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Cribl vs ManageEngine Applications Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 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

Cribl
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (3rd), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (6th), Observability Pipeline Software (1st)
ManageEngine Applications M...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
46th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (32nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Cribl is 1.2%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ManageEngine Applications Manager is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cribl1.2%
ManageEngine Applications Manager0.8%
Other98.0%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Aman Verma - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has helped reduce daily log volume significantly and streamline data routing across multiple destinations
Regarding complexity, as I mentioned before, Cribl is very simple to use. When I started 2.5 years ago, it was very easy to learn. I learned Cribl within a week, and even though I was a fresher at the time, it was easy to understand and not complex enough that someone would need to spend money on labs. It's not that complex to learn. Regarding cost efficiency, it's very good because nowadays the SIEM tools we use are too expensive on license, and SIEM tools base their license on how many logs get ingested. The unwanted logs, particularly firewall logs, represent a significant portion of unnecessary ingestion. Cribl saves our license by filtering out half of the firewall logs that are unwanted. Our main purpose for using Cribl is to save our license and save money. Currently, everyone is moving toward AI agents. We currently use regex, and AI agents could help us create those regex patterns to drop events or add raw data to events. Currently, we sit down, review the logs, and create regex patterns manually, which can be time-consuming. An AI agent could reduce this time. I read some articles indicating that Cribl Cloud has started using AI and considering MCPs and model context, but I'm not certain how far along they are. If Cribl asked me what they could improve, that would be my suggestion. The support is very good, and I had a few issues with Cribl where I raised support cases and received good responses, which is better than the quick response I didn't get from other SIEM tools and vendor tools I use. Compared to other SIEM tools, Cribl is cheaper than Splunk and DataDogs. However, it's still a bit expensive from my point of view, though I won't call it expensive. Overall, I think 99% of companies use Cribl before their SIEM tools, and compared to SIEM tools, Cribl is cheaper. Companies can use any SIEM tool such as Google, Splunk, or Cisco, and Cribl is cheaper than those SIEM tools. They might have a slight chance to reduce costs further, but I'm not the correct person to evaluate that since I'm more focused on the operational side. Regarding training, it was quite easy to grasp. It took me almost a week to understand the basic functionalities and what Cribl does. Getting more expertise took additional time, but basic functionalities and understanding what Cribl does took around four to five days. One point I want to mention is that Cribl could improve their labs or training materials in their Cribl Cloud or whatever portal they have.
SN
Senior System Engineer at Qatar Petroleum
Managing application health has become simpler but new monitoring features still need faster delivery
I use application discovery and dependency mapping. It helps with managing application health What I like about ManageEngine Applications Manager is the ease of use and ease of deployment. I cannot remember anything specific for future updates of the product. The new features take a lot of time…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I'd highly recommend other organizations to use Cribl Search because it did help us a lot with data processing and everything."
"Cribl definitely helps with the complexity because you don't have to push for deployment—they provide the interface where you can mimic what the output will look like, and you can see that in real time when setting up the Cribl configuration, which definitely helps considerably."
"Using Cribl for five years has simplified a lot of use cases when onboarding data, and because it is simplified, it takes less time, which is a huge win."
"What we've seen is really an overall reduction of just shy of 40% in our ingest into our SIM platform versus prior to having Cribl, and those ingest costs have basically canceled out the pricing of Cribl licensing for us based on the volume of data that we have."
"Mostly because of the positive reasons, I would say it is easy to use, it is sustainable, the support is nice, the coding is quite easy to understand, there are a lot of functionalities there, you can do a lot of things, and the data migration is very easy."
"Cribl offers easy plugin configurations and source collection settings, allowing us to collect logs from any source."
"The support team was very helpful and managed to get everything production-ready."
"Cribl acts as a super product because it enables one source to send to multiple destinations using only one copy."
"ManageEngine Applications Manager's installation is pretty easy."
"ManageEngine Applications Manager maintains the historical data and it's easy for us to analyze the trends and patterns and fix them accordingly."
"The anomaly detection feature helps with maintaining the system's health. It is regarding our IT incident center."
"ITSM is a valuable feature, it complies with the requirements in Pakistan."
"The initial setup was straightforward, without complexity."
"The most valuable features are: Takes care of all IT monitoring in one console: Server, apps and business services."
"We do not have pricing constraints as an organization, because we do have reservations about ManageEngine being functionally scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to be able to monitor Kubernetes."
 

Cons

"However, the endpoint plug-in tool can use some refinement, as it tends to hit system resources and can sometimes be detrimental to systems to the point where it must be turned off and a scan restarted when a user is offline."
"I do not think that if the pricing is on the higher side, it could be suitable for all types of users, such as small or medium ones."
"What I dislike about Cribl is that it represents my direct pain point."
"I think Cribl can be improved because I do not believe it is a mature product. It has gone down many times and when we are doing upgrades, many things break and we face a lot of issues, especially with scaling."
"There is room for improvement in the documentation and knowledge base, particularly regarding configurations like sources where logs are being ingested"
"Cribl's initial setup is quite complex."
"The sys logging could be enhanced to make it easier to identify errors, especially when dealing with multiple functions."
"When I explored the endpoint, I found myself wishing for clearer instructions presented in a sequential manner."
"The main issue with ManageEngine is that it only functions as a record-keeping system, it has never had an IT framework in place."
"They could probably rearrange the UI so that it would be easy for people who are new to the Application Manager to configure things."
"Even with the top-notch dashboard, it could be made stronger in order to have an additional plug-in for analytics."
"It can’t be configured to store APM Insight data for more than one month."
"More modem support for SMS feature."
"Technical support can be problematic. They usually support us from India, but because of compliance requirements, that is not an acceptable support solution in Pakistan."
"At the moment, we are not finding this solution to be very stable. We've had a lot of calls with the vendor to sort things out."
"My suggestion for improving this feature is to also monitor the end-user experience for application clients and servers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product pricing is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"I would not say it is a cheaply priced tool as it has been doing wonders in the market. The tool has been budget-friendly for organizations."
"The solution's licensing costs are yearly."
"Its price is good."
"The licensing costs for ManageEngine Applications Manager are around $1,200 per year. For additional monitors, you have to pay extra."
"ManageEngine Applications Manager has reasonable pricing. It's more affordable than other solutions in the market. My company has an instance-based license for ManageEngine Applications Manager. You can purchase a yearly subscription or a perpetual license. The standard license covers most features, but you can still have some paid add-ons."
"The cost of this solution is not too bad, although it could be cheaper considering what you're getting for the price."
"The solution is noted for its cost-effectiveness, a crucial consideration for potential users."
"Price-wise, it is a cheap tool...The solution's licensing model is subscription-based, in which yearly payments are to be made."
"The annual licensing depends on the number of monitors you have connected. Once you get to two hundred monitors you can see the price reflect."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Healthcare Company
6%
Government
5%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise34
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cribl?
I find the pricing of Cribl to be cost-efficient because it has helped us save costs for data storage by removing unwanted logs.
What needs improvement with Cribl?
One improvement Cribl could work on is Cribl's Git integration. If I want to integrate my private repository, I can do this, but there is a specific format required in Git. If I commit something to...
What is your primary use case for Cribl?
We started using Cribl one year ago for data optimization. Currently, we are using Cribl for its one terabyte ingestion that is free, which is one significant advantage. We are using it for that pu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine Applications Manager?
I am satisfied with the licensing cost for ManageEngine Applications Manager.
What needs improvement with ManageEngine Applications Manager?
The new features take a lot of time to be implemented, and that could be improved about ManageEngine Applications Manager. If I were requesting a new feature that is not existing, making it availab...
What is your primary use case for ManageEngine Applications Manager?
I use application discovery and dependency mapping. It helps with managing application health.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Applications Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Certis Europe, Financial Domain, SaaS Office Suite, On Demand TV, Parliament's IT Systems, Sastra Technologies, UniServity
Find out what your peers are saying about Cribl vs. ManageEngine Applications Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.