer to display all these features.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most beneficial feature is that it shows a dashboard for performance intervals, which reveals latencies."
"The most promising feature of AWS X-Ray is that you can debug the issues through the proper logs. You can also get an analysis out of the logs for some use cases, though I have yet to try all the features of AWS X-Ray."
"The most important one is compliance. We're able to achieve our regulatory levels. We're able to achieve the security level that we need for the federal government."
"AWS X-Ray's endpoints and user monitoring are considered the most valuable features."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The solution has made it easier for us to trace the problems that we have with our requests and to monitor the timing of each step in each request we do in our endpoints."
"AWS X-Ray shows us exactly when there are delays, helping us understand the depth of issues and what is happening point-to-point."
"AWS X-Ray shows us exactly when there are delays, helping us understand the depth of issues and what is happening point-to-point."
"Splunk's intuitive interface and scalability make it accessible to non-technical users, and its capacity to monitor every millisecond of data across multiple applications is truly impressive."
"The glass tables are very helpful."
"The feature that stood out to me most from Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) was automated dashboarding or reporting. The solution lists the severity level of issues, and the response times."
"Splunk ITSI offers a valuable visualization tree that allows us to map and analyze dependencies and co-dependency within our environment."
"The service analyzer view and automatic creation of incidents are valuable."
"ITSI's most valuable feature is that it's easy to integrate DLP."
"Having a structure on how to resolve incidents is the most valuable aspect."
"One particularly useful feature of Splunk ITSI is the ability to create custom services."
 

Cons

"They can improve how traces are sent to other providers."
"Sometimes, the collector agents are confusing to configure initially."
"I do not have any notes in terms of improvements."
"AWS X-Ray should improve its implementation process to make it easier for developers."
"It should have X-Ray SDKs for different languages like Node.js, Python, or Java."
"If you have a small team, it's probably overkill."
"A significant downside is that it is very expensive."
"Like most Amazon products, the user interface, configuration, and tuning aren't the easiest. That's the biggest reason why people tend to go to products like TerraForm and Terragrunt. We use TerraForm and Terragrunt. So, for setting things up and interacting with X-Ray, it's definitely the user interface that can be better."
"The biggest improvement area is making it open to developers. Right now, it is very closed. It can only be downloaded by people who have a license to and not everyone. If it is open to everybody, more people will use it."
"Microservices is the only area where Splunk ITSI can be improved. When things come from one EC2 instance to another, there's a lack of exposure to microservices, so we can't know what's happening. Apart from that, it's doing pretty well."
"The data recovery has room for improvement."
"ITSI could benefit from a security model that would allow operations team members to get involved in model building, KPI implementation, and model maintenance, while maintaining appropriate segregation of duties."
"They should make it easier to use. Many people are new to it. It is hard and has a steep learning curve."
"It is pretty okay. I am not sure whether the current release has already moved to the new framework where instead of the glass tables, we can directly use the Dashboard Studio. It would be nice to have that integrated into the same framework."
"The end-to-end visibility in Splunk ITSI is limited and has room for improvement."
"There should be entity conflict resolution, specifically regarding duplicate entities. There should be case sensitivity for various keys amongst entities, specifically host names. We need IT metrics-based indexes and more content packs. I know they are coming out with these features"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As you develop a relationship with Amazon, your pricing gets lower. You get credits for the amount of the system you use, and then if you're the government, you can get government pricing. For commercial users, there's a hump when you go from small to medium to big enterprise. Small businesses can live pretty easily off the free tier in a lot of cases, but when you go from a medium to a big enterprise, it becomes more expensive on a per-user basis. I'd like to see that curve going in a different way where pricing can be driven down while people are trying to adopt the technology."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"The pricing for AWS X-Ray is a six out of ten."
"Splunk ITSI is a pay-per-use service that is priced fairly based on the amount of data we use."
"Splunk ITSI is a premium application and comes with a premium price tag."
"Pricing has some room for improvement."
"I would prefer that the price be reduced, as it would be easier to implement it and to sell it."
"Splunk ITSI is an expensive tool, and we need to purchase the utility license."
"The pricing of Splunk is a bit high."
"The cost of the modules is a bit high for non-global companies, making it difficult for them to afford Splunk ITSI."
"Splunk pricing is high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS X-Ray?
AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS X-Ray?
While I have not compared it with GCP or Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ), AWS generally offers cost-effective services. Some services, like Athena ( /products/odyssey-software-athena-eo...
What needs improvement with AWS X-Ray?
AWS X-Ray should improve its implementation process to make it easier for developers. The current manual instrumentation is challenging compared to the almost automatic instrumentation of other pro...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?
Pricing can vary significantly based on the selected modules and deployment choices. Splunk ITSI tends to be more expensive compared to some open-source solutions.
What needs improvement with Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?
Splunk ITSI could benefit from including more features that other solutions support, such as vulnerability management modules. This would help manage vulnerabilities effectively, allowing my organi...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

COMCAST, ConnectWise, skyscanner, AirAsia, cookpad, cimpress, VTEX, zowdow
TransUnion, Cox Automotive, Carnival Cruises, Leidos, Econocom, National Ignition Factory, Entrust Datacard, Molina Healthcare, United States Census Bureau
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS X-Ray vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.