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Dynatrace vs Grafana comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

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

Dynatrace
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
346
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (5th), Mobile APM (1st), Container Monitoring (2nd), AIOps (2nd)
Grafana
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Dynatrace is 10.6%, down from 13.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana is 6.4%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Anand_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides a comprehensive view by integrating with other monitoring systems
There may be an issue since there are many tools like Splunk involved in network monitoring. From an IP perspective, Dynatrace is performing well. If they want to develop in network monitoring, they can, as it's part of their product line. It's not rocketry, so they can accomplish it. If I, as an SI, look at it from an enterprise perspective, considering the cost from the client, I prefer not to go with multiple systems, as they don't provide a complete 360-degree view. They need to improve on claims about being an enterprise system. The definition of enterprise is loosely used, however, from a holistic security perspective, including infrastructure, network, ports, software, applications, transactions, and databases, there are areas lacking, especially in network monitoring tools.
Vikash-Agarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Displays data visually from multiple sources while integrating seamlessly with existing systems
Grafana provides a user-friendly interface for viewing infrastructure metrics through dashboards. It integrates with Prometheus to pull data and offers a straightforward setup process. Users can monitor metrics with greater ease, and the tool aids in quickly identifying issues by providing a visual representation of data. Grafana's integration capability is straightforward, which facilitates building dashboards as needed.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is useful for analytics, web performance, end-to-end coverage of a user experience, and database analytics. It is absolutely a monitoring tool that is worth having. The visibility that it provides is a unique feature of this product."
"We have been capturing all the information and evaluating whether it can be improved or not."
"Dynatrace helped us to get a better understanding of how our services are communicating with each other, as well as better problem detection before something really breaks"
"​Data analytics help us to find us issues in the short-term or long-term."
"It alerts us, or can detect, potential problems which are building up."
"The installation and configuration were very straightforward and nice."
"Provides bespoke dashboards and reports which help our business to grow."
"The deployment itself is very easy and straightforward."
"Grafana is a very scalable product. It's a really good product."
"I find Grafana beneficial due to its numerous plugins."
"The initial setup is straightforward with just a few clicks on the solution's cloud."
"It is a stable, reliable product."
"I find Grafana beneficial due to its numerous plugins."
"The integration between Loki and Tempo is valuable."
"Provides good dashboard visualization."
"The solution has good features."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see the UI a bit more polished. For example, I saw a demo of the dashboards here at the Perform 2018 conference. There was a table of these widgets, but they're not sorted alphabetically and there's, like, 50 of them. So if you want to find your widgets, you're of scrolling up and down. So small features, being able to search for widgets, that things are more categorized; just a bit more focused on the user experience."
"The one thing I do not like about Dynatrace is that their web dashboards are very very slow. They seriously have to improve their web dashboard configuration and SSL timeouts."
"Monitoring asynchronous code requires manual instrumentation (most of the time)."
"I would love to see a better data export, because AppMon's charting capabilities leaves a lot to be desired. You have about a 5,000 line limit. I would really like to see the ability to export, in Dynatrace and AppMon, in essentially in a nice format of whatever you want to whatever else."
"I would like Dynatrace to be more flexible and user-friendly."
"The GUI has the most room for improvement. Sometimes, it can be a little cumbersome to find things and be able to create your own views, or be able to dig in and understand where things are."
"I would love to see Dynatrace get more involved in the security realm. I get badgered by so many endpoint protection companies. It seems like a natural fit to me, that Dynatrace should be playing in that space."
"The documentation of Dynatrace needs to be improved. There needs to be a more detailed description and additional examples for background understanding for beginners trying to use it."
"Trigger limits are difficult to see in a graph."
"The look and feel of the charting and graph capabilities in Grafana could improve. If they provided a storyboard type of feature as they have in other solutions, such as PowerBI. The multi-tenanted and stitch metrics features could improve."
"The features are complicated and not intuitive."
"Lacks in-depth graphs and sufficient AI."
"The interface is not well-liked by my customers. Grafana cannot be easily embedded into certain applications and offers limited customization options for graphs."
"I would like the ability to download my results into any format in order to share the information with my clients."
"There are not a lot of plugins for financial market monitoring."
"The product's configuration for saving files could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have not been able to observe more than 1% overhead, despite Dynatrace saying that it can be slightly higher in some situations."
"Price (of the product) is a major concern for all the clients I work with."
"The pricing and licensing are very expensive."
"The solution is not cheap."
"Getting the first agents installed, getting information, and coverage in a initial set of systems can be done in hours and with a low cost entry point."
"Dynatrace is the most expensive APM that we sell, compared to competitors' products. The license pricing could be improved. My customers pay for licensing yearly."
"There is a license issue where if we increase the memory we have to up the licenses. I was unaware of that going in. I thought it was scalable without all the paperwork behind the scenes. ​​"
"​Do a PoC and see if you like it."
"I am using an open-source version"
"Since Grafana is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."
"My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."
"​Grafana is free and open source.​"
"We use the open-source version of Grafana."
"It's free of cost; it operates as an open-source tool."
"You need to purchase the solution's license for its commercial use."
"For me, Grafana is a cheap tool because I don't have to spend much time learning the product since it is a simple solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
36%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?
The key is to have a holistic view over the complete infrastructure, the ones you have listed are great for APM if you need to monitor applications end to end. I have tested them all and have not f...
What cloud monitoring software did you choose and why?
While the environment does matter in the selection of an APM tool, I prefer to use Dynatrace to manage the entire stack. Both production and Dev/Test. I find it to be quite superior to anything els...
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...
What do you like most about Grafana?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana?
I used the open-source version for my learning, which was free. In an enterprise setting, pricing is reasonable, as many customers use it.
What needs improvement with Grafana?
The interface is not well-liked by my customers. Grafana cannot be easily embedded into certain applications and offers limited customization options for graphs. I think predictive capabilities in ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Audi, Best Buy, LinkedIn, CISCO, Intuit, KRONOS, Scottrade, Wells Fargo, ULTA Beauty, Lenovo, Swarovsk, Nike, Whirlpool, American Express
Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dynatrace vs. Grafana and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.