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IBM Application Performance Management vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 6, 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

IBM Application Performance...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
51st
Average Rating
6.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk AppDynamics
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
246
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Mobile APM (2nd), Container Monitoring (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of IBM Application Performance Management is 0.3%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 4.8%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Daniel Tamiru - PeerSpot reviewer
A multi-functional solution but has poor stability and performance-related issues
We are using version 4 of IBM Application Performance Management, and it is deployed on-premises. We use it for internet banking and mainly for application performance on-site. For example, if we face performance-related issues in one of our software or managed services, we use this solution to…
Muhammad Zeeshan Siddiqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Dynamic mapping enhances workflows that are user-friendly
One aspect that requires improvement is the agent. Without an agent, gathering sufficient information on applications is challenging. Additionally, the agent sometimes creates performance issues in production environments. If AppDynamics could develop a means to monitor without an agent, it could significantly improve application performance and reduce potential problems. Moving to an agentless solution, like what some competitors are doing, would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's easy to use."
"Because we have partnerships with other partners, I can share a bit about what I've noticed with IBM APM compared to other vendor solutions. Specifically, with IBM, the visibility into detailed process information is more tangible. On the OS level, APM displays all processes (or the top 10 processes) that are consuming CPU or resident memory. This is the most important thing that is not always available with other vendors."
"IBM Application Performance Management helped us increased our response time by 80% and cost 60% less."
"I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten."
"The transaction tracking feature from IBM is the most important feature for us. It is something that provides a terrific value for us and our clients. It has a lot of data sources and agents that are collectors. It is also stable."
"The most valuable feature is the breakdown that it provides, such as a description of the fields for a particular transaction."
"The initial setup was straightforward and took minimal effort."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its GUI."
"In my experience, it's easy to use. There's nothing complex to learn or fear. You can quickly adapt to it without the need for extensive training."
"Users can configure business sections in their environment, and it's possible for customers to configure different sources for the name of the class, the name of the method, or the name of the web service, which is very interesting."
"The solution helps us save a lot of time on certain tasks."
"Provides monitoring more around business processes versus just servers, applications, etc. E.g., with complex systems, where a business process passes across multiple applications, the business needs us to monitor the heath of the process, not just a segment of the application."
"Provides good overall application performance and transaction errors."
"We are able to correlate performance between tiers."
"The event alerting feature or the trigger system is what I like most about AppDynamics Server Monitoring. Whenever an issue occurs, the tool automatically generates an even trigger that tells engineers in the company to take action, so it's an essential feature of AppDynamics Server Monitoring. Another valuable feature of the tool is end-to-end monitoring, which means if you need to debug, you can go transaction by transaction, where the issue lies, and how it's linked. For example, if it's a low-performance issue, you can look into it more through AppDynamics Server Monitoring in terms of which area takes too much time to execute. You can also see the SQL queries and the kind of query going on through the tool."
 

Cons

"Technical support can be slow and needs improvement."
"With APM, we noticed that the agent can cause a lot of issues for the application, making the agent very unreliable. Many issues are happening, and we've had to discuss it with support to try and get a fix. It affects application availability, and sometimes actions fail because of the agent, degrading the performance of the application."
"They should focus on potentially enhancing the dashboard to make it more contemporary and adding some customization options. Furthermore, there might be room for improvement in the pricing policy."
"The demo that was provided to us is not working very well. At times, there are errors."
"It's still missing some platforms. For example, if you look to applications itself, it is missing the interface."
"The stability is not great and should be better."
"Its web user interface is a little bit old in comparison to other solutions, such as New Relic, and it should be improved. Its scalability and technical support should also be improved. Currently, it is scalable, but only in a vertical way. They provide good technical support, but the initial steps for a new case can be improved to fasten the resolution process."
"The dashboard can be better. Also, the automated reports could be improved."
"I have found it sometimes a bit difficult to trace the transaction all the way through to the application. I'm not sure if that problem is on the database side or on the application side, but that would be something that I would like to be improved. The traceability from the application to the database, sometimes, is a bit of a challenge. If you're using AppDynamics, with the Java agent, for instance, you need to be able to trace it through."
"Improvements can be made in the area of AI integration."
"I would like to see something that lets me set real dollar figures, not just to outages, but to the solutions as well... when I'm looking at problems and have found a problem that I know I need to address. I could flag it off and have AppDynamics estimate how long a person would have taken to find that without it. That would give me a lot of leverage for justifying the existence of APM, which I really need."
"An improvement could be if the monitoring was able to be summarized into something more clear and simple for people who don't have the technical skills on the database side."
"Based on the user experience feedback that we have had, I think that the most important thing to improve is the availability of the SaaS, the cloud environment."
"Stability-wise, we experienced some performance issues when upgrading from 4.4 to 4.5."
"SQL statement monitoring"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing fees can be paid every six months or on a yearly basis."
"IBM APM is one of the cheaper products on the market, while everything necessary to get started is included in the license."
"As I previously indicated, I initiated the IBM and uncovered all its elements. Consequently, I'm not inclined towards a licensing approach."
"AppDynamics offers a yearly basis license."
"The pricing for AppDynamics is expensive, but it is possible to negotiate special pricing through bids."
"This price of this product is expensive."
"There is a license to use this solution. However, the clients pay for the licenses we are the service provider."
"AppDynamics is more expensive than competitors."
"In terms of pricing, I feel that when you compare the benefits that we get to the price that we paid, it is reasonable."
"Yearly payments have to be made toward the licensing costs of the solution. The solution has no additional costs apart from the licensing costs."
"We have two different licensing models for this solution. One of them is the agent based model, which requires payment per agent. The other is an infrastructure based model, where the price is based on the CPU core. For the infrastructure model wholesale level pricing applies. All of the up to date licensing prices for this product are available on the manufacturers website."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
48%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Application Performance Management?
They should focus on potentially enhancing the dashboard to make it more contemporary and adding some customization options. Furthermore, there might be room for improvement in the pricing policy. ...
What is your primary use case for IBM Application Performance Management?
I monitor business applications for more than four end users.
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...
APM tools for a Managed Service Provider - Dynatrace vs. AppDynamics vs. Aternity vs. Ruxit
Hi Avi! It's great to see your thorough approach to selecting an APM package for your MSP company. Considering your focus on SMBs and enterprises in Israel, Dynatrace seems like a solid choice with...
 

Also Known As

IBM APM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mibtree, EatDrinkDeals.com, IT Performance Advisor
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 IBM Application Performance Management vs. Splunk AppDynamics and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.