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Grafana vs Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.0
Users and managers find Grafana valuable for cost-effective data visualization, enhancing application and infrastructure insights.
Sentiment score
8.0
Splunk ITSI quickly delivers ROI by enhancing visibility, reducing costs, and improving performance with centralized data and efficient analytics.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Grafana users appreciate community support and prompt formal assistance, with enterprise users benefiting from knowledgeable representatives and helpful guides.
Sentiment score
6.5
Splunk ITSI support is generally good, but experiences vary by company size and issue, with occasional delays reported.
My advice for people who are new to Grafana or considering it is to reach out to the community mainly, as that's the primary benefit of Grafana.
I do not use Grafana's support for technical issues because I have found solutions on Stack Overflow and ChatGPT helps me as well.
Grafana's customer support is mainly for developers.
The technical support is excellent, and I would rate it at ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.8
Grafana is scalable and effective for monitoring, though costs and complexity rise with larger deployments or open-source versions.
Sentiment score
7.9
Splunk ITSI efficiently scales with clustering and machine learning, handling large data volumes and scoring high in scalability ratings.
In assessing Grafana's scalability, we started noticing logs missing or metrics not syncing in time.
In terms of our company, the infrastructure is using two availability zones in AWS.
Splunk is highly scalable, with the ability to expand efficiently.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Grafana is highly stable, with most users experiencing smooth operation and minimal issues, rating its reliability very high.
Sentiment score
7.9
Splunk ITSI offers high reliability and stability, especially in cloud deployments, with minor issues related to infrastructure and data consistency.
Once you get to a higher load, you need to re-evaluate your architecture and put that into account.
When something in their dashboard does not work, because it is open source, I am able to find all the relative combinations that people are having, making it much easier for me to fix.
The setup, however, must be done correctly as incorrect deployment can lead to issues.
 

Room For Improvement

Grafana needs improvements in security, usability, data correlation, integration, and flexibility, with enhanced reporting, machine learning, and user interface.
Splunk ITSI needs better integration, user interface, predictive analytics, machine learning, real-time alerting, automated response, and user support.
It would be better if they made the technology easy to use without needing to read extensive documentation.
I would give it a ten if it were much simpler for users who just want to get a simple objective in Grafana and are not experienced with technical configuration.
Regarding the clarity of the official documentation for installation, I think the official documentation, which has something called Alloy, the Alloy integration, is not that clear.
Splunk ITSI could benefit from including more features that other solutions support, such as vulnerability management modules.
 

Setup Cost

Grafana provides open-source for free and enterprise versions vary in cost based on metrics, plugins, and features.
Splunk ITSI is a costly but comprehensive tool, valued for its observability despite complex licensing and high pricing.
In an enterprise setting, pricing is reasonable, as many customers use it.
The costs associated with using Grafana are somewhere in the ten thousands because we are able to control the logs in a more efficient way to reduce it.
Splunk ITSI tends to be more expensive compared to some open-source solutions.
 

Valuable Features

Grafana offers intuitive dashboards, strong integration, powerful visualizations, live monitoring, and extensive plugins, making it ideal for development teams.
Splunk IT Service Intelligence enhances incident management with agile data handling, advanced analytics, and effective troubleshooting features for quick issue resolution.
Users can monitor metrics with greater ease, and the tool aids in quickly identifying issues by providing a visual representation of data.
The feature that sets Grafana apart from its competitors is how easy it is to set up data sources.
It's definitely useful for monitoring, alerting, logs, and analysis.
Splunk ITSI allows for integration with threat intelligence, enabling my organization to correlate more than two events for generating alerts.
 

Categories and Ranking

Grafana
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk ITSI (IT Service Int...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
IT Alerting and Incident Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Grafana is 6.3%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Vikash-Agarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Displays data visually from multiple sources while integrating seamlessly with existing systems
Grafana provides a user-friendly interface for viewing infrastructure metrics through dashboards. It integrates with Prometheus to pull data and offers a straightforward setup process. Users can monitor metrics with greater ease, and the tool aids in quickly identifying issues by providing a visual representation of data. Grafana's integration capability is straightforward, which facilitates building dashboards as needed.
Srinivasulu Soolluru - PeerSpot reviewer
It speeds up incident response by automating alerts and ticket creation
When configuring a dashboard, we can write search criteria. Based on the search criteria, the dashboard shows all the alerts, including the alert time, creation time, and a summary description of the alert. When you add an extra column, such as the user that triggered the alert, the next time he refreshes the dashboard, he wants to know that the alert is acknowledged. We want to improve that comment feature. In the Service Analyzer, we monitor the network infrastructure services and have a KPI for each service. When the value exceeds the threshold value, we can add the colors. For example, we can set it to green when the threshold value is within the limit. If it is red, then the value has passed the threshold. We want more colors in the service analyzer to display all these features.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Grafana?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana?
The costs associated with using Grafana are somewhere in the ten thousands because we are able to control the logs in a more efficient way to reduce it. That is pretty much great for us.
What needs improvement with Grafana?
The whole AI capability would be useful for Grafana in the future, and while I don't think we're mature yet, I would want to see improvements, especially in the tracing part, where following differ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?
Pricing can vary significantly based on the selected modules and deployment choices. Splunk ITSI tends to be more expensive compared to some open-source solutions.
What needs improvement with Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?
Splunk ITSI could benefit from including more features that other solutions support, such as vulnerability management modules. This would help manage vulnerabilities effectively, allowing my organi...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.
TransUnion, Cox Automotive, Carnival Cruises, Leidos, Econocom, National Ignition Factory, Entrust Datacard, Molina Healthcare, United States Census Bureau
Find out what your peers are saying about Grafana vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.