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Elastic Observability vs Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Elastic Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (11th), Log Management (16th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)
Splunk Real User Monitoring...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
37th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 5.0%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Adelina Craciun - PeerSpot reviewer
Customization enables tailored monitoring and alerting across departments
The possibility to customize it has been quite useful. Whatever the other departments want to dream up, we implement. Whatever they want to monitor, the granularity of it, the changes in the threshold, and the anomalies that they want reported all require some development. So far, every single request has been fulfilled.
Sathis-Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless issue detection with user time tracking and application load analysis
We primarily use Splunk Real User Monitoring to analyze performance bottlenecks and application transactions. It allows us to see how applications are experienced on the user side, making it easy to capture any bottlenecks or performance issues The most valuable features include user time…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I found Elk to be excellent for log analytics, security analytics, application code-level analytics, collaboration with DevOps teams, CI/CD, microservices, and Kubernetes, specifically cloud-native or cloud-specific tasks."
"The architecture and system's stability are simple."
"It is a powerful tool that allows users to collect and transform logs as needed, enabling flexible visualization and analysis."
"Good design and easy to use once implemented."
"It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it."
"I have built a mini business intelligence system based on Elastic Observability."
"All the features that we use, such as monitoring, dashboarding, reporting, the possibility of alerting, and the way we index the data, are important."
"Elastic APM has plenty of features, such as the Elastic server for Kibana and many additional plugins. It's a comprehensive tool when used as a logging platform."
"The most valuable features include user time tracking and the ability to analyze application load times."
"Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) has one great advantage in that if they have SAP users, they can monitor their SAP applications."
"The most valuable features include user time tracking and the ability to analyze application load times."
"The initial setup of Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) was easy."
 

Cons

"Elastic Observability’s price could be improved."
"If we had some pre-defined templates for observability that we could start using right away after deploying it – instead of having to build or to change some of the dashboards – that would be helpful."
"Elastic APM's visualization is not that great compared to other tools. It's number of metrics is very low."
"Elastic Observability is reactive rather than proactive. It should act as an ITSM tool and be able to create tickets and alerts on Jira."
"There could be more low-code features included in the product."
"There is room for improvement regarding its APM capabilities."
"Elastic Observability needs to improve the retrieval of logs and metrics from all the instances."
"Elastic Observability is an excellent product for monitoring and visibility, but it lacks predictive analytics. Most solutions are aligned with the AIOps requirements, but this piece is missing in Elastic and should be included."
"It would be beneficial to have more enhanced features with capabilities to adapt more integrated applications. Improvements in dashboard configuration, customization, and artificial intelligence functionalities are desired."
"Support from Splunk is not very helpful because Splunk doesn't have a dedicated APM; they only have one APM engineer in Korea."
"There is room for improvement in customer support due to delays and standard feedback responses."
"The initial setup of Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) was easy. The solution is deployed on-premises."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."
"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."
"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."
"We will buy a premium license after POC."
"We have been using the open-source version."
"Elastic Observability is cheaper than other similar solutions, such as Dynatrace. Its license calculation is based on various factors like data volume and physical infrastructure, particularly related to RAM capacity."
"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."
"So far, there are just the standard licensing fees. Several of the components are embedded in the license or are even open source. They're even free depending on what you use, which makes it even more appealing to someone that is discussing pricing of the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Retailer
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Elastic Observability?
Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?
Elastic Observability is cost-efficient and provides all features in the enterprise license without asset-based licensing. However, sizing and licensing information could be clearer.
What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?
Of course, maintenance is necessary, as with any software, requiring updates with the latest features and security enhancements. It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like netw...
What do you like most about Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM)?
The initial setup of Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) was easy.
What needs improvement with Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM)?
It would be beneficial to have more enhanced features with capabilities to adapt more integrated applications. Improvements in dashboard configuration, customization, and artificial intelligence fu...
What is your primary use case for Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM)?
We primarily use Splunk Real User Monitoring to analyze performance bottlenecks and application transactions. It allows us to see how applications are experienced on the user side, making it easy t...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.