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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

"We were previously using AppDynamics, then we switched to Dynatrace because it has more functionality, better additional components, and better management of problems."
"For me, the most valuable feature of this solution is that deep dive that we get out of the AppMon product with the PurePath technology, and the way that the PurePath stack works."
"We have gained customers’ trust that we can provide them the best value from the Dynatrace solution."
"From the monitoring perspective, the ability to triage quickly is important, and the ability to alert and tell people where the problem is."
"The primary use case is to monitor all our applications. We want a single place where we can monitor all our applications that we are building. Therefore, if something goes wrong, we immediately can find out what went wrong."
"Being able to get down to the individual code level to see where transactions are taking time, has helped troubleshoot issues immensely and other tools can't provide this."
"We are using Dynatrace for prediction and staging for every step of our development cycle."
"I would give Dynatrace's technical support a 100% rating. I feel like whenever I call or send an email that I get the right person automatically. For the most difficult answers, the most I have to wait is about three days and the answers have been relevant."
"The product has a great dashboard."
"The sum solution, NTA, and DPA."
"I have found the most valuable feature is application performance management."
"SolarWinds AppOptics does far more than what an individual may realize; it is not just a SIEM tool."
"Technical support is always live and they're supportive."
"Some of the most valuable features of SolarWinds are the topology discovery and network performance analysis."
"The reporting of the solution is very good."
"With minimal effort on our part, TraceView provides extraordinary visibility into the requests that flow through our SOA applications."
 

Cons

"Surprisingly, it is quite expensive."
"The challenge with AppMon is, what if you don't have an AppMon agent on a host, but it talks to the database. It talks to it, but I don't have either a host agent or an AppMon agent on it. That has been a challenge, but I believe the Dynatrace agent, the OneAgent, will solve that, potentially."
"Dashboards are too clumsy, so it is good to keep less on dashboards and be easier to find the sections."
"The products or company go through a rebrand/renaming about once a year, which creates some confusion with our customers."
"The tool needs work on the performance monitoring part, as it is not providing specific details due to some issues in agent connectivity."
"The solution needs better integration with networking appliances such as routers, switches, and firewalls."
"Include network monitoring in more detail for deep dive analytics of network components."
"Dynatrace must reduce the required resources for on-premise, because they are too high."
"The integration with Unix services should be a bit more straightforward."
"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."
"The solution should be more user-friendly."
"I'd like to see the ability to use other internal instrumented applications as filters in the overview/aggregation screen."
"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."
"Because of its inability to monitor mobile solutions, I would rate this solution as a seven out of ten."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From what I have heard in the company, Dynatrace is expensive."
"It's expensive."
"Setup cost is very low considering that it is an almost totally, automatic process."
"Consider volume because that is where you will get the most benefit. Doing a point solution is not cost-effective."
"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. ​​"
"The only limitation with scaling to cloud-native environments is licensing. It all depends on how many DEM units you're willing to license. The more of DEM units that you purchase, the more user data you can collect."
"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."
"Financially Dynatrace was a lot more expensive than AppDynamics."
"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."
"I believe the current licensing cost is reasonable."
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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
13%
Construction Company
13%
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.
890,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.