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New Relic vs SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor vs Splunk AppDynamics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of New Relic is 5.1%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is 1.4%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 4.0%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Splunk AppDynamics4.0%
New Relic5.1%
SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor1.4%
Other89.5%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Rahul -Jain - PeerSpot reviewer
Good for application Performance Monitoring but not stable
There are two types of teams we have in every organization. One is for DevOps, and the second one is for performance testing. Those who are using these tools, like AppDynamics, Dynatrace, or whatever tool we have on the APM side. These tools are used by two teams: one is the performance team, and another one is the DevOps team. So, the setup and the alert system belong to the DevOps team, not for performance. So, I don't use any alerts in AppDynamics, Dynatrace, or any of the tools.
VIVEK PATHAK - PeerSpot reviewer
Offering reasonably good dashboarding features but needs to improve the application performance monitoring
My company uses Riverbed for application performance monitoring. I was doing research so that I could understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor provide APM capabilities similar to Riverbed, which allows our company to get a packet capture of an entire session, and on the basis of it, we look at the application performance monitoring part. With SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, my company does SNMP polling, so it can drag an entire session, but it focuses more on availability, CPU memory, and server connection status. In Riverbed, my company catches an entire system, so when we deal with two applications, we have end-to-end app visibility. All the application monitoring happens through Riverbed. Our company's main problem is that, as of now, we have two different products in our organization, and we don't want to continue with the multiple products currently. I wanted to understand if SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor already have capabilities like Riverbed, and if they do, then I wanted to figure out why our company should not go with SolarWinds and why we are using products from multiple vendors. My company needs to continue with either Riverbed or SolarWinds. I wanted to see which products are good for the organization and how much I want to continue with Riverbed.
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 solution is scalable, and it is easy because all the documentation is available."
"Sometimes, I monitor the user's time of response and use this information to improve the number of servers on the back-end. Or, I can use it to change my back log for front-end developers and improve their response times. It's very important in this case because I can improve the experience of the final user."
"It offers helpful user metrics so we can learn more about the user experience."
"The deep insights, which will give you the metrics (not a high level), so we can build out at the database level where the bottleneck is. This has been pretty helpful."
"We have done the New Relic integration with Serverless AWS, which has helped us with monitoring, and keeping our monitoring from our on-premise part with the cloud part."
"The most valuable features of New Relic are the reports and ease of use."
"It has helped my organization to dive deeper into the application using the APM module is very helpful."
"Support for plug-ins (RMQ, Redis etc.) is a valuable feature."
"This product can monitor application environments no matter where they reside and provides capabilities for deep insight into infrastructure."
"I find it to be a strong product suite, particularly when you need a comprehensive monitoring tool."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used for monitoring."
"There are many valuable features, including the network configuration manager, and the network performance manager."
"The most beneficial aspect of SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor is its ability to monitor at the application level."
"Manage Groups: The capability to group appropriate devices gives better visibility of sites, categories, or critical regions. The same can be used to represent a dashboard for higher management."
"The solution has good alerts. Notifications are sent via email to technicians. You can filter the kinds of alerts you want to receive as well. It's excellent."
"SolarWinds SAM has significantly improved our workflow by allowing us to develop a comprehensive knowledge base of known errors and automate responses to specific alerts."
"We have been able to monitor our applications more accurately."
"We set up alerts recently so we can fix any issues more quickly in production."
"The best features of AppDynamics would be the code application monitoring capabilities."
"This solution is easy to use and very powerful, it is a complete tool for us."
"We can make custom alerts in our system for specific issues like high CPU utilization or application downtime."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I don't see any problems in the solution...The solution's technical support was good."
"The product has the ability to drill down to the errors whenever we have issues."
"The dashboards are very well-defined."
 

Cons

"It would help customers if there were an on-premises version available."
"I would like an infrastructure network that provides real-time views, showing the issues."
"Some AIOps are missing in New Relic APS, and I would like to see more features in this area."
"There were some settings we had issues with."
"The customization of the start and end time is kind of cool."
"It gives you amazing statistics, but doesn’t give you enough information about what to do with the statistics."
"I would like if it could have predictive analysis. Today, we only have the option to configure thresholds."
"It is complicated, especially in how you interpret the data that it provides. If it had a bit more canned, out-of-the-box features, especially some of the reporting features, that would be more useful."
"SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor could improve the server monitoring and the web application monitoring features are not good. Microsoft SCOM has better server monitoring."
"The stability, flexibility, and ease of use could be improved."
"The product needs to reduce its price."
"In terms of the dashboards on offer, they should work to improve them. The types of dashboards that you get in terms of the graphs on offer aren't ideal right now."
"I would like to see support for non-Windows or non-Microsoft domains, especially Apache and other non-Windows servers."
"I believe that some of the trends, environmental maps, and items like those found in Orion would be very beneficial."
"Nodes in Azure are able to be monitored with the use of agents, but this does not apply to cloud service offerings that are not node based."
"It should also be easier to upgrade SolarWinds. AppDynamics is harder to deploy but easier to upgrade. So AppDynamics takes a lot of time and effort to install, but you can upgrade it in minutes. SolarWinds is the opposite. It's easy to deploy, but upgrades take forever. To date, nobody can complete it on time, so the production environment is sitting idle."
"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."
"AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring needs to offer an end-to-end experience, including the internet layer and third-party elements that come into play on websites."
"The solution's user interface should be improved."
"The configuration is tricky and requires a lot of tools."
"AppDynamics' modules and hardware resources are very high."
"The only improvement I see is intercepting calls in a mobile application without injecting additional code. Currently, when instrumenting or monitoring a mobile application, it's necessary to release updates, prompt users to upgrade, and inject code into the backend. It would be beneficial if there were a method to intercept these calls without requiring users to download and upgrade the application. However, I'm unsure about the feasibility of such an approach."
"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"I would like to see accommodation for millisecond granularity, as we only have one-second granularity now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one means cheap, and ten means very expensive."
"The price of New Relic APM could be less expensive. We are using the New Relic APM pro account and it is more costly. When compared to competitors the solution's pricing should be much more realistic."
"We spend somewhere around $5,000 to $6,000 per month with an annual recommitment of maybe $60,000. These are just ballpark figures."
"They gave us aggressive discounts when they were brought in for the first time, but they have also kept them for the year-on-year renewals, which has been absolutely fine."
"If I remember it correctly, the pricing was based on the core, and the monthly subscription used to cost us $1,500 or $2,000. We had pre-prod and production services. Costing was different for pre-prod and production. For pre-prod, it was 40% less than the production service cost. It was a combined package."
"Cost is significant with a lot of extras."
"The pricing model is a little confusing for beginners. They find it a little expensive, and if you are using it already, then that is not good."
"The solution is priced reasonably. New Relic APM is one of the best products for me because it's economical, so anyone can easily pick it over other solutions and use it."
"I like the pricing for this SolarWinds product."
"Pricing and licensing is fair for what you get. It does have a great bang-for-the-buck appeal."
"The licenses start from USD 3000.00 and go up to USD 20,000.00 for the year. It's a perpetual license. Nothing is free in SolarWinds, anything that you need is an additional cost."
"Pricing is inexpensive, starting at 2440 euros. For that, you get the ability to monitor a couple of nodes and one year of maintenance and support."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It is just the standard price, but it can vary depending on the current rate of the dollar."
"I think SolarWinds' pricing is very decent compared to other competitors in the market."
"The solution's price is reasonable. Though it's on the higher side, the tool is worth the money."
"I have always said SolarWinds is very “proud” of their products, meaning they are expensive. I cannot afford to purchase all the licenses I need for all the SolarWinds products."
"I believe there was probably an extra charge whenever I wanted to contact the support team."
"AppDynamics is what I would consider an enterprise-level solution. This means that it's a solution that is intended for use by larger organizations, while small or medium-sized businesses may find it difficult to afford. The number of agents required will also impact the pricing, and smaller companies may only be able to afford a limited number of agents. Essentially, the cost of the solution is not within the reach of every organization, and only some may be able to afford it."
"The tool is expensive."
"The pricing needs to come down."
"AppDynamics does not usually do monthly payments. They do it on an annual basis, at the very least."
"The pricing for AppDynamics Server Monitoring in Africa and the Middle East is too expensive, so it's very hard to sell it to customers. If there could be different pricing or package for the region, that would be great. My company pays for the license of AppDynamics Server Monitoring on a per-agent, per-server basis. It's $700 to $1000 per server, and it's paid annually. My company is on a subscription model for the solution. On a scale of one to five, where one is expensive and five is cheap, my rating for the price of AppDynamics Server Monitoring is a two."
"AppDynamics Database Monitoring requires a license for database monitoring and other features, while Dynatrace provides monitoring and other features out of the box without additional costs. Sometimes this makes it more challenging to pitch AppDynamics Database Monitoring to customers, especially because you need to buy a separate license. As an implementer, I have yet to learn about the pricing for AppDynamics Database Monitoring. Pricing is taken care of by the sales team."
"I would say the solution is affordable because it is widely used across financial service sectors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business65
Midsize Enterprise49
Large Enterprise60
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business54
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise188
 

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems,...
What do you like most about New Relic Insights?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What needs improvement with New Relic Insights?
I reviewed another observability tool, DataDog, and we moved away from New Relic because the pricing was not convenie...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor?
There are no specific features or functionality I would like to see improved or enhanced in SolarWinds Server and App...
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 f...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AppDynamics?
I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten. The solution is highly expensive. Our company pays for the solution on ...
 

Also Known As

New Relic Browser, New Relic Applied Intelligence, New Relic Insights, New Relic Synthetics, New Relic Servers, New Relic APM
SolarWinds SAM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

World Fuel Services, Verizon, FootLocker, McDonald's, Trainline, Mondia Media, Confused, Costa Coffee, Ryanair, Marks & Spencer, William Hill, Delivery Hero, Skyscanner, BASF, DAZN, Veygo, Virtuo, movingimage, talabat, Australia Post, Tokopedia, Seven Network, Virgin Australia, Zomato, BigBasket, Mercado Libre, Lending Club
Andr. L. Riis AS, NetSuite
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 Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability. Updated: August 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.