CA App Synthetic Monitor vs Grafana comparison

Broadcom and Grafana Labs are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Broadcom is ranked #69, while Grafana Labs is ranked #7 with an average rating of 7.8. Broadcom holds a 0.5% mindshare in APM, compared to Grafana Labs’s 2.6% mindshare. Additionally, 66% of Broadcom users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Grafana Labs users who would recommend it.

CA App Synthetic Monitor

Read 3 CA App Synthetic Monitor reviews

1,397 Views
1,383 Comparison Views

66% willing to recommend

Grafana

Read 49 Grafana reviews

13,409 Views
12,604 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

CA App Synthetic Monitor

Grafana

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

CA App Synthetic Monitor and Grafana compete in the monitoring and analytics category. Grafana seems to have the upper hand due to its rich features, despite a higher price point.

Features: CA App Synthetic Monitor includes comprehensive synthetic monitoring, simulates user interactions, and offers robust reporting. Grafana provides robust visualization, custom dashboards, and interoperability across various data sources.

Room for Improvement: CA App Synthetic Monitor needs better alerting options, more integration capabilities, and a more intuitive user interface. Grafana requires improved ease-of-use for non-technical users, more advanced automated alerting mechanisms, and simpler setup procedures.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CA App Synthetic Monitor receives positive feedback for straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Grafana has extensive documentation but can be challenging to initially set up. Customer service is efficient but could improve in handling complex issues.

Pricing and ROI: CA App Synthetic Monitor has competitive setup costs and favorable ROI, appealing to budget-conscious users. Grafana, while costlier in initial expenditure, offers long-term value through extensive features, leading users to perceive it as a worthwhile investment.

To learn more, read our detailed CA App Synthetic Monitor vs. Grafana Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

CA App Synthetic Monitor vs. Grafana

June 2026

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Helped 902,988 peers since 2012

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

CA App Synthetic Monitor

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

69th

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Grafana

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of CA App Synthetic Monitor is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana is 2.6%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Grafana	2.6%
CA App Synthetic Monitor	0.5%
Other	96.9%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

reviewer2286675

System Administrator at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

A reliable solution for SSL offloading and to encrypt outside traffic

If you are responsible for monitoring the logs in F5, it isn't very easy. The format is complicated compared to different vendors. For example, Fortinet and Cisco have feasible formats for sending and fetching logs. Suppose I'm monitoring the logs and everything, and when I am retrieving logs from F5, I want to know whether it is regular traffic or any abnormality is happening. The logs itself is not user-friendly. It may not give you a clear way of what's happening. You have to go through different websites and work on it. You have to waste so much time on it.

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BasilJiji

System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Unified dashboards have empowered teams and have democratized real-time operational insights

Grafana's snapshot and dashboard sharing features are critical for our remote incident response. During production issues, I generate a public snapshot of a dashboard at a specific point and share the URL in our Slack war room so every engineer can see exactly what the metrics looked like when the error occurred. This helps significantly during the process of finding the root cause in those scenarios. The best features Grafana offers go beyond just pretty charts; it is an integration engine. The fact that I can join data from my SQL database with metrics from Prometheus in the same table is a feature I have not found performed as well elsewhere. My team uses this feature by comparing two different tables from the databases to show one single view, which Grafana is really helping with. In a visualized way, the charts can be displayed on one dashboard, allowing end users who are not familiar with these technical aspects to extract valuable data from it. Grafana has positively impacted our organization by democratizing data within our company. Before using Grafana, only developers could see the system health, but now our product managers and executives have their own high-level dashboards, which has improved cross-departmental transparency and alignment.

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

"Each had strengths in one area or another, but CA covered the majority of our needs end-to-end."

"From our experience, it really helps managers in measuring application SLAs and viewing historical performance data."

"Grafana has positively impacted our organization by democratizing data within our company."

"It excels in providing comprehensive details when there are downtimes or fluctuations, offering thorough reports."

"Grafana is stable and has great engineers."

"Visualisation: It is easy to create beautiful, understanding graphs, snapshots to share the graphs with people who do not have access to Grafana, and templating to create powerful graphs."

"The initial setup is straightforward with just a few clicks on the solution's cloud."

"It is easy to change and move virtual servers."

"The most important feature of Grafana is its alarm formatting capability."

"It is a stable, reliable product."

More Grafana pros

Cons

"Pricing makes little sense. We had examples where it would be cheaper to have two basic accounts than one intermediate."

"The RBMS component is limited as you can only record using Internet Explorer."

"It would be helpful if they simplified the data source."

"Regarding joining between queries, merging between two queries that give the same information could be simple, and there are some ways to do that, but if there was something even easier, it would be great."

"We need different kinds of applications in our infrastructure to see information in Grafana."

"It is limited on the reporting type supported, which is important for managerial-level officers who want reports that are either general or specific."

"It can take a considerable amount of time to learn the graphs if a long duration is selected."

"The security needs to be improved, such as the capacity to add permissions on dashboards."

"If there was an issue on one node, we couldn't drill down and see all the issues on other nodes."

"The main drawback is the necessity for endpoint monitoring."

More Grafana cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"I give the price an eight out of ten."

"It's free of cost; it operates as an open-source tool."

"The solution is expensive."

"For me, Grafana is a cheap tool because I don't have to spend much time learning the product since it is a simple solution."

"I use the open source model so it is free."

"We use the open-source version of Grafana."

"We are using the open-source license."

"I am using an open-source version"

More Grafana pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	27

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is very reasonable and has excellent community support.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Grafana?

Currently, I do not think that any improvement is required, but there are multiple use cases.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Grafana?

My main use case for Grafana is to create and design dashboards based on the metrics provided by different exporters via Prometheus. We have different exporters, and we are creating different dashb...

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Comparisons

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Compared 18% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

Stackify vs CA App Synthetic Monitor

Compared 8% of the time

LogicMonitor vs CA App Synthetic Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

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Sentry vs Grafana

Compared 6% of the time

Azure Monitor vs Grafana

Compared 5% of the time

Elastic Observability vs Grafana

Compared 4% of the time

Dynatrace vs Grafana

Compared 4% of the time

WhatsUp Gold vs Grafana

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

June 2026

Download CA App Synthetic Monitor product report

Buyer's Guide

Grafana

June 2026

Download Grafana product report

Also Known As

CA ASM

No data available

Overview

CA App Synthetic Monitor provides proactive monitoring of web applications and services to ensure performance and availability. It allows businesses to identify and resolve problems before they impact users.

By simulating user interactions and analyzing application performance, CA App Synthetic Monitor enables businesses to maintain optimal service levels. This cloud-based solution offers a comprehensive view of application health through real-time monitoring and alerts, facilitating quick identification of performance bottlenecks and outages. It helps IT teams enhance user experience by predicting potential issues and optimizing resource allocation. Its flexibility and scalability cater to a range of business needs.

What are key features of CA App Synthetic Monitor?

Real-Time Monitoring: Continuous monitoring of web applications to detect issues quickly.
Global Reach: Simulate user transactions from multiple locations worldwide.
Custom Alerts: Set up customized alerts for specific performance thresholds.
Detailed Reporting: Access in-depth analysis of application performance metrics.
Scalability: Easily scalable to match growing business demands.

What benefits or ROI should users expect?

Improved User Experience: By identifying issues early, end-users encounter fewer disruptions.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces downtime-related costs through early detection and resolution.
Enhanced Reliability: Ensures application reliability and reduces service outages.
Time Saving: Automates performance checks to save time for IT teams.

Industries such as e-commerce, finance, and IT services implement CA App Synthetic Monitor to ensure their software systems remain performant under various conditions. For e-commerce, it assures checkout processes run smoothly. Financial sectors use it to guarantee secure and reliable transaction handling. IT services leverage its capabilities to maintain service level agreements, ensuring customer satisfaction in digital interactions.

Broadcom

Grafana offers a customizable, user-friendly platform for robust data visualization and integration, enhancing real-time monitoring with extensive alerting and collaboration capabilities supported by an active open-source community.

Grafana stands out for its flexible dashboards and robust visualization options, integrating smoothly with tools like Prometheus. This open-source platform supports diverse environments, aiding in the visualization of IT infrastructure and business analytics. Its alerting system efficiently supports real-time monitoring. While it is praised for its community backing and cost-effectiveness, there is demand for better data aggregation, intuitive interfaces, and enhanced documentation compared to competitors such as Splunk. Simplification of configuration and the interface is sought, alongside improvements in machine learning and reporting features.

What are Grafana's most important features?

Customizable Dashboards: User-friendly, richly customizable dashboards for precise data presentation.
Visualization Capabilities: Strong support for visualizing complex datasets from multiple sources.
Integration Options: Extensive compatibility with data sources and tools like Prometheus.
Alerting System: Efficient real-time monitoring and issue identification.
Open-Source Nature: Supported by a vibrant community, offering a cost-effective solution.

What benefits or ROI should users seek in Grafana reviews?

Adaptability: Supports diverse environments and use cases.
Cost-Effectiveness: Offers valuable features at a competitive price.
Community Support: Backed by an active and vibrant open-source community.
Collaborative Platform: Seamless integration with various data tools refining monitoring and analytics efforts.

Grafana is implemented widely across industries for monitoring IT infrastructure and visualizing business analytics. Companies utilize it to analyze server performance or monitor Kubernetes environments and payment transactions. The platform integrates with AWS services and other data sources to ensure observability and system health tracking, focusing on performance metrics through customized dashboards and alerts. Organizations employ Grafana to bolster observability and optimize infrastructure through robust data insights.

Grafana Labs

Sample Customers

Lexmark

Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.

Buyer's Guide

CA App Synthetic Monitor vs. Grafana

June 2026

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