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Docker vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 21, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
8.0
Docker offers cost savings by enhancing efficiency, reducing complexity, and enabling faster deployment with consistent environments and smaller hardware.
Sentiment score
7.0
Splunk Observability Cloud boosts productivity, efficiency, and ROI by simplifying problem detection and improving KPI management and collaboration.
Using Splunk has saved my organization about 30% of our budget compared to using multiple different monitoring products.
Anyone working in front-end management should recognize the market price to see the true value of end-user monitoring.
I have definitely seen a return on investment with Splunk Observability Cloud, particularly through how fast it has grown and how comfortable other teams are in relying on its outputs for monitoring and observability.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
4.1
Docker's customer service is praised for documentation, though many use community resources; support averages 7-8/10 in ratings.
Sentiment score
7.0
Splunk Observability Cloud support is generally responsive but can be slow, with improvement needed, especially in the APAC region.
On a scale of 1 to 10, the customer service and technical support deserve a 10.
They have consistently helped us resolve any issues we've encountered.
They often require multiple questions, with five or six emails to get a response.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Docker efficiently scales applications, especially with Kubernetes and Terraform, despite limitations in disk space and local machine scalability.
Sentiment score
7.4
Splunk Observability Cloud is scalable and flexible but can be costly, with challenges in data ingestion and implementation.
Previously, only one or two applications could run on a server, but now it can handle hundreds of applications, scaling up or down as needed.
We've used the solution across more than 250 people, including engineers.
As we are a growing company transitioning all our applications to the cloud, and with the increasing number of cloud-native applications, Splunk Observability Cloud will help us achieve digital resiliency and reduce our mean time to resolution.
I would rate its scalability a nine out of ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Docker is highly regarded for stability and reliability, despite minor issues with Windows compatibility and occasional resource concerns.
Sentiment score
7.7
Splunk Observability Cloud is highly stable, rated 8-10/10 for reliability, with minor issues usually from user configurations.
I would rate its stability a nine out of ten.
We rarely have problems accessing the dashboard or the page.
Unlike NetScout or regular agents for APM, RUM has many problems during the POC phase because customer environments vary widely.
 

Room For Improvement

Docker needs improvements in stability, security, documentation, user interface, pricing, and support to enhance adoption and usability.
Splunk Observability Cloud needs integration, automation, performance, pricing improvements, and enhanced UI, documentation, AI, and support services.
Docker is a time-tested, proven solution with industry-wide applications.
In terms of communication between services, perhaps the configuration within networks between containers could be improved.
The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders.
The next release of Splunk Observability Cloud should include a feature that makes it so that when looking at charts and dashboards, and also looking at one environment regardless of the product feature that you're in, APM, infrastructure, RUM, the environment that is chosen in the first location when you sign into Splunk Observability Cloud needs to stay persistent all the way through.
There is room for improvement in the alerting system, which is complicated and has less documentation available.
 

Setup Cost

Docker's open-source version is free, but licensing for Enterprise users starts at $24 per user monthly, prompting alternatives.
Splunk Observability Cloud offers advanced features but can become costly as data volume and infrastructure needs grow.
I consider Docker's pricing to be affordable.
Splunk is a bit expensive since it charges based on the indexing rate of data.
It is expensive, especially when there are other vendors that offer something similar for much cheaper.
It appears to be expensive compared to competitors.
 

Valuable Features

Docker's key benefits are security, ease of use, portability, quick deployment, and efficient resource management with extensive features and documentation.
Splunk Observability Cloud offers seamless data integration, real-time insights, and efficient monitoring, enhancing performance visibility across diverse environments.
It allows the software to run on various machines without compatibility issues, saving a lot of time.
The most valuable feature is the simple containerization.
Splunk provides advanced notifications of roadblocks in the application, which helps us to improve and avoid impacts during high-volume days.
For troubleshooting, we can detect problems in seconds, which is particularly helpful for digital teams.
It offers unified visibility for logs, metrics, and traces.
 

Categories and Ranking

Docker
Ranking in Container Management
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Development Platforms (1st), Software Supply Chain Security (3rd)
Splunk Observability Cloud
Ranking in Container Management
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (8th), Network Monitoring Software (6th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Docker is 4.5%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Docker4.5%
Splunk Observability Cloud0.5%
Other95.0%
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Sunny Nair - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers application conversion to Docker image and a mature environment
The learning curve with Docker is huge and extensive. Adopting Docker is a bit difficult because it requires a lot of expertise and background, including an understanding of networking and security concepts. Many professionals are facing issues with the different architectures that interact with each other in Docker. Whenever in our company, we are working with the production environment, professionals are hesitant to adopt Docker due to the extensive learning curve, and most of the team members in our company are more accustomed to an environment like VMware instead of Docker. Docker runs on scripts, so if AI can automate most of the scripting process in Docker, it would be a great advantage in the future version of Docker. As of now, we can create scripts utilizing most of the functions within Docker, but that initial planning phase wherein to understand exactly how you will plan for the resources, how you will convert applications into a Docker-based image, and similar tasks needs to be simplified so that more professionals can adopt Docker.
Taiwo Ige - PeerSpot reviewer
Alerting improves incident response across teams and enables faster awareness before customer impact
Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved in terms of integrations with more technical add-ons, such as Zoom. Although they have one with Zoom, it's not available in the cloud, so having that feature would be beneficial. Essentially, Splunk should continue expanding to create easier ways to ingest logs from different products. The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders. However, there are aspects that could be improved, such as linking dashboards to one another. While IT leaders may not drill down, it's crucial to create levels of dashboards for technical users to find root causes, making it effective for stakeholders.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise34
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise43
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Docker?
We are using Docker to host applications.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Docker?
Regarding the cost, Mirantis Container Cloud is cheaper than other solutions like Red Hat. The license costs around 10,000 Indian rupees per year.
What needs improvement with Docker?
Mirantis Container Cloud should have AI integration tools, which are not available right now. These tools should assist in app scalability and deployment error handling.
What do you like most about SignalFx?
The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.
What needs improvement with SignalFx?
Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and pr...
What is your primary use case for SignalFx?
The solution involves observability in general, such as Application Performance Monitoring, and generally addresses digital applications, web applications, sites, and mobile applications. I worked ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara
Find out what your peers are saying about Docker vs. Splunk Observability Cloud and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.