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HeadSpin vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 17, 2025

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

HeadSpin
Ranking in Mobile APM
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (32nd), Mobile App Testing Tools (9th)
Splunk AppDynamics
Ranking in Mobile APM
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
250
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (4th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Container Monitoring (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Mobile APM category, the mindshare of HeadSpin is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 26.8%, up from 25.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile APM
 

Featured Reviews

Saorabh Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
It fulfills everything from automation to manual performance
The most valuable features of the product are the performance parameters it gives us, as well as the seamless connectivity with our automation suites. I am also pleased with the continuous enhancements made to HeadSpin. There have been many features added since we started using the product, and all of them are useful.
Gyanesh Rahatekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Application performance management and error resolution improved with data-driven insights
Dynatrace has multiple functions compared to Splunk AppDynamics, so Splunk AppDynamics should add those functions, which are not available as of now. Dynatrace has a universal agent that collects all information related to their CI, and if one CI has multiple languages, then there is no need to instrument multiple agents. However, Splunk AppDynamics requires multiple agents; if I have one server with multiple applications in different languages, then I need to instrument different agents for each application. Splunk AppDynamics should work with Dynatrace with one single universal agent that works with all application languages, eliminating the need for multiple implementations.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup of HeadSpin was very easy and user-friendly. It was easy to configure and write a script."
"The technical support is really helpful because we can set up direct calls with them if we want to. We can use Zoom or Google Meet to interact with them directly, and if there is an issue in our system, they will help us by reproducing the issue in their machines and trying to figure out a solution. The support is really smooth, and we like that they're very supportive."
"The most valuable feature of HeadSpin it's the integration with other solutions. It is great. I can search for an element or do a quick debugging on the application right on HeadSpin. It's very useful."
"It has an interesting feature called AV box testing. A lot of companies that are in the OTT segment don't really understand what their streaming is like. They can't test for streaming quality. There are restrictions where you cannot simulate live streaming. For example, on Netflix, you can't simulate how a movie is being streamed on a remote device. That's why HeadSpin has got this AV box testing feature. It is a patented feature. They send an AV box to your location, and you can test live streaming, which is something that no other company does."
"The most valuable feature is that this is the first connected intelligence all-in-one platform."
"The most valuable features of the product are the performance parameters it gives us."
"The product has the ability to drill down to the errors whenever we have issues."
"Transition tracing is the most valuable is pretty easy and useful, but the user experience piece is also good."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the response time from the end-to-end server."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the ability to discover and track transactions."
"Visibility to the end-users is a valuable feature."
"The platform is reliable in identifying the core system issues."
"It provides a lot of data, so it helps businesses identify their user base."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the fact that it is very easy to use, making it easy to implement...It is a very stable solution."
 

Cons

"They should automate their onboarding. A lot of things are still manual. They can create a video assistant or something like that to completely automate the entire process."
"If you want to do some testing or check the devices manually or check the application in a particular device manually, it is really laggy. That's a disappointment because sometimes we would like to do manual testing when our local devices are not available."
"HeadSpin needs to improve the hardware. With the mobile, the battery life reduces and must be continuously charged."
"Support and pricing could be improved."
"HeadSpin could improve on the user interface because it is very poor. The checks that are done on the iOS devices are very difficult, but for Android, it runs great. For all iOS devices, the user interface and how it interacts with the device are very poor."
"Sometimes, devices go offline and some features are not functioning on some devices, specifically on iOS."
"The end-user experience is not really good because we can't catch all of the transactions. We only can catch the full stack of flow transactions, but I think that this is caused by the technology they use. If they will catch every transaction, it will cause a very big load on the performance of applications. The monitoring of all transactions needs improvement."
"One area for improvement is the MST model. It would be more helpful if it could be offered as a managed service provider model with more multi-tenancy and features."
"At this time, we don't have much visibility on the virtual environment, monitoring, and all other things. We have visibility only for database monitoring, and we have noticed performance impact when deploying database agents on the database server. We got to know this from AppDynamics support also that we should not deploy database agents from the database server. When agents are deployed on the same server and the database is monitored from there, we are not getting database server metrics. Therefore, we don't have those insights, and sometimes, we struggle because of that. They can improve this functionality so that we do not have a performance impact, and we can deploy anywhere. This would help us a lot. In terms of end-user monitoring, currently, it is not working for us because there are some complexities. It is a little complicated, and it takes a little bit of time to understand where you need to make changes. It would be very helpful if they can provide some template designs for end-user monitoring. When our servers are running on VMs, we don't get many insights from the VM side. I don't know whether it is possible to have visibility beyond the database, server, and application and whether there are some features where we can deploy AppDynamics on VMs as well. Such functionality would give us more control over storage, VM, OS, and database. It will also provide complete visibility of our hardware and software."
"If it can be able to intelligently provide all the things we need to look at, from a data point of view, that would be very useful."
"AppDynamics is dealing with a lot of products and technologies, so we need to have clear documentation."
"It could do with more than one data centre/multiple AWS accounts in a pane of glass. Also, improved scalability to large environments would be helpful."
"There are many KPIs that are not available in AppDynamics."
"The pricing falls within the mid-range category."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not cheap, but there are a few different packages and different prices for enterprises with different product versions."
"It has a yearly license. There is no other option. It is expensive. There are a lot of other cheaper players in the market, but it is like a Mercedes. You pay an extra premium for it, but you get the benefits. I would love to see them come up with project-based costing. Companies that are low on funds or new-age can do with pricing that is easily digestible. They can give them a pricing model for three months. They can provide a startup package."
"I believe the licensing cost is cheap because it's a total solution, hardware, license and software."
"We have a yearly license for 16 devices."
"AppDynamics Database Monitoring is expensive. I rate it a seven to eight out of ten."
"We buy the platform's yearly subscription."
"The product is a bit expensive compared to other tools."
"The tool is expensive."
"The license fee for Application Analytics is in the range of 2.5 million over three years, with extra fees for service contingencies."
"Purchasing the product through the AWS Marketplace was good."
"AppDynamics is one of the most expensive solutions on the market."
"For those who appreciate the value and had issues with the visibility of the performance of their applications, then the pricing is good. For somebody who does not need it, it can be pricey, but overall, it is worth the money which it costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Zynga, Tinder, Pinterest, Akamai, Microsoft, Airbnb, Jam City, TMobile, Mozilla, CNN, Cognizant, Yahoo!, ebay, Quora, Walmart, Kohls, Telstra
Cisco, Sony, Nasdaq, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Edmunds.com, Puma, Fox News, DirecTV, Pizza Hut, T-Systems, Cornell University, OpenTable, BITMARCK, Green Mountain Power, Care.com, Overstock, Paddy Power, eHarmony, Kraft, The Motley Fool, The Container Store, and more See more customers
Find out what your peers are saying about HeadSpin vs. Splunk AppDynamics and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.