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Kubernetes vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 19, 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

Kubernetes
Ranking in Container Management
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk Observability Cloud
Ranking in Container Management
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (8th), Network Monitoring Software (6th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Kubernetes is 6.3%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Venu Boddu - PeerSpot reviewer
Manage infrastructure automation and smooth application deployment with robust auto-scaling capabilities
Kubernetes is highly valuable for its node-based setup, which allows for the running of multiple pods. This feature is essential for infrastructure automation and application deployment. Kubernetes also offers rollback control and auto-scaling capabilities, which are crucial for maintaining an application's availability even if nodes or pods go down. Additionally, Kubernetes supports load balancing to distribute traffic efficiently across multiple pods.
Lakshmi Padaga - PeerSpot reviewer
Collaborates performance metrics with log data to pinpoint the exact cause of issues and offers error detection
Splunk APM is a robust tool with many capabilities. There are always areas for potential improvement to enhance its functionality and user experience. For Splunk APM, there could be simplified navigation, like streamlining the user interface to make navigation more intuitive for our users, especially those new to APM, which can enhance usability. We can provide more customization options for dashboards and visualizations to help users tailor the platform to their specific needs. There could be more integration capabilities with a wider range of third-party tools and platforms would also be beneficial. By focusing on these areas, Splunk APM can enhance its value proposition, improve user satisfaction, and better meet the evolving needs of organizations monitoring their application performance.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"All the current features are quite harmonic."
"Kubernetes' most valuable features are scaling, deployment, and container management."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the scalability."
"The most valuable feature of the platform is the ability to load some of the containers that were previously managed by humans."
"The Desired State Configuration is a handy feature; we can deploy a certain number of pods, and the tool will ensure that the state is maintained in our desired configuration."
"Auto-scaling and self-healing features are very good."
"It is a stable and scalable product."
"Kubernetes is highly valuable for its node-based setup, which allows for the running of multiple pods."
"The solution monitors attacks or unauthorized access to the information we want to protect."
"Splunk has been recognized by Gartner as a leader in providing visibility for observability and monitoring across various platforms, including physical, virtual, and container environments, for several years."
"The product retains a lot of log data for subsequent analysis."
"The features are pretty much ready out of the box."
"The best features in Splunk Observability Cloud are the metrics; I can see any logs or anything related to the server or services we want to monitor, and the metrics are a good function."
"It's a very easy-to-use solution."
"Splunk's dashboards are great."
"I manage six tools, but Splunk Observability Cloud is one of my favorites, and I aspire to build my career specializing in it because it has great features, more attention in the market, and is a relatively new tool with promising growth."
 

Cons

"Kubernetes can improve pod escalation."
"They should update Kubernetes more regularly."
"Security could be improved. It would be helpful if there were other security modules built into Kubernetes."
"We would like to see more validation tools added to this solution, this would provide pre-deployment analysis that developers could use before publishing their infrastructure."
"The configuration is a bit complicated."
"The dashboard, monitoring, and login need improvements."
"Having a thread dump and memory dump, and seeing how many objects were created would be useful."
"The solution does not work with third-party tools, or alternative cloud providers, which limits the extent that we can utilize it to."
"The UI enhancements could be a way to improve the solution in the future."
"Technical support is good but could be improved, particularly concerning the time taken for ticket resolution."
"There is room for improvement in customer support due to delays and standard feedback responses."
"The cost needs to be re-examined. It's extremely expensive to run. It's also expensive to expand. That's the number one complaint all of my customers have when it comes to Splunk. It's way too expensive compared to other solutions."
"It would be useful if they provided some help pages. If you don't know too much about the tool, there should be more documentation readily available. It would be useful if they had a help button embedded in the solution so you could ask questions and get answers."
"The initial setup of Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) was easy. The solution is deployed on-premises."
"A lot of customers had a hard time effectively searching within the data in Splunk. There is a learning curve from searches to indexes and using all the macros that we have created. It is a little difficult for somebody who has not used it quite a bit and does not have a lot of practice with it, but the AI features that we have been hearing about through Splunk will make it a lot easier for us to use human language to search this data. That is big. That is pretty powerful, and that will help a lot with our customers."
"Splunk APM should include a better correlation between resources and infrastructure monitoring."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is affordable."
"Kubernetes is open-source."
"There is no licensing fee."
"It's an affordable solution"
"Pricing isn't a major concern for us. Since we resell Kubernetes services and focus on providing support, integration, and education, we don't usually have pricing issues. Our customers are more concerned with getting the right support and services than the cost. So, the value we provide is more important than the actual pricing. Pricing might change in the future, but it’s not a big issue for us right now."
"The management layer is free, which is perfect. You don't need to pay money for the management layer, but in AWS develop service, you need to pay. I think it is €75 per month for the management layer. It is free here, so you can have as many Kubernetes clusters as you need. You are paying just for the workload, that is, for the machine, CPU, memory, and everything."
"The solution itself is open-source, so there is no cost attached to it. However, it requires a virtual machine to operate, which does come at a cost; a choice of a pay as you go model, or a monthly charge via an enterprise agreement. There is a pricing calculator available, where organizations can determine the level and number of virtual machines required, and how much that will cost."
"Microsoft provides reasonable costs for Kubernetes."
"The solution's pricing is costly."
"Splunk APM is a very cost-efficient solution."
"Splunk's infrastructure monitoring costs can be high because our billing is based on data volume measured in terabytes, rather than the number of devices being monitored."
"This is an expensive solution."
"I am not in that circle, but we are currently licensing based on our queries. That is working out for us. Previously, it was by volume of data, and now, we can store as much data as we want."
"The price of Splunk APM is less than some of its competitors."
"Splunk Observability Cloud is expensive."
"The pricing is based on several factors, including the scale of deployment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
7%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Kubernetes?
There are many good features. I feel that the scale-out features, like replica sets, are very good. The number of running containers can be autoscaled.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kubernetes?
Since we use Kubernetes on-premises, the costs are related to our expertise and the personnel we hire.
What needs improvement with Kubernetes?
Although we face issues when migrating to new versions of Kubernetes, such as misunderstandings on using new features or integration with proxy services, these issues can be addressed with proper p...
What do you like most about SignalFx?
The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.
What needs improvement with SignalFx?
Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and pr...
What is your primary use case for SignalFx?
The solution involves observability in general, such as Application Performance Monitoring, and generally addresses digital applications, web applications, sites, and mobile applications. I worked ...
 

Also Known As

K8
Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

China unicom, NetEase Cloud, Nav, AppDirect
Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara
Find out what your peers are saying about Kubernetes vs. Splunk Observability Cloud and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.