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Datadog vs Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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

Datadog
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
188
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (2nd), Log Management (3rd), Container Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st), AIOps (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (7th)
Splunk Real User Monitoring...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
39th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Datadog is 8.8%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Kevin Palmer - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful log aggregation and management with helpful metrics aggregation
Datadog provides us value in three major ways: First, Datadog provides best-in-class functionality in many, if not all, of the products to which we subscribe (infrastructure, APM, log management, serverless, synthetics, real user monitoring, DB monitoring). In my experience with other tools that provide similar functionality, Datadog provides the largest feature set with the most flexibility and the best performance. Second, Datadog allows us to access all of those services in one place. Having to learn and manage only one tool for all of those purposes is a major benefit. Third, Datadog provides significant connectivity between those services so that we can view, summarize, organize, translate and correlate our data with maximum effect. Not needing to manually integrate them to draw lines between those pieces of information is a huge time savings for us.
Sathis-Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless issue detection with user time tracking and application load analysis
We primarily use Splunk Real User Monitoring to analyze performance bottlenecks and application transactions. It allows us to see how applications are experienced on the user side, making it easy to capture any bottlenecks or performance issues The most valuable features include user time…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The dashboards and the performance of the software have been great."
"We also use APM and metrics to view the status of our Pub/Sub topics and queues, especially when dealing with undelivered messages."
"We've found it most useful for managing Rstudio Workbench, which has its own logs that would not be picked up via Cloudwatch."
"The infrastructure monitoring capabilities are really valuable. You can just log on and see everything that is happening within an IT environment."
"It is easy to navigate the menu and create tests."
"Datadog has clear dashboards and good documentation."
"The most valuable features have been: Sharable dashboards, TimeBoards, dogstatsd API, Slack Integration, Event logging API. CloudTrail Events, Tags, alerts, and anomaly detection. EBS Volume Snapshot Age, which they added upon request."
"The network map is crucial in identifying bottlenecks and determining what needs more attention."
"The most valuable features include user time tracking and the ability to analyze application load times."
"The initial setup of Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) was easy."
"The most valuable features include user time tracking and the ability to analyze application load times."
 

Cons

"In terms of UI, everything is very small, which makes it quite difficult to navigate at times."
"Their security features could be improved. We looked at their Security Monitoring feature but it was early in its development. Datadog are just getting into the security space so I'm sure this will improve in the future."
"It can have a more modernized pricing mechanism. We're actually working with them to figure out how to become more modular and have a better and more modernized pricing mechanism. The issue with Datadog is that you have to buy the whole suite of different products, and you kind of get stuck in the old utilization of 40% of their suite. Most organizations today break down between application development, networking, and security. Therefore, there should be a way to break down different modules into just app dev, infosec, networking, etc. Customers have various needs across their business lines, and sometimes, they're just not willing to have tools that they're not using 100%. AppDynamics is probably a little bit better in terms of being modular."
"I like the idea of monitoring on the go, however, it seems the options are still a bit limited out of the box."
"We need more visibility into the error tracking dashboard."
"Geo-data is also something very critical that we hope to see in the future."
"The on-premise version is very difficult to upgrade."
"I think better access to their engineers when we have a problem could be better."
"There is room for improvement in customer support due to delays and standard feedback responses."
"The initial setup of Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) was easy. The solution is deployed on-premises."
"It would be beneficial to have more enhanced features with capabilities to adapt more integrated applications. Improvements in dashboard configuration, customization, and artificial intelligence functionalities are desired."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has a module-based pricing model."
"The solution is fairly priced but history and log storage can get costly depending on your needs."
"Pricing and licensing are reasonable for what they give you. You get the first five hosts free, which is fun to play around with. Then it's about four dollars a month per host, which is very affordable for what you get out of it. We have a lot of hosts that we put a lot of custom metrics into, and every host gives you an allowance for the number of custom metrics."
"The price is better than some competing products."
"​Pricing seems reasonable. It depends on the size of your organization, the size of your infrastructure, and what portion of your overall business costs go toward infrastructure."
"The cost is high and this can be justified if the scale of the environment is big."
"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."
"Pricing seemed easy until the bill came in and some things were not accounted for."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
31%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Retailer
12%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...
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 times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Dynatrace. Dynatrace offers network ...
What do you like most about Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM)?
The initial setup of Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) was easy.
What needs improvement with Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM)?
It would be beneficial to have more enhanced features with capabilities to adapt more integrated applications. Improvements in dashboard configuration, customization, and artificial intelligence fu...
What is your primary use case for Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM)?
We primarily use Splunk Real User Monitoring to analyze performance bottlenecks and application transactions. It allows us to see how applications are experienced on the user side, making it easy t...
 

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog vs. Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.