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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
7.3
Number of Reviews
348
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (10th), Mobile APM (2nd), Container Monitoring (1st), AIOps (3rd)
SolarWinds AppOptics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
56th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (57th), Cloud Monitoring Software (43rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Dynatrace is 10.2%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.3%, down from 0.3% 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.
John Yuko - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"We were quite happy with the easy installation process and how quickly we received a good overview over all of our web applications.​"
"It provides us a reference for being able to go back and look at data at a certain point, analyze it, then determine if something was the root cause."
"We can see each session, end-to-end, and discover issues."
"Dynatrace alerts are based on deviations from the reference metrics which are constantly collected."
"By using Dynatrace, we can set up the agents to provide alerts at the JVM level."
"What I like about it, is how it auto-discovers everything rapidly; within a matter of seconds you get to see the business transaction and how it's mapped within the product itself."
"Reduced incidents, as alert monitoring aids in quicker resolution of events."
"It is a very good APM tool. There is a lot of thorough scanning of services and applications. It has got great monitoring features."
"The product has a great dashboard."
"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."
"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."
"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
 

Cons

"I would like to know if classes and methods selected in "Method Sensor Rules" were changed in the applications, and not depend on the developers to warn us."
"Need better mapping to true business service rather than purely technical monitoring."
"They've leveraged those security gateways and renamed them ActiveGates, and now there are different web plugins we can run on it... Sometimes the development of those seems to be running very fast and it's not complete. They don't yet function quite as easily as the OneAgents do. But I have hopes that that's going to get better. We have tried the MQ, the Citrix, and the Oracle ActiveGate plugins. They could be sharper. It's the right direction to go. It just seems like it could be smoother."
"Improvements in Synthetic monitoring would be great. Certain features of thick client, if available in the web interface, would also be a great improvement."
"One thing we'd like to see is mobile native replay. They don't have a timeline on it yet, but that's one of the key things we're looking at, to get rid of one of our incumbent products that does replay."
"It would be great to have Synthetic automatically ​retrieve what the customer sees on his side."
"Better root cause detection and improve root cause categories. In some cases, the root cause points out only a clue of what has happened."
"I would like to see Dynatrace be more user-friendly. Sometimes there are too many options to use from, which is good, but it can become confusing on how to proceed."
"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."
"I would like to see more integration with other tools that are available on the market."
"The implementation needs improvement. It needs to get modernized with the newer cloud scenario in both public and private deployment models."
"The solution should be more user-friendly."
"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."
"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace is excellent."
"I think the pricing is at a fair value for what it is."
"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was a pretty straightforward process. We had no hiccups."
"The cost is somewhat high."
"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."
"While it is quite good in respect to its functionality, there are few area in regards to pricing that they can look at how to possibly change. I have heard it's costly."
"I would like to see them improve on their licensing and the cost. It's been a challenge for us because the way they have it broken out right now, you have to buy it by units. It's hard for us to know where to put those units because our company is broken up into all these different business units, so it's been challenging in that sense. I just would like to see them improve that model a little bit."
"They could improve their price ranges, as there is no option for startups or testing."
"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."
"Since it's a negotiable rate, I would rate the pricing as a five out of five."
"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Educational Organization
19%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
26%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

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...
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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: July 2025.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.