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Datadog vs SolarWinds AppOptics vs Zabbix comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Datadog is 4.9%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 2.1%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Datadog4.9%
Zabbix2.1%
SolarWinds AppOptics0.8%
Other92.2%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Dhroov Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Site Reliability Engineer at Grainger
Has improved incident response with better root cause visibility and supports flexible on-call scheduling
Datadog needs to introduce more hard limits to cost. If we see a huge log spike, administrators should have more control over what happens to save costs. If a service starts logging extensively, I want the ability to automatically direct that log into the cheapest log bucket. This should be the case with many offerings. If we're seeing too much APM, we need to be aware of it and able to stop it rather than having administrators reach out to specific teams. Datadog has become significantly slower over the last year. They could improve performance at the risk of slowing down feature work. More resources need to go into Fleet Automation because we face many problems with things such as the Ansible role to install Datadog in non-containerized hosts. We mainly want to see performance improvements, less time spent looking at costs, the ability to trust that costs will stay reasonable, and an easier way to manage our agents. It is such a powerful tool with much potential on the horizon, but cost control, performance, and agent management need improvement. The main issues are with the administrative side rather than the actual application.
John Yuko - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager ICT - Projects at I&M Bank Ltd
Unique features allow consolidating and combing metrics into a single dashboard, but don't monitor mobile solutions
I would like to see more granular information provided on Unix applications. Also, the integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward in terms having an agent to retrieve your credentials rather than having to enter or save them for SSH on SolarWinds. From the outset, we had to set some commands to log into the search console, and they are saved on the solution, which presents a challenge in terms of exposure. The solution is unable to monitor APK solutions completely because we'd then be forced to break down the APK and provide the APIs or go through the source code. They don't have a module that can analyze an application that is maybe under-used.
KamranBhatti - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Helps reduce response time but has room to improve customization complexity
We are not working on simple standalone solutions like Kaspersky DDoS Protection or Hybrid Cloud Security. Once you understand Zabbix, then it is easy to customize those web pages and graphs for our customer use. It is fully automated to your requirements. Zabbix is working fine with no issues, and I am satisfied with it. We have combined Zabbix and SolarWinds. The integration works fine, and it is easy to integrate Zabbix with the IT environment. We were trying to purchase MDR (Managed Detection and Response), but we are not working on that. I don't have real experience with MDR. We are using Falcon software for that. We are working with Falcon Complete, not with Sandbox. We are not using Kaspersky for business or cloud protection. For that, we are using Zabbix CrowdStrike Falcon Complete solution. I have given this review an overall rating of 8.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like how we can customize alerts, and when alerts have become too noisy, we turn their threshold down fairly easily."
"Datadog has made it much easier to have a central place for people to look for logs and made it much easier to notify them of any elevated error rates or failures."
"It is great that creating an incident is possible from Slack while having all the relevant data in Datadog, as it allows us to not think too much about organizing incidents in a highly stressful situation."
"Overall, the Data UI and the usability of customer features continue to improve."
"The interface and the integrations make it so easy to connect to the cloud or to the on-premise environment."
"We are loving the tool; it is great to have all those insights in one place."
"Thanks to the logs, we manage to make better reports through Jira and also to trace the request with more facility than we would be able to do otherwise."
"The solution is stable."
"AppNeta provides a range of products, all based around intelligent network testing algorithms."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."
"It's a solid application."
"SolarWinds AppOptics does far more than what an individual may realize; it is not just a SIEM tool."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
"The initial setup, while not simple, is easier than other products."
"We delivered a project for telemetry but not just for IT, monitoring different parameters for radio communication sites and collecting information about alarms and analog values, and we use this system in mission critical applications for radio communications, police, firemen's, health, etcetera."
"The monitoring capabilities of the product are excellent."
"It is a great product. The SNMP protocol tracking feature is good. I really like how it tracks SNMP. The alerts are also great."
"ZABBIX is an all-in-one monitoring solution and we don't need any other monitoring tool since we use ZABBIX."
"The most valuable thing about the Zabbix product is that it was easy to install and manage."
"Zabbix helps to save time."
"It is a great product; the SNMP protocol tracking feature is good, I really like how it tracks SNMP, and the alerts are also great."
 

Cons

"I've found that the documentation is lacking in certain regards."
"Managing dashboards as IaC is a bit hard to work out at times."
"We have asked technical support questions, and sometimes they don't get back to us right away. Or when they do, it is not the right answer."
"We need more advanced querying against logs."
"I would like testing for data in the future."
"Datadog could be improved if it could detect other software in a container or server."
"More pre-configured "Monitor Alerts" would be helpful."
"Customer support has been ok, yet not great. We've had ticket resolution drag on for weeks."
"The solution should be more user-friendly."
"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."
"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."
"The support is not too bad, but also not very good—it's quite standard."
"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."
"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."
"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."
"We had a stability issue with a portion of the installation (Sequencer) when it was first introduced and have chosen not to install that specific function."
"Zabbix does not draw automatic mapping of the network, this is something they should add in the future. There is a lot of effort that is involved in tailoring some of the settings which could be made easier."
"The server monitoring could be better."
"It could be more stable."
"The graphical user interface could be customized a little bit more, and also the dashboard could be more friendly."
"I wish it had more options for personalizing the product, such as being able to include your company's logo without editing text files."
"I really do not like this solution, almost all of its features are awful."
"It's open-source software, and due to that, they really don't have legacy service monitorings like APM, or build-on capabilities, and the pure part of the transaction-related data."
"There are a lot of areas for improvement, specifically in the dashboards and reports functionalities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has a module-based pricing model."
"Licensing is based on the retention period of logs and metrics."
"Datadog does not provide any free plans to use the solution. When I start with a proof of concept it would be sensible to have a free plan to test the tool and check whether it fits the requirements of the project. Before the production stage, it is always good to have a free plan with some limited features, number of requests, or logs."
"The pricing and licensing through AWS Marketplace has been good. It would be nice if it was cheaper, but their pricing is reasonable for what it is. Sometimes, for their newer features, they charge as if it's fully fleshed out, even though it is a newer feature and it may have less stuff than their other items."
"Our licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis."
"The solution's pricing depends on project volume."
"Sometimes it's very hard to project how much it will cost for the monthly subscription for the next month when you add certain features. Having better visibility of the cost would give a better experience."
"At my last company, we did see ROI, specifically around response time. We could get to mission critical things that were down and losing revenue on immediately. So, the product paid itself back."
"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."
"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."
"Mostly, it's a perpetual license. We don't have any customers using the subscription right now—it's mostly a perpetual license that the customers purchase. The licensing is based on the number of elements, whereas other solutions are node-based."
"It is freeware. We still use the free version of Zabbix."
"Zabbix is free but if you use it in production then you have to pay for it."
"It is reasonable."
"We use the open-source version of Zabbix."
"The product is an open source and free solution."
"For pricing, it's free. We don't pay anything for it. They open-source the code, and people pay for support."
"It is free, which allows us to reduce costs."
"The solution is free to use but they offer support as a paid service. If you can go read the manuals and do the fine-tuning based on your needs, you do not need to pay anything and you will have a full solution."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business81
Midsize Enterprise46
Large Enterprise99
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business56
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems,...
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several time...
Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was t...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about Zabbix?
The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?
I think Zabbix is economical, whereas SolarWinds is expensive. SolarWinds has a lot of secure features, but Zabbix is...
What needs improvement with Zabbix?
The potential and customization is a little difficult because you have to learn scripts. I think Zabbix needs to impr...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Adobe, Samsung, facebook, HP Cloud Services, Electronic Arts, salesforce, Stanford University, CiTRIX, Chef, zendesk, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, mercardo libre, Slashdot, Ziff Davis, PBS, MLS, The Motley Fool, Politico, Barneby's
TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista
1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba
Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability. Updated: April 2026.
886,906 professionals have used our research since 2012.