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Microsoft System Center vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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
8.3
Microsoft System Center boosts efficiency, saves costs through automation and internal task handling, achieving ROI in eight months.
Sentiment score
6.8
Splunk Observability Cloud enhances ROI by boosting visibility, productivity, efficiency, and security, while reducing downtime and costs.
Using Splunk has saved my organization about 30% of our budget compared to using multiple different monitoring products.
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Anyone working in front-end management should recognize the market price to see the true value of end-user monitoring.
General Manager at MOCOMSYS
I have definitely seen a return on investment with Splunk Observability Cloud, particularly through how fast it has grown and how comfortable other teams are in relying on its outputs for monitoring and observability.
IT Operations Engineer at ABC Supply Co. Inc.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
4.9
Microsoft System Center support is appreciated but criticized for slow response times, regional dependencies, and cost concerns.
Sentiment score
7.1
Splunk Observability Cloud's customer support is generally responsive, with mixed reviews on efficiency and availability for complex issues.
As a partner, I cannot create a ticket directly; I have to involve the end user's email to create one, so using the Software Assurance ID to create a ticket directly is not possible, making it very challenging for me.
Sr. Sys. Server & Storage Egineer / Tech .Consultant at CANAR OFFICE SYSTEMS
On a scale of 1 to 10, the customer service and technical support deserve a 10.
Systems Administrator at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
They have consistently helped us resolve any issues we've encountered.
Software Engineer at UKG
They often require multiple questions, with five or six emails to get a response.
Splunk Observability Expert
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft System Center is highly scalable, managing thousands of endpoints efficiently, yet requires careful resource consideration for optimal performance.
Sentiment score
7.3
Splunk Observability Cloud offers smooth scalability and flexibility for diverse needs but may face cost and metric limit challenges.
Microsoft System Center is scalable, allowing integration even if I have different sites.
Sr. Sys. Server & Storage Egineer / Tech .Consultant at CANAR OFFICE SYSTEMS
We've used the solution across more than 250 people, including engineers.
Splunk Observability Expert
As we are a growing company transitioning all our applications to the cloud, and with the increasing number of cloud-native applications, Splunk Observability Cloud will help us achieve digital resiliency and reduce our mean time to resolution.
Application Developer at UMB Financial
I would rate its scalability a nine out of ten.
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft System Center is valued for its maturity and stability, performing reliably with manageable bugs and efficient update resolutions.
Sentiment score
7.7
Splunk Observability Cloud is stable and reliable with infrequent issues, resolved efficiently, praised for performance and support.
I would rate its stability a nine out of ten.
Head of DevOps at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
We rarely have problems accessing the dashboard or the page.
Splunk Observability Expert
Unlike NetScout or regular agents for APM, RUM has many problems during the POC phase because customer environments vary widely.
General Manager at MOCOMSYS
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft System Center needs improved third-party integration, simplified installation, enhanced performance, user interface updates, and better documentation.
Splunk Observability Cloud needs enhanced integration, scalability, cost-efficiency, UI, third-party support, and better documentation and customer support.
The disadvantage of Microsoft System Center is related to the many integrated services; if one service is failing, then all features will be affected.
Sr. Sys. Server & Storage Egineer / Tech .Consultant at CANAR OFFICE SYSTEMS
The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders.
IT Operations Engineer at ABC Supply Co. Inc.
The next release of Splunk Observability Cloud should include a feature that makes it so that when looking at charts and dashboards, and also looking at one environment regardless of the product feature that you're in, APM, infrastructure, RUM, the environment that is chosen in the first location when you sign into Splunk Observability Cloud needs to stay persistent all the way through.
Systems Monitoring Engineer II at a government with 10,001+ employees
There is room for improvement in the alerting system, which is complicated and has less documentation available.
Head of DevOps at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft System Center is pricey, with annual fees and potential savings from SQL Server, rated 5-7 on affordability.
Splunk Observability Cloud is seen as expensive but offers flexible, transparent pricing with potential negotiation for cost-efficiency.
Splunk is a bit expensive since it charges based on the indexing rate of data.
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
It is expensive, especially when there are other vendors that offer something similar for much cheaper.
Solutions Architect at Ikusi
It appears to be expensive compared to competitors.
Head of DevOps at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft System Center offers comprehensive endpoint management with integration, automation, monitoring, and ease of use in Windows environments.
Splunk Observability Cloud offers seamless integration, real-time monitoring, and customization for enhanced visibility, threat detection, and performance optimization.
In Microsoft System Center, all the features are integrated already, whereas in ManageEngine, you have to license each feature individually to access those features.
Sr. Sys. Server & Storage Egineer / Tech .Consultant at CANAR OFFICE SYSTEMS
Splunk provides advanced notifications of roadblocks in the application, which helps us to improve and avoid impacts during high-volume days.
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
For troubleshooting, we can detect problems in seconds, which is particularly helpful for digital teams.
Splunk Observability Expert
It offers unified visibility for logs, metrics, and traces.
Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft System Center
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
28th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (14th)
Splunk Observability Cloud
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (8th), Network Monitoring Software (6th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Container Management (6th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Microsoft System Center is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 2.4%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud2.4%
Microsoft System Center0.7%
Other96.9%
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Carl Palapal - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Sys. Server & Storage Egineer / Tech .Consultant at CANAR OFFICE SYSTEMS
Provides comprehensive system management with effective deployment and integration capabilities
The advantages of Microsoft System Center are significant, and I have seen other products as well. As far as advantages are concerned, they have PXE deployment, which is good for deploying operating systems, such as Windows client systems including Windows 10 and Windows 11. Since it is a Microsoft product, all the patches are proprietary, making it easier to deploy. In Microsoft System Center, all the features are integrated already, whereas in ManageEngine, you have to license each feature individually to access those features. The automated features of Virtual Machine Manager are very useful; it automates as long as the policy that I have created is in line with the objective, especially the templates when I'm going to deploy. Regarding endpoint management, Microsoft System Center is very helpful; it has integrated endpoint protection deployment, allowing me to handle endpoint configuration, system deployment, and patch deployment, making it an all-in-one stop shop for managing and configuring end clients. The impact of using Microsoft System Center is significant; it gives me a whole picture of my environment, making it easy to get inventory details regarding applications and hardware, providing full visibility of my setup within the organization.
Taiwo Ige - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Operations Engineer at ABC Supply Co. Inc.
Alerting improves incident response across teams and enables faster awareness before customer impact
Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved in terms of integrations with more technical add-ons, such as Zoom. Although they have one with Zoom, it's not available in the cloud, so having that feature would be beneficial. Essentially, Splunk should continue expanding to create easier ways to ingest logs from different products. The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders. However, there are aspects that could be improved, such as linking dashboards to one another. While IT leaders may not drill down, it's crucial to create levels of dashboards for technical users to find root causes, making it effective for stakeholders.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise46
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Microsoft System Center?
The disadvantage of Microsoft System Center is related to the many integrated services; if one service is failing, then all features will be affected. For example, with site configuration, when one...
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

MS System Center
Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Kassen_rztliche Vereinigung Nordrhein, Magyar Telekom Nyrt., Adeka, QualCare, Aeriandi, UniCredit Bank d.d., Mostar, Allianz Australia Ltd., Grupo Familia
Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft System Center vs. Splunk Observability Cloud and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.