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Dynatrace vs SolarWinds AppOptics 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
7.0
Number of Reviews
360
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (5th), Mobile APM (2nd), Container Monitoring (3rd), AIOps (2nd), AI Observability (3rd)
SolarWinds AppOptics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
55th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (60th), Cloud Monitoring Software (45th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Dynatrace is 5.6%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dynatrace5.6%
SolarWinds AppOptics0.8%
Other93.6%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Manish Indupuri - PeerSpot reviewer
senior DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
AI-driven insights have reduced downtime and improved cross-team collaboration
We encountered some challenges while using Dynatrace. Although the initial setup was smooth, fine-tuning alert thresholds and custom metrics took some time. Another challenge was that Dynatrace charges based on host units, so we had to carefully plan our agent deployments. The licensing model is expensive. Additionally, the complexity of setup is an issue. While OneAgent and auto-discover services are powerful, the setup is more complex compared to other tools such as Prometheus and Grafana. These integrations are simple and basic, but Dynatrace setup requires more complexity based on the environment. For new users wanting to use Dynatrace, it is difficult. However, the AI-related solutions and metrics took us to the next level for identifying and fixing things. Dynatrace requires an agent for operation. OneAgent is powerful, but it is also resource-heavy. On lightweight nodes or older systems, the agent can slightly impact performance. If Dynatrace could implement a lightweight agent behavior, we could make things faster. Additionally, if Dynatrace could add a long-term retention policy so that we could store more data and find fine-grained details, that would help us. While Dynatrace managed edition supports on-premises deployment, the SaaS version depends on cloud connectivity. For highly regulated or air-gapped environments, setup and updates can be challenging. Although the initial setup is smooth, if someone wants to fine-tune it and fully understand the tool end-to-end, it could be tricky.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It seems to be very stable. We have not had any outages attributed to the product."
"The solution offers a better overview of applications. It offers end-to-end monitoring, and the user experience is real."
"It is a platform that is very well-suited for marketers, but also for technology people. That is the key: the dashboard."
"It helps to show where the problem is and isolates the issue."
"Ease of problem detection and alerting, visual timeline, and user-sessions are some of the best features of Dynatrace."
"Email alert and mobile app alert are very useful for informing the team that something is going wrong."
"It is very stable and reliable."
"What made Dynatrace stand out was ease of use; it is more intuitive."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"It's a solid application."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"The product has a great dashboard."
"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."
"With minimal effort on our part, TraceView provides extraordinary visibility into the requests that flow through our SOA applications."
"AppNeta provides a range of products, all based around intelligent network testing algorithms."
 

Cons

"For a new user of Dynatrace, the tool is not easy to understand, so this is an area for improvement. Before using it, you need to learn from an expert."
"For an easy view of global and entity-specific configurations, a separate tile or pane aggregating these configurations should be implemented."
"The usability is worse than it used to be."
"Product pricing could be improved."
"Dynatrace is the best solution in the market, but because of the price restrictions and also the relationship of vendors, we use other selections in certain environments."
"The licensing model is confusing in solutioning clients for the number of hosts needed to deploy."
"Our main problems have been that it has a high learning curve to it. I've used it for about three years now and I'm still learning it. There are some videos and there is some documentation out there, but it still requires you to delve into the tool to learn it. A little bit more comprehensive self-paced training would help."
"I would like to see the Business Transactions made easier, so you can distinguish users and companies (this can get very hairy for a large multi-tenant application)."
"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."
"The support is not too bad, but also not very good—it's quite standard."
"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."
"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."
"Does not perform traditional SNMP/CLI/NetFlow/WMI etc monitoring."
"In terms of the technology, I think they need to put some more advanced troubleshooting into SolarWinds, in terms of AI capabilities. That's the next generation, especially in the cases of APIs which have already adopted AI capabilities into their products."
"The solution should be more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From what I have heard in the company, Dynatrace is expensive."
"Financially Dynatrace was a lot more expensive than AppDynamics."
"The product is pricey, but it is feature-rich, which is why we probably haven't looked away from it."
"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."
"The solution is not cheap."
"The product is definitely worth taking a look at. Be aware that it is probably more pricey than other options on the market, but there are a lot of capabilities. Dynatrace has an eye toward the future and the computing and monitoring needs that we are gonna need for the cloud. ​"
"Setup cost is very low considering that it is an almost totally, automatic process."
"I feel the price is good for what the product does."
"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."
"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business78
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise300
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
 

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...
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Also Known As

No data available
AppOptics, SolarWinds TraceView, Librato
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Audi, Best Buy, LinkedIn, CISCO, Intuit, KRONOS, Scottrade, Wells Fargo, ULTA Beauty, Lenovo, Swarovsk, Nike, Whirlpool, American Express
TraxoCovea Insurance BTE TechnologyDatarista
Find out what your peers are saying about Dynatrace vs. SolarWinds AppOptics and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
890,027 professionals have used our research since 2012.