IBM Application Performance Management vs Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) comparison

IBM and Splunk are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. IBM is ranked #52 with an average rating of 7.0, while Splunk is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.2. IBM holds a 0.3% mindshare in APM, compared to Splunk’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 62% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

IBM Application Performance...

Read 7 IBM Application Performance Management reviews

803 Views
460 Comparison Views

62% willing to recommend

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Int...

Read 50 Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) reviews

1,725 Views
764 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

IBM Application Performance...

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Int...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

IBM Application Performance Management (APM) and Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) are compared for features, room for improvement, ease of deployment, and pricing and ROI. Users favor Splunk ITSI for its superior features, while IBM APM is seen as better in pricing and ROI.

Features: IBM APM provides comprehensive monitoring capabilities, easy integration with IBM tools, and seamless performance tracking. Splunk ITSI offers extensive data analytics, advanced visualization, and deep insights.

Room for Improvement: IBM APM needs more intuitive navigation, enhanced custom reporting, and better usability. Splunk ITSI requires performance optimization, reduced complexity, and streamlined usage.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM APM is known for its straightforward setup process and supportive customer service. Splunk ITSI has a steeper learning curve during deployment and less responsive support.

Pricing and ROI: IBM APM offers good value for its cost, resulting in favorable ROI perceptions. Splunk ITSI, while higher in price, offers extensive features that justify the investment through strong ROI perceptions.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Application Performance Management vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Application Performance Management vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

June 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 857,585 peers since 2012

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

52nd

Average Rating

6.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

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

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 IBM Application Performance Management is 0.3%, down from 0.4% 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

Daniel Tamiru

Manager, Database & System Administration at Awash International Bank

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…

Read full review

Srinivasulu Soolluru

Splunk ITSI Developer at Tata Consultancy

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"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."

"The initial setup was straightforward and took minimal effort."

"I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten."

"The most valuable feature is the breakdown that it provides, such as a description of the fields for a particular transaction."

"The KPS used to automate the integration policy is the most valuable feature of Splunk ITSI."

"Splunk Episodes are valuable because it correlates and aggregates all the information, and you do not have one million events to look at and triage, so it is quite convenient."

"The most valuable features of Splunk ITSI are event analytics and service insight."

"The feature that stood out to me most from Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) was automated dashboarding or reporting. The solution lists the severity level of issues, and the response times."

"The root cause analysis is very helpful for us."

"Having worked closely with Splunk support engineers, I've observed their high capabilities in resolving issues."

"The solution has been stable."

"The observability is great and valuable."

More Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The demo that was provided to us is not working very well. At times, there are errors."

"The stability is not great and should be better."

"It's still missing some platforms. For example, if you look to applications itself, it is missing the interface."

"Technical support can be slow and needs improvement."

"It was an intimidating tool for us to jump into at the beginning."

"The end-to-end visibility in Splunk ITSI is limited and has room for improvement."

"The biggest improvement area is making it open to developers. Right now, it is very closed. It can only be downloaded by people who have a license to and not everyone. If it is open to everybody, more people will use it."

"Microservices is the only area where Splunk ITSI can be improved. When things come from one EC2 instance to another, there's a lack of exposure to microservices, so we can't know what's happening. Apart from that, it's doing pretty well."

"Quality-of-life features have room for improvement."

"While integrating services and KPIs in ITSI is straightforward, I found it challenging to analyze them with the service analyzers; specifically, using the deep dive feature to pinpoint the exact source and time of an issue proved difficult."

"They should make it easier to use. Many people are new to it. It is hard and has a steep learning curve."

"I believe the refresh time should be faster."

More Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The licensing fees can be paid every six months or on a yearly basis."

"Splunk ITSI is expensive; however, with the appropriate use case, it justifies the cost."

"I wouldn't say there's been an issue with the solution's pricing because we went through the AWS marketplace and negotiated directly with Splunk."

"The licensing is based on data usage."

"Splunk ITSI is a premium application and comes with a premium price tag."

"I would prefer that the price be reduced, as it would be easier to implement it and to sell it."

"The cost of the modules is a bit high for non-global companies, making it difficult for them to afford Splunk ITSI."

"It is interesting. I am not involved that much lately, but if I recall correctly, you license primarily on the volume of data that you are using in Splunk ITSI, but there is no way Splunk can ever check if that is true, so that is interesting. We are not doing it, but someone can pretend to just use 10%, and it would be super cheap. It is tricky, but it is more tricky for Splunk than for us."

"Splunk ITSI is expensive compared to other tools."

More Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

857,585 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

26%

Computer Software Company

11%

University

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Application Performance Management?

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

See all answers

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. ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Application Performance Management?

I monitor business applications for more than four end users.

See all answers

What do you like most about Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?

Our mean time to detect is down to five minutes.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Instana Dynamic APM vs IBM Application Performance Management

Compared 27% of the time

BMC Compuware Strobe vs IBM Application Performance Management

Compared 22% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs IBM Application Performance Management

Compared 15% of the time

Datadog vs IBM Application Performance Management

Compared 12% of the time

IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager vs IBM Application Performance Management

Compared 9% of the time

More IBM Application Performance Management Competitors

ServiceNow IT Operations Management vs Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

Compared 17% of the time

Dynatrace vs Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

Compared 13% of the time

OpsRamp vs Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

Compared 10% of the time

BigPanda vs Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

Compared 9% of the time

Splunk Observability Cloud vs Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

Compared 9% of the time

More Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

June 2025

IBM Application Performance Management report

Download IBM Application Performance Management product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

May 2025

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) report

Download Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) product report

Also Known As

IBM APM

No data available

Overview

The IBM Application Performance Management portfolio provides visibility, control and automation of your mission-critical applications. It helps pinpoint the root cause of application's issue more quickly and resolve the problem. The integrated capabilities cover the five key areas: discovery, end-use experience, transaction tracking, enterprise diagnostics and analytics. It also easily monitors applications to ensure optimal performance to extend your hybrid management environment capabilities, to measure the customer experience from multiple locations and to further eliminate blind spots in your application environment.

IBM

Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) is a powerful analytics-driven monitoring and analytics solution that provides real-time insights into the health and performance of IT services.

It enables organizations to proactively identify and resolve issues, optimize service delivery, and improve overall IT operations. With its advanced machine learning capabilities, ITSI automatically detects anomalies, predicts future events, and prioritizes alerts based on business impact.

The solution offers a centralized view of IT services, allowing users to visualize and analyze data from multiple sources in a single dashboard. ITSI also provides customizable KPIs, service-level agreements (SLAs), and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure and track service performance.

With its intuitive interface and powerful analytics capabilities, Splunk ITSI empowers IT teams to deliver reliable and efficient services, ensuring maximum uptime and customer satisfaction.

Splunk

Sample Customers

Mibtree, EatDrinkDeals.com, IT Performance Advisor

TransUnion, Cox Automotive, Carnival Cruises, Leidos, Econocom, National Ignition Factory, Entrust Datacard, Molina Healthcare, United States Census Bureau

Buyer's Guide

IBM Application Performance Management vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

June 2025

Free Report: IBM Application Performance Management vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Application Performance Management vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

857,585 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IBM Application Performance Management vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) report.

See our list of best Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability vendors.

We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.