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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
358
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (6th), Mobile APM (2nd), Container Monitoring (2nd), AIOps (2nd), AI Observability (4th)
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 (60th), Cloud Monitoring Software (46th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Dynatrace is 6.3%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds AppOptics is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dynatrace6.3%
SolarWinds AppOptics0.7%
Other93.0%
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

"The comprehensive application topology visualization in Dynatrace, called Smartscape, has benefited my understanding of system dependencies, and since we are using Dynatrace primarily for observability, we can get top-to-bottom visibility, from infrastructure to network to application front end."
"The dashboard customization based on the performance metric requirement is one of the most exciting features."
"Some of the troubleshooting features for development, the PurePath technology in AppMon, are valuable. The dashboarding gives us some good insight into some fluctuations in some of the application areas."
"The linking is very good in Dynatrace. What happens in other monitoring tools is the linking is not proper. In those solutions, a person has to manually link many of the layers and what is happening in them, while in Dynatrace you get that from the very first visit. For example, if a person is visiting your website, from there it will traverse you to the end. If the application is a Java application, it will traverse you there, to the Method level. So that linking and traversing is better in Dynatrace."
"It has an integration with ServiceNow, which is great. Dynatrace creates tickets for things and its AI finds root cause. We have integrated that with our ServiceNow to generate events and incidents, so that all of our event management will be done in the ServiceNow Developer."
"We know exactly which line, which method, and which program needs fixing, so we directly go to the right developer and the guy comes in fixes it."
"Our customers are now able to control their infrastructure with a single tool, and can easily check the connections with all components."
"We spend less time on troubleshooting issues since Dynatrace proactively informs us of an impending bottle neck."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."
"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."
"The product has a great dashboard."
 

Cons

"Its infra monitoring is not that good. They are mainly into the APM environment, such as network monitoring and other things. Strong end-to-end infrastructure monitoring is missing. SNMP monitoring is currently not very good in this solution."
"One of the new features is "impacted users." I would like to see a rate of impacted users. For example, how long has the problem been going on: 100 users in five minutes. Does that mean that in 3 hours if we don't get this solved, we're impacting x number of people? Understanding the rate at which the problem is impacting people would be a cool feature."
"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."
"The integration of the tools is getting there. It is still not there yet, because we still have to get a lot of tools to put together."
"Infrastructure monitoring could be improved."
"I do know that for the size of our organization, we're talking thousands of agents and hundreds of applications, it does get to the point where the servers themselves that house Dynatrace are at a point where, in some cases, they are just too big for one machine, since you have to have an entire application ecosystem all funnel into a single system."
"I would like to see more features from the desktop client included in the web client."
"I think scalability is what we're struggling with. I would say it's okay, but there's a little bit of room for improvement."
"The solution should be more user-friendly."
"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."
"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."
"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."
"AppOptics would benefit from having a much more centralized view."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Surprisingly, it is quite expensive. That is something that we could always see: Improved pricing and the overall construct on how do we use each license in regards to usage of the tool."
"We asked for a three-year license, and the price was quite good."
"There was also some complexity in the adoption rate of it because of how costly the licensing is."
"The limitations I see are more to do - and maybe it's because of the nature of the job I have - but they have to do with pricing. It's a little bit pricey. It's a very good tool. It's worth the price, to a certain degree. But it's hard to justify when it's that costly."
"If there are no corporate requirements to run Dynatrace Managed (operating it yourself), I would definitely go for the size option. For small and medium-sized companies, the size option is probably the cheapest one. You don't need to look into operating it. You don't need to run hardware. It is pay as you go."
"They could improve their price ranges, as there is no option for startups or testing."
"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."
"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."
"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
22%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business78
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise298
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: February 2026.
881,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.