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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
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (3rd), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (7th), Observability Pipeline Software (1st)
ManageEngine Applications M...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
40th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (34th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Cribl is 1.2%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ManageEngine Applications Manager is 0.9%, 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 Manager0.9%
Other97.9%
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

"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."
"Features such as Cribl Stream, Cribl LogStream, and Cribl Edge have been the most beneficial. The Cribl LogStream, in particular, is valuable for routing data, creating firewalls on pipelines, and putting security measures in place to ensure data reaches its destination without issues."
"What I like most about Cribl is the overall pipeline structure and easiness."
"We save around 2.2 TB every day using Cribl by filtering out unwanted logs coming from syslog devices and other networking devices, which saves our license."
"Cribl is very useful because we have multiple clouds and it has been processing our logs from multiple different platforms into a single one, and it is processing to multiple other platforms as well."
"The solution saves a significant amount of time and resources, and I would estimate the return on investment to be double or triple the investment we made."
"When we had Cribl in place, it provided a vision and a platform for us to control what we send and how we send it in terms of data passing, data enrichment, and many more things, with massaging the data."
"My favorite feature of Cribl is just how easy it makes working with the data; it's always been a pain point for us with other solutions, just taking our raw data from the source, transforming and manipulating it into what we need on the SIM side."
"What I like most about ManageEngine Applications Manager is its price point, apart from its technicalities. The solution is cheaper than its competitors. ManageEngine Applications Manager has helpful documentation that makes setting it up straightforward."
"The most valuable features are: Takes care of all IT monitoring in one console: Server, apps and business services."
"Depending on the size of the environment, this is a solution that I recommend."
"For a small organization, I think ManageEngine is pretty nice, I think it's enough."
"We have a very good and long relationship with ManageEngine support guys, and they provide very good support for us."
"I used it extensively for a year, and prior to that, I was very comfortable."
"ManageEngine Applications Manager maintains the historical data and it's easy for us to analyze the trends and patterns and fix them accordingly."
"ManageEngine Applications Manager maintains the historical data and it's easy for us to analyze the trends and patterns and fix them accordingly."
 

Cons

"The deployment itself is a bit complicated and the documentation is not very clear."
"There is room for improvement in Cribl, as managing data from around forty thousand servers can become complex."
"When I started using Cribl interface for managing log processing tasks, it was difficult for me to navigate because it took me a month or two to gain fluency with the software since I did not have hands-on experience initially, and I found that the documentation is not thorough enough to help users navigate how to use Cribl."
"I think it is a bit expensive. I heard that this might be expensive."
"Data cost is a concern, as Cribl charges for everything it sees rather than everything it processes."
"The main downside of Cribl is that it is not very beginner-friendly."
"Cribl could be improved by some UI tweaks and some usability tweaks, mostly centered around error troubleshooting for large volumes of Edge nodes."
"The user interface of Cribl Search can be more simplified because for non-technical users, it is quite difficult to grasp."
"They could probably rearrange the UI so that it would be easy for people who are new to the Application Manager to configure things."
"The information provided by ManageEngine is not deep-dive like IBM and CA provide."
"The agent often crashes when there is too much load on the application side. If a sudden storm of data comes in, the agent crashes down most of the time."
"Lacks an SIEM solution which can be found in other products."
"One area of improvement is the dashboard should be more readable and available."
"One area of improvement is the dashboard should be more readable and available."
"The main issue with ManageEngine is that it only functions as a record-keeping system, it has never had an IT framework in place."
"The problem is that implementation requires a significant amount of mapping effort."
 

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 annual licensing depends on the number of monitors you have connected. Once you get to two hundred monitors you can see the price reflect."
"It is a cost-effective solution."
"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 solution's licensing costs are yearly."
"The licensing costs for ManageEngine Applications Manager are around $1,200 per year. For additional monitors, you have to pay extra."
"Its price is good."
"The solution is noted for its cost-effectiveness, a crucial consideration for potential users."
"The cost of this solution is not too bad, although it could be cheaper considering what you're getting for the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise7
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'd highly recommend other organizations to use Cribl Search because it did help us a lot with data processing and everything.
What needs improvement with Cribl?
The user interface is acceptable, but I think a person who is just starting to use it will need to go through documentation because there is a steep learning curve to become familiar with Cribl Str...
What is your primary use case for Cribl?
I am using Cribl Stream for data routing and data processing as part of my company's IT team. We primarily use it for monitoring and collecting data.
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: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.