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Dynatrace Logo
49,151 views|29,997 comparisons
Grafana Labs Logo
10,326 views|6,610 comparisons
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jun 27, 2023

We performed a comparison between Dynatrace and Grafana based on real PeerSpot user reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Dynatrace's setup is generally straightforward, but the level of complexity depends on the specific use case. On the other hand, Grafana's ease of setup depends on the user's experience, with opinions varying widely. Additionally, Dynatrace's deployment and maintenance staff can be different for each case, while Grafana's initial setup process can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of weeks.
  • Features: Dynatrace has real user tracking, AI automation, and Kubernetes topology visualization, making it user-friendly and efficient. Meanwhile, Grafana excels in customizable graphs, open-source flexibility, and live monitoring, benefiting from a powerful community and reasonable pricing. 
  • Pricing: Dynatrace's pricing is convoluted and unclear, posing challenges in determining the appropriate number of units to buy. This makes it challenging for small businesses due to its pricey cost model. On the other hand, Grafana's pricing is typically viewed as reasonable, with some users giving it a rating of eight out of ten. To use it commercially, a license must be purchased, and the price varies depending on the infrastructure.
  • Service and Support: While some users find Dynatrace's technical support responsive and helpful, others feel that they could improve their speed of response. On the other hand, Grafana's support efficiency and helpfulness depend on the individual user's experience and needs. Additionally, some reviewers noted that Dynatrace's documentation needs improvement.
  • ROI: Dynatrace focuses on automation, feedback, and cost savings, resulting in significant ROI by reducing mean time to repair by 70% and time to market by 50%. On the other hand, Grafana is known for its data visualization and analytics capabilities, but measuring its ROI may not always be straightforward.

Comparison Results: Dynatrace is preferred over Grafana due to its AI capabilities, real user monitoring, session replay, and synthetic monitoring functionalities. It offers good visibility and thorough scanning of services and applications, with the ability to drill down and analyze traffic. While Grafana is praised for its customizable and visually appealing graphs and flexibility in integration with other tools, it lacks some of the advanced features and capabilities of Dynatrace. 

To learn more, read our detailed Dynatrace vs. Grafana Report (Updated: November 2023).
745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The monitoring is very good.""It is a 100 percent stable solution...Dynatrace is a highly scalable product since it is a SaaS-based application.""Dynatrace is stable.""The visibility that it provides is most valuable.""Dynatrace has the most features compared to other products we looked at.""It is a very good APM tool. There is a lot of thorough scanning of services and applications. It has got great monitoring features.""Dynatrace has reduced our total headcount in operations and the mean time to detect and resolve problems. As a result, those challenging offline times are much shorter, if not non-existent, because of this solution.""Great for monitoring critical internal and public-facing applications."

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"The most valuable feature of the solution is the UI dashboard because we need to create a dashboard on Grafana to monitor our data.""The comparison feature is very good.""The dashboards are the most valuable features.""It integrates well with other solutions.""The best feature was the creation of graphs and trends.""There are multiple kinds of models there to create dashboards, which is quite useful.""It is a stable, reliable product.""Compatibility with Prometheus databases and the Spring Boot application make it the first choice when moving toward an SRE model."

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Cons
"What needs improvement in Dynatrace is its dashboard. Creating dashboards in Dynatrace is good, but compared to Grafana, which is integrated with Broadcom DX APM, the resulting dashboard in Dynatrace isn't as clear. The Dynatrace dashboard needs to be more graphic.""An area for improvement would be security. In the next release, I'd like to see more network-centric capabilities - Dynatrace is good at the network level, but I have to leverage other network solutions and integrate with them, but a holistic approach including the network as a one-stop-shop would be great.""The solution is a bit pricey.""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.""I would say that this solution's reports are lacking a little bit, and because of this, you have to rely on API to fetch and pull data. I think they could have done a bit of a better job by providing a more user-friendly search from a reporting perspective.""The solution could improve by allowing more dashboards customization. This would allow us to monitor the metric better.""The reporting could be better.""In the next release, I'd like to see more portables included regarding the screens."

More Dynatrace Cons →

"There is room for improvement when using multiple dashboards because they can become complicated to keep track of and use.""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.""Grafana doesn't provide anything for reporting.""The solution should include online support.""There are some areas of network drives that are not showing as expected based on server usage.""The solution has room for improvement with a better API to help automate the construction of the dashboards easier.""Writing queries can be a bit difficult because the syntax must be maintained.""It would be helpful if Grafana provided more information and training on how to use Prometheus."

More Grafana Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "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."
  • "Its licensing is complicated or not transparent."
  • "Always gives good ROI and total cost of ownership."
  • "Dynatrace is very good and it's provided a lot of information, it plays a positive role in making your application up to date in the market. If you want to monitor some applications only, it would be cheaper if you did cloud monitoring, but the price benefit depends on the use case."
  • "The pricing is not bad, but it could be better."
  • "Its license is a bit expensive. We renew it yearly."
  • "As compared to New Relic and other providers, it is more expensive, which is its biggest disadvantage. Its biggest advantage is its capability. It is more feature-rich."
  • "Dynatrace is usually paid on a yearly basis."
  • More Dynatrace Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I use the open source model so it is free."
  • "My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."
  • "We use the open-source version of Grafana."
  • "We are using the open-source license."
  • "I give the price an eight out of ten."
  • "You need to purchase the solution's license for its commercial use."
  • "The solution is expensive."
  • "Since Grafana is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."
  • More Grafana Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.
    745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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 else… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:The comparison feature is very good.
    Top Answer:The service dashboard is very hard and needs improvement.
    Ranking
    Views
    49,151
    Comparisons
    29,997
    Reviews
    22
    Average Words per Review
    487
    Rating
    8.5
    Views
    10,326
    Comparisons
    6,610
    Reviews
    32
    Average Words per Review
    376
    Rating
    7.9
    Comparisons
    Learn More
    Grafana Labs
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    Overview

    Dynatrace is an AI-powered software intelligence monitoring platform that accelerates digital transformation and simplifies cloud complexities. Dynatrace is an entirely automated full-stack solution that provides data and answers about the performance of your applications and deep insight into every transaction throughout every application, including the end-user experience. By modernizing and automating enterprise cloud operations, users can deliver an optimal digital experience with higher quality software to customers faster.

    Dynatrace offers an all-in-one automated artificial intelligence solution that brings together application performance, cloud and infrastructure, and digital experience monitoring. Dynatrace accelerates performance-driven results through operations, development, and business teams with a shared metrics platform. In addition, users are provided a full-stack monitoring experience with three patented technologies:

    • Smartscape - visualization mechanism that maps the totality of everything working in your environment and detects any casual dependencies between your applications, processes, websites, services, hosts, cloud infrastructure, and networks.

    • OneAgent - a technology that analyzes, gathers ,and unifies all business performance metrics throughout every layer of your technology stack.

    • PurePath Technology - code-level context and timings are captured from the mainframe to the cloud for all end-to-end transactions.

    What does Dynatrace offer?

    Dynatrace redefines how organizations monitor their digital ecosystems. The solution offers:

    • Cloud Automation: With AI engine Davis®, users can see the exact reason for problems and facilitate quick auto-remediation and intelligent cloud orchestration.

    • Application Security: With automated application vulnerability management, users can deliver applications faster and more securely.

    • Infrastructure Monitoring: Convenient broad visibility across your environments is provided with streamlined, automated infrastructure monitoring.

    • Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM): Optimize your applications, provide better support, and improve user experience with a combination of Real User Monitoring (RUM), Session Replay, and synthetic monitoring throughout your environment.

    • Applications and Microservices: For complex cloud environments, Dynatrace can automatically provide visibility and root-cause answers. It can also monitor microservices.

    • Digital Business Analytics: Get AI-powered, real-time answers to analytical business queries with KPIs and metrics that are already flowing through applications.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Dynatrace is the only solution that provides answers to organizations based on deep insight into each user, transaction, and organization's environment.

    Barry P., a managing performance engineer at Medica Health Plans, writes, "With Dynatrace, we have synthetic checks and real-user monitoring of all of our websites, places where members and providers can interact with us over the web. We monitor the response times of those with Dynatrace, and it's all integrated into one place."

    A consultant at a tech service company notes, "A feature that's one of the highlights of Dynatrace is the AI. The second most valuable feature is OneAgent. Between infrastructures, applications, operating systems, you can deploy with just a single agent and can practically install and forget about it."

    Grafana is a powerful open-source analytics and visualization platform that allows users to monitor, analyze, and understand their data in real-time. 

    With its intuitive and user-friendly interface, Grafana enables users to create customizable dashboards, charts, and graphs to visualize data from various sources such as databases, cloud services, and IoT devices. It supports a wide range of data sources including Prometheus, Elasticsearch, InfluxDB, and more. 

    Grafana also offers a vast library of plugins and extensions, allowing users to extend its functionality and integrate with other tools seamlessly. With its alerting and notification features, users can set up alerts based on predefined thresholds and receive notifications via various channels. 

    Grafana is highly scalable and can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud, making it suitable for organizations of all sizes. Whether you are a developer, data analyst, or IT professional, Grafana provides a comprehensive solution for data visualization and monitoring.

    Offer
    Learn more about Dynatrace
    Learn more about Grafana
    Sample Customers
    Audi, Best Buy, LinkedIn, CISCO, Intuit, KRONOS, Scottrade, Wells Fargo, ULTA Beauty, Lenovo, Swarovsk, Nike, Whirlpool, American Express
    PayPal, eBay, Staples, Booking.com, Intel, NS1, TED, NetApp, Vimeo, RackSpace, SquareSpace, OpenTable, MediaMath, Fermilab
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm28%
    Insurance Company9%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization27%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider21%
    Retailer21%
    Computer Software Company21%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Retailer6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise71%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business11%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise57%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise70%
    Buyer's Guide
    Dynatrace vs. Grafana
    November 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dynatrace vs. Grafana and other solutions. Updated: November 2023.
    745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Dynatrace is ranked 2nd in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 23 reviews while Grafana is ranked 7th in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 33 reviews. Dynatrace is rated 8.4, while Grafana is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Dynatrace writes "Allows us to monitor application performance, underlying infrastructure, and relationships with Smartscape technology". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Grafana writes "Agent-free with great dashboards and an active community". Dynatrace is most compared with Datadog, New Relic, AppDynamics, Splunk Enterprise Security and Instana Dynamic APM, whereas Grafana is most compared with Azure Monitor, New Relic, Sentry, Honeycomb.io and Elastic Observability. See our Dynatrace vs. Grafana report.

    See our list of best Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability vendors.

    We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.