ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

ServiceNow and Splunk are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. ServiceNow is ranked #41 with an average rating of 7.5, while Splunk is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.7. ServiceNow holds a 0.4% mindshare in APM, compared to Splunk’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ServiceNow users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Read 4 ServiceNow Cloud Observability reviews

765 Views
453 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Splunk Observability Cloud

Read 52 Splunk Observability Cloud reviews

2,105 Views
865 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Splunk Observability Cloud

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Executive SummaryUpdated on May 11, 2025

Splunk Observability Cloud and ServiceNow Cloud Observability are competitors in observability solutions. Splunk has an advantage in analytics capabilities, while ServiceNow's strength is in IT service integration.

Features: Splunk Observability Cloud includes real-time analytics, machine learning-driven insights, and extensive data integration. ServiceNow Cloud Observability is known for seamless integration with ITSM tools and unified service management features.

Room for Improvement: Splunk could improve by enhancing ease of use for non-technical users, optimizing pricing flexibility, and expanding native integration options. ServiceNow might benefit from advancing analytics capabilities, broaden its integrations beyond ITSM, and improving initial setup complexity for non-IT environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Splunk is praised for easy deployment and excellent customer support with comprehensive resources. ServiceNow offers flexible deployment options with a robust customer service structure, benefiting businesses deeply integrated with its existing IT systems.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk requires a higher initial investment, justified by its powerful analytics and scalability offering significant ROI potential. ServiceNow's pricing is competitive, especially when bundled with ITSM services, making it attractive for users of its ecosystem.

To learn more, read our detailed ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. Splunk Observability Cloud Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

June 2025

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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

41st

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Splunk Observability Cloud

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

11th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th), Container Management (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is 0.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 1.2%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

VinayKumar16

Senior DeliveryManager at ITC Infotech

Provides ease of use in areas like analytics and reporting

The feature of the tool that is more impactful for cloud performance stems from the area revolving around analytics and reporting. It is an easy-to-use tool. There is something known as performance analytics within ServiceNow that offers complete analytics, which offers end-to-end analytics along with the KPI metrics with what we have in place and so on. With the aforementioned aspects of the tool, I think we should be able to create a dashboard according to the operations view called the operation dashboard view, specifically for C-level executives.

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Lakshmi Padaga

Java Developer at U.S. Bank

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.

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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 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 UI is very intuitive."

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

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

"Splunk has drawn our attention to how the network is running. If there are alarms on things that are not functioning, it gives us early warning on problems that could arise."

"The solution's basic visibility is one of its most valuable features. So, it is a solution that is easy to use...The solution's initial setup process was straightforward."

"Splunk APM provides a holistic view of the application. Unlike other APMs, Splunk's service map is quite effective."

"Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring gives us complete visibility without the need for storage."

"The initial setup was straightforward. We didn't find it to be too complex."

"The vibrant dashboards are valuable."

"The solution monitors attacks or unauthorized access to the information we want to protect."

"Splunk APM helps us to find errors immediately and resolve them."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pros

Cons

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

"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."

"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."

"The dashboard and graphics must be improved."

"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 process terms. These categories of dashboards would be very helpful for customers."

"It's a bit difficult to use. It takes some time to get into it and to get it to do what you would like it to do. It is not straightforward to use it."

"I would like to see an improvement and some innovation in the customer interface."

"The price has room for improvement."

"One thing I recently ran into was that the logs on the server most often get Gzipped after they have been rotated. We found that we were not monitoring some of the things, so we had to go back and pull them in. Right now, it pulls one at a time, untars it, or unzips it, so I cannot look at the entire history. There can be an improvement in that area."

"The clustering part of indexes can be more refined."

"The solution should have more sensors regarding fiber intelligence for security measures."

"There is room for improvement in the alerting system, which is complicated and has less documentation available."

More Splunk Observability Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The solution's pricing is costly."

"The pricing is based on several factors, including the scale of deployment."

"The solution's pricing is competitive. I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten. The price of the solution could be cheaper."

"Splunk APM is expensive."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"I would rate the price of Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring as an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."

"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."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Retailer

10%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Retailer

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about LightStep?

The UI is very intuitive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with LightStep?

There are a lot of workflows and connectors. 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.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for LightStep?

I use the solution in my company since it has multiple tenants available. Basically, what happens in business is that you have a hybrid setup model, and for that, you extensively use a cloud platfo...

See all answers

What do you like most about SignalFx?

The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 39% of the time

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Compared 30% of the time

Dynatrace vs ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Compared 19% of the time

New Relic vs ServiceNow Cloud Observability

Compared 11% of the time

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Observe vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 18% of the time

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

Dynatrace vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

ServiceNow IT Operations Management vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

Rancher Labs vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

More Splunk Observability Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Cloud Observability

May 2025

Download ServiceNow Cloud Observability product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Observability Cloud

May 2025

Download Splunk Observability Cloud product report

Also Known As

LightStep

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring

Overview

ServiceNow Cloud Observability is a comprehensive platform designed to enhance visibility, control, and performance monitoring of your IT infrastructure and applications. It seamlessly integrates log management, trace management, metrics monitoring, and infrastructure monitoring in real-time, leveraging AI and machine learning for automated tasks and actionable insights. With benefits including improved visibility, faster incident resolution, enhanced application performance, simplified IT operations, and reduced costs, this cloud-native solution is ideal for businesses of all sizes with complex IT infrastructures. It integrates seamlessly with ServiceNow IT Operations Management (ITOM), supports OpenTelemetry standards, and provides AI-powered insights along with pre-built dashboards and reports.

ServiceNow

Splunk Observability Cloud combines log search, data integration, and dashboards for seamless monitoring, enhancing infrastructure visibility and security. Its cloud integration and scalability support diverse environments, improving operational efficiency.

Splunk Observability Cloud offers comprehensive monitoring tools with user-friendly interfaces, enabling end-to-end infrastructure visibility. Its real-time alerting and predictive capabilities enhance security monitoring, while centralized dashboards provide cross-platform visibility. Users benefit from fast data integration and extensive insights into application performance. Despite its advantages, improvements could be made in integration with other tools, data reliability, scalability, and cost management. Users face challenges in configuration complexity and require better automation and endpoint protection features. Enhancing AI integration, alerts, and adaptation for high-throughput services could further improve usability.

What are the key features of Splunk Observability Cloud?

Log Search: Efficiently search and analyze log data for enhanced insights.
Data Integration: Fast integration across platforms for comprehensive visibility.
Custom Dashboards: Powerful and adaptable dashboards for real-time monitoring.
Cloud Integration: Seamless integration with cloud services for scalable solutions.
Application Performance Monitoring: Advanced tools for improving application performance.

What benefits and ROI should be expected?

Infrastructure Monitoring: Improved visibility and monitoring across infrastructure components.
Operational Efficiency: Enhancements in data analysis lead to efficient operations.
Business Resilience: Supports adaptability and swift responses to changing needs.
Security Management: Enhances threat identification and response through real-time alerts.
Compliance Support: Aids in meeting compliance and auditing requirements effectively.

In industries like finance and healthcare, Splunk Observability Cloud is implemented for application performance monitoring and infrastructure metrics. Its ability to track incidents and analyze machine data benefits network infrastructure, while distributed tracing and log analysis aid in tackling security threats. Organizations often integrate it for compliance and auditing purposes, enhancing visibility into network traffic and optimizing performance.

Splunk

Sample Customers

InVision, Twilio, Lyft, Yext, DigitalOcean,

Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Cloud Observability vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

June 2025

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