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CA App Synthetic Monitor vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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
68th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk AppDynamics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
268
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Mobile APM (1st), Container Monitoring (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 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 Splunk AppDynamics is 4.2%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Splunk AppDynamics4.2%
CA App Synthetic Monitor0.5%
Other95.3%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2286675 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Shamim Alsharif - PeerSpot reviewer
Performance Test Engineer at TANIM CONSULTING, LLC
Real-time monitoring has improved our banking API performance and supports detailed business transaction analysis
The real-time monitoring is what we can see for anything that is needed in terms of CPU, memory, or the connections or the sessions related. It's real-time monitoring of performance of each of the components, which is what we need and use all the time. It's highly effective, I would say. Infrastructure visibility, transaction monitoring, to check the actual user experience in terms of the response time, MRT and all those things. We do the component monitoring like the API performance and the connections and all those things, but we also do the business process monitoring and business transaction monitoring.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From our experience, it really helps managers in measuring application SLAs and viewing historical performance data."
"Each had strengths in one area or another, but CA covered the majority of our needs end-to-end."
"Transition tracing is the most valuable is pretty easy and useful, but the user experience piece is also good."
"The good part with AppDynamics is that you get all three layers, even though there still are some missing links."
"After installation of APM, we realized the value within five or ten minutes."
"AppDynamics' best feature is automation - for example, when I add a note, it can understand the data automatically."
"We switched to AppDynamics for its capabilities."
"The best feature of AppDynamics is the analytics, which gives us the business insights of the application."
"The features of Splunk AppDynamics that I prefer most are the monitoring aspect, making sure we can drill down and find problems."
"We have analyzed so many of our APIs and web services; it showed how much data and how many times each and every API and web service is used, and if we can save on those costs and enhance the performance, that's priceless."
 

Cons

"The RBMS component is limited as you can only record using Internet Explorer."
"Pricing makes little sense. We had examples where it would be cheaper to have two basic accounts than one intermediate."
"One area for improvement is the MST model. It would be more helpful if it could be offered as a managed service provider model with more multi-tenancy and features."
"The initial setup is not very straightforward, so it takes some time to complete."
"This is an expensive solution."
"I think I would like to see a better way to deploy and upgrade the machine agents that we use."
"If it could have a sub-tool for monitoring Apache Kafka logs, it would save me even more time. There are ways to do it now, but a direct way would be faster and better."
"The day-to-day activities should be less complicated so that anyone can manage it."
"I have found it sometimes a bit difficult to trace the transaction all the way through to the application. I'm not sure if that problem is on the database side or on the application side, but that would be something that I would like to be improved. The traceability from the application to the database, sometimes, is a bit of a challenge. If you're using AppDynamics, with the Java agent, for instance, you need to be able to trace it through."
"The overall performance of this solution could be improved. The hot-hot infrastructure features could also be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing model for AppDynamics could be better. You have to subscribe to a yearly or a three-year licensing, which isn't very handy. The solution is one of the most expensive in the market today."
"It is expensive. However, our time to recover has been reduced, and this product has helped recuperate costs and provided us with ROI."
"We have a license-based solution. That means you need a license for each server you monitor."
"The licensing cost is fairly high"
"You are required to purchase licenses whether you use it or not. It is not pay-as-you-use."
"As a technical person, and as an application development team, they all understand that this is the right tool for us. But when it comes to budget and financial matters, it takes days and weeks to convince upper management to buy this tool. So they should do something more on licensing costs."
"AppDynamics is one of the most expensive solutions on the market."
"The tool is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
27%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business58
Midsize Enterprise37
Large Enterprise202
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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...
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 a yearly basis, if we don't add new modules or features to the license, we need ...
 

Also Known As

CA ASM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lexmark
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 CA App Synthetic Monitor vs. Splunk AppDynamics and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,668 professionals have used our research since 2012.