ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) comparison

ServiceNow and Splunk are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. ServiceNow is ranked #64, while Splunk is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.6. ServiceNow holds a 0.7% mindshare in APM, compared to Splunk’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ServiceNow users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Read 5 ServiceNow Cloud Observability reviews

2,183 Views
2,096 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Int...

Read 64 Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) reviews

5,892 Views
3,771 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Int...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

ServiceNow Cloud Observability and Splunk ITSI are both comprehensive monitoring solutions. ServiceNow Cloud Observability has an edge in support, while Splunk ITSI is preferred for its advanced features.

Features: Users value ServiceNow Cloud Observability for its integration capabilities, real-time insights, and straightforward deployment process. Splunk ITSI is praised for its deep analytics, customizable dashboards, and advanced features.

Room for Improvement: ServiceNow Cloud Observability users seek enhanced scalability, better compatibility with third-party tools, and improved expandability. Splunk ITSI users desire simpler configuration options, reduced complexity, and less setup intricacies.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: ServiceNow Cloud Observability is commended for its straightforward deployment process and responsive customer service. Splunk ITSI's deployment is seen as somewhat complex, but its customer service remains effective.

Pricing and ROI: ServiceNow Cloud Observability has a competitive pricing model and delivers solid ROI according to reviews. Splunk ITSI’s pricing is higher, but users feel it justifies the cost through its comprehensive features and performance benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) Report (Updated: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

August 2026

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Helped 909,725 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

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

64th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

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

10th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Alerting and Incident Management (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)	0.8%
ServiceNow Cloud Observability	0.7%
Other	98.5%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Uday-Thentu

Project Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Automation has reduced incident impact and is driving proactive self‑healing across hybrid services

ServiceNow Cloud Observability's valuable features include AI agents that can be integrated and triggered with workflows for evaluating and taking the right action in both process and technical aspects. On the process side, it ensures the right approvals are triggered. From the technical aspect, it allows integration for taking relevant action without human intervention, moving towards self-healing. The main benefit of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is real-time data, which helps us move from being reactive to more proactive. By defining and fine-tuning workflows, we were able to implement timely notification and auto-action or auto-remediations. At the same time, if anything involves additional cost or requires intervention, it helps trigger approval notifications, and once approval is received, it timely takes the action. The AI agents help define and fine-tune those workflows further.

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DhirendraSingh2

Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

Service health has been monitored and visual insights support proactive telecom operations

The installation process is the first aspect I dislike about Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence). If you do not configure it correctly, you will encounter issues in the search head. Because we use a distributed environment where each component has its own specific roles, installation is critical and requires careful attention. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is built with many applications. It is a compressed file, and when you extract the Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) app, you receive approximately 19 apps. Some applications, add-ons, and packages must be installed on specific components. If you do not configure an application correctly, it will not work. Sometimes we encounter issues during installation because of this complexity. I believe the installation process should be more uniform, meaning it could be deployed across all components to avoid post-installation issues. Sometimes after installation, you receive errors, and users cannot access Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence). We have experienced this type of issue due to installation errors. I believe there is currently room for improvement regarding scalability. When we create Glass Tables containing many searches, the Glass Tables sometimes fail due to memory constraints, and we receive error pages. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) should have a lightweight version to address these concerns. I would rate current scalability as medium.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ability to create a stream based on different parameters, operation name, service name, URL, tags, and URI part, is one valuable feature."

"To a certain extent, it is possible to save on the costs of the product."

"The UI is very intuitive."

"The solution Lightstep/ServiceNow has a couple of pretty advanced functionalities to help us investigate a deviation and help the development teams have better observability in the environment using distributed and complex services."

"The main benefit of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is real-time data, which helps us move from being reactive to more proactive."

"I particularly appreciate two features of Splunk ITSI: data forwarding and the marketplace."

"Our mean time to detect is down to five minutes."

"I find the episode review, glass tables, and correlation search features very useful."

"Splunk should be used because it provides a better solution in terms of SIEM as well as reporting."

"It has saved a lot of time, made things more efficient, made budgeting easy, and made it enjoyable to learn and use as a tool."

"Splunk ITSI offers a valuable visualization tree that allows us to map and analyze dependencies and co-dependency within our environment."

"It has saved me a lot of money and a lot of time."

"The most valuable feature is event correlation, which ensures that only one ticket is generated per issue, eliminating duplicates and reducing noise from multiple alerts."

More Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) pros

Cons

"The support team could be better. Because of the different versions of different tactics of integrating reactive code base, the documentation is not very clear if someone has to be onboard. I would rate the documentation of Lightstep a five out of ten. It could need improvement."

"The cost could be reduced or lightweight agents and lightweight modules could be introduced, which would make it much easier to implement."

"The design of this solution is not very intuitive and probably could come with more friendly tips for beginners."

"The dashboard and graphics must be improved."

"In terms of licensing, users would want the product to offer them the ability to tailor the tasks offered in the solution to suit their needs."

"We experience occasional delays in receiving solutions from Splunk technical support. Splunk's support for P3 cases seems inadequate, as they frequently switch support personnel. For instance, in a single P3 case, we had three different technical support representatives assigned. We were ultimately forced to escalate the issue to our account manager to get it resolved. In essence, we never receive complete support from a single point of contact; instead, the support team keeps changing, necessitating us to explain the problem from scratch each time."

"Scalability is a bit challenging, mainly if high loads are encountered. I faced several issues with high thread usage, so I would rate it around seven to eight, particularly considering that scalability is crucial yet can be premium in cost."

"Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) can be improved because there are some events that get missed in indexing, especially on the stats and AC stats."

"Splunk ITSI could benefit from including more features that other solutions support, such as vulnerability management modules."

"The cost of the license could be lower."

"Some of our customers occasionally require the development of the connectors when there are no native connectors so that we can develop in Python or for customer slash comments as well. If they could adjust that, it would be ideal."

"ITSI currently lacks the capability for automated response, mitigation, and remediation."

"When we check the service analyzer, and we have custom inputs, there are issues."

More Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive. I rate the tool's pricing model an eight out of ten."

"Its pricing has been changed as per the market. You get a good support service with it as well. They have 24/7 customer support. There is a portal, and if you are having issues, they are available in order to resolve them. So, its pricing isn't too much."

"It depends on how big an organization is. If we have a lot of resources, the licensing needs to be upgraded. If we have a small environment, the licensing cost is definitely going to be less."

"The licensing is based on data usage."

"Pricing was pretty good, and it is possible to just add on the features we want."

"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."

"The pricing of Splunk is a bit high."

"It would have been good if the product cost was much lower."

"Pricing has some room for improvement."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Construction Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Outsourcing Company

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	46

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with LightStep?

The cost could be reduced or lightweight agents and lightweight modules could be introduced, which would make it much easier to implement.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for LightStep?

ServiceNow Cloud Observability's main use case is end-to-end automation starting from the trigger in the cloud. Currently, it focuses more on self-healing and understanding the complete uptime of e...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering LightStep?

Regarding security, I unfortunately do not have much hands-on experience. My focus has been majorly on self-healing activities, but given what I have observed, it does provide a good opportunity in...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?

From a pricing perspective, it is not that bad because we get it from a distributor and do not purchase it directly from Splunk. We get it from a distributor who gives the pricing to a partner and ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?

In terms of improvements for Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence), I would suggest adding more out-of-the-box plugins and adapters, especially as there is a high demand for observability and dashb...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?

I use Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) as a manager of the managers, a tool sitting on top of all the other observability tools. It gets the alerts feed from all the sources such as Splunk Ent...

See all answers

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

July 2026

Download ServiceNow Cloud Observability product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

July 2026

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) report

Download Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) product report

Also Known As

LightStep

No data available

Overview

ServiceNow Cloud Observability offers advanced monitoring and alerting capabilities, leveraging AI-driven automation and seamless integrations to enhance visibility and performance in hybrid environments.

ServiceNow Cloud Observability empowers teams with real-time metrics and tracing capabilities, essential for managing numerous microservices across hybrid environments. It integrates seamlessly with popular tools like Grafana, offering a single-pane view of application health and performance. This solution supports self-healing and AI automation, reducing manual interventions and enhancing reliability. Although powerful, users see room for improvement in SDK integration, documentation clarity, and dashboard design, while performance issues are noted when handling a large volume of traces.

What are the most important features of ServiceNow Cloud Observability?

Stream Creation: Enables dashboards via Grafana, enhancing data visualization.
Intuitive Notebooks: Facilitates sharing insights and collaboration.
AI Automation: Supports proactive workflows for better efficiency.
Performance Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights for decision-making.
Latency Monitoring: Ensures quick detection and response to issues.
Error Rate Monitoring: Identifies and addresses potential problems.
Correlation Detection: Enhances problem-solving through detailed analysis.
Self-Healing: Reduces manual interventions and improves service reliability.

What benefits or ROI should be considered in reviews?

Real-Time Visibility: Empowers comprehensive monitoring across microservices.
Seamless Integrations: Supports various tools like Grafana for enhanced functionality.
AI-Driven Reliability: Offers automation and self-healing for reduced downtime.
Performance Insights: Enhances strategic decision-making through detailed analytics.

ServiceNow Cloud Observability is crucial for industries relying on extensive microservices and hybrid environments. Its real-time metrics and tracing are vital for sectors like finance, technology, and telecommunications, where seamless operations and immediate responsiveness are critical.

ServiceNow

Splunk ITSI offers intelligent alerting, predictive analysis, customizable dashboards, and improves visibility and monitoring through Service Analyzer and Glass Tables. Event correlation enhances incident management, reducing alert fatigue, and improves mean time to resolution.

Splunk ITSI enables businesses to proactively monitor their IT environments by offering functionalities that reduce noise and provide enhanced visibility through sophisticated dashboards. Service Analyzer and Glass Tables facilitate the monitoring of KPIs, allowing for the prompt identification of potential issues. The platform's event correlation capabilities streamline incident management. Its scalability efficiently supports large data volumes, integrating diverse data resources while incorporating AI for predictive insights. Future improvements are sought in integration, documentation, and user-friendly interfaces, with an emphasis on simplifying configurations in expansive deployments.

What are the Key Features of Splunk ITSI?

Intelligent Alerting: Provides proactive monitoring and noise reduction.
Service Analyzer: Enables KPI monitoring and issue identification.
Glass Tables: Allows visual monitoring of crucial metrics.
Event Correlation: Simplifies incident management and reduces alert fatigue.
Scalability: Supports large data volumes and integrates vast data sources.

What Benefits and ROI can Users Expect from Splunk ITSI?

Proactive Monitoring: Enhances ability to foresee and mitigate IT issues.
Improved Resolution Time: Accelerates incident resolution and operational efficiency.
Enhanced Business Resilience: Strengthens IT operations through detailed insights.

Industries leverage Splunk ITSI to monitor infrastructure and applications effectively, employing its Service Analyzer and KPI models. Especially in sectors requiring stringent incident management and predictive analytics, integrations like ServiceNow enable visual health assessments and automated anomaly detection, positioning ITSI as a manager of managers by enhancing IT operations with comprehensive reporting and alert correlations.

Splunk

Sample Customers

InVision, Twilio, Lyft, Yext, DigitalOcean,

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

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

August 2026

Free Report: ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)

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