

SolarWinds NPM and Splunk AppDynamics compete in the network and application performance monitoring category. Splunk AppDynamics might have the edge in comprehensive application performance analysis due to strong transaction monitoring features.
Features: SolarWinds NPM offers robust network fault and performance management capabilities. It is compatible with multiple vendors and provides modular pricing, benefiting users by only requiring payment for desired features. Users benefit from tools like deep packet analysis, historical reporting, and customizable dashboards. In comparison, Splunk AppDynamics focuses on end-to-end business transaction monitoring, emphasizing JVM performance, application flow mapping, and automated diagnostics. Its analytical capabilities and detailed transaction insights are significant strengths.
Room for Improvement: SolarWinds NPM users encounter issues with network discovery, mapping, and customizing alerts per device category. The requirement to purchase separate modules for additional features and interface improvements are noted areas for enhancement. Alternatively, Splunk AppDynamics could improve its infrastructure monitoring integration, simplify its licensing model, and enhance network monitoring capabilities. Users seek better cloud technology support and a unified platform view to consolidate monitoring elements.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds NPM is largely on-premises with strong on-site support. Feedback mentions fluctuating customer service quality, with some concerns over support wait times and aggressive sales tactics. Splunk AppDynamics offers cloud and hybrid deployment options, showcasing its flexibility and scalability. Users value its customer and technical support but suggest improvements in response times and technical assistance reliability.
Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds NPM is seen as reasonable but can be expensive with scaling and additional modules. It is known for a good ROI through reduced downtime and effective resource management. Splunk AppDynamics is generally perceived as a more costly investment, especially due to its modular licensing approach. Despite high costs, its feature set and analytical depth justify the expense for larger enterprises, but the pricing is a significant consideration for smaller organizations.
The return on investment is significant as the solution effectively reduces costs while being worth its expense.
Overall, as a production gatekeeper, we achieve at least 50% efficiency immediately, with potential savings ranging from 60 to 70% as well, reinforcing why it is a popular tool in the banking industry.
According to errors, exceptions, and code-level details related to their application performance on a daily basis, the application development team tries to help with Splunk AppDynamics to reduce errors and exceptions, which helps the end users get application availability and feel more confident.
To understand the magnitude of it, when the company asked to replace Splunk AppDynamics with another tool, I indicated that for the proposed tool, we would need five people to do the analysis that Splunk AppDynamics enables me to do.
If there is no timely response, getting a resolution is more difficult.
We had contact with SolarWinds regarding the implementation, and they were helpful.
They have good technical support.
AppDynamics is much more helpful.
We got a contact, an account manager, to work directly with for technical support.
They help us resolve any issues raised by our team relating to operations, application instrumentation, or any other issues.
SolarWinds NPM is scalable and effective in handling large network infrastructures.
We have reached maximum capacity in our tier, and extending capacity has not been cost-effective from Splunk's perspective.
I would rate the scalability of Splunk AppDynamics as a nine out of ten.
I assess how Splunk AppDynamics scales with the growing needs of my organization as good, since we are growing and adding more servers.
The NPM product is stable, particularly when used for simple network monitoring.
It is necessary to conduct appropriate testing before deploying them in production to prevent potential outages.
There are no issues or bugs with the 20.4 version; it is very stable with no functionality or operational issues.
Splunk AppDynamics is superior to any alternative, including Dynatrace.
SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features.
Customers have given feedback about the delayed response times from the technical team.
I would need a feature in SolarWinds in the future for some kind of malfunctioning detection, such as malware attacks or that type of environment.
Splunk AppDynamics does not support the complete MELT framework, which includes metrics, events, logging, and tracing for the entire stack.
If AppDynamics could develop a means to monitor without an agent, it could significantly improve application performance and reduce potential problems.
A good integration with Splunk would be very interesting, as Splunk is a good product for logs, and that part is currently missing in Splunk AppDynamics.
The solution is considered expensive.
Pricing-wise, SolarWinds NPM is more expensive than PRTG.
It is not too pricey and is adequate.
We completed a three-year deal for Splunk and for AppDynamics, which costs millions of dollars.
Overall, I consider Splunk AppDynamics an expensive product; it's very expensive.
Customers have to pay a premium price, however, they receive considerable value from the product.
Whenever any node is down in our network, whether it is a server or any network device, we receive information through email that the device is down.
The most valuable feature for us is the database performance analyzer, which we use a lot.
SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks.
We have multiple tools, but end users prefer to use Splunk AppDynamics because their portal navigation is very simple and clear.
The real user monitoring and digital experience monitoring effectively track actual user experience with the applications, including page loading, interaction time for both desktop and mobile applications.
This is the best feature because, although you can't monitor a whole application at once, Splunk AppDynamics gives you the option that if there is any failure—simple failure regarding anything set up as per our use cases—you will get an alert.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| SolarWinds NPM | 3.2% |
| Splunk AppDynamics | 2.6% |
| Other | 94.2% |

| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 59 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 33 |
| Large Enterprise | 85 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 55 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 36 |
| Large Enterprise | 194 |
SolarWinds NPM is a network monitoring solution that enables you to detect, diagnose, and resolve network performance issues and outages quickly and efficiently. The solution is a powerful tool that can help you increase service levels, reduce downtime with multi vendor network monitoring, simplify the management of complex network devices, improve operational efficiency, and much more.
SolarWinds NPM Features
SolarWinds NPM has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:
SolarWinds NPM Benefits
There are several benefits to implementing SolarWinds NPM. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:
Reviews from Real Users
Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the SolarWinds NPM solution.
PeerSpot user Andrew N., Senior Network Engineer at Element Critical, says, “The "Performance Analyzer" feature is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's able to do the bounded graphs of all the interface stats, from errors to broadcasts and to current traffic. With a click of a button you're able to, in one interface, look at historical data for those items.” He also adds, “From the troubleshooting point of view, just having that peace of mind is great. And, The solution is extremely stable. We haven't had any issues in that regard. We haven't had issues with bugs, glitches, or crashes."
Daniel S., Systems and Data Warehouse Supervisor at MMSD, mentions, “The alerting and usage tracking is a valuable feature because it alerts us when we're getting near capacity on disk space, network utilization or processor utilization. It helps us manage our capacity and enables us to be proactive.”
A Senior Vice President and CIO at a financial services firm explains, “As we look to add more servers to our virtual environment and to understand the impact, the solution allows us to dig into the historical charts related to capacity planning. It also gives us visibility of spikes and allows us to track down the reasons for their occurrences. So too, it makes room for potential processes that have gotten hung or runaway and to know when it's time to reboot a server or service.”
Dinesh N., Digital Innovation at Bobcat Company, states, “The best part of the solution is the sharing display. It gives a general public ID wherein everyone can link to a public display. That's a good feature.”
Fazal A., Implementation & Support Specialist at 360Factors, comments, “We have configured multiple alerts for our network devices, including routers and switches, so that we are notified if any interface goes down. In the event an interface goes down, we have multiple reports that include availability monitoring, network uptime monitoring, and network downtime monitoring. These reports are on multiple schedules such as the end of the day, end of the last business day of the week, monthly, and quarterly. This gives us the ability to provide reports to our management and let them know the performance of our network.”
Splunk AppDynamics enhances application performance monitoring with advanced diagnostics and real-time insights, offering seamless end-to-end transaction tracking and infrastructure visibility.
AppDynamics provides critical tools for businesses to analyze application behavior and performance. Through innovative features like transaction snapshot analysis and adaptable dashboards, users can quickly identify and address issues, ensuring high levels of system uptime and efficiency. It is designed to support complex environments including Kubernetes and AWS, enhancing user experience by detecting performance issues early. Despite needing improvements in network monitoring and integration, it remains a robust option for tracking application health.
What are the key features of AppDynamics?In industries like financial services and e-commerce, AppDynamics facilitates performance tracking across distributed systems, optimizing infrastructure to meet consumer demands. It excels in environments needing precise transaction monitoring and is pivotal in delivering high value and satisfaction.
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