Splunk AppDynamics vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

Splunk and Progress Software are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Splunk is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.3, while Progress Software is ranked #25 with an average rating of 9.5. Splunk holds a 4.6% mindshare in APM, compared to Progress Software’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Splunk users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

Splunk AppDynamics

Read 249 Splunk AppDynamics reviews

11,994 Views
6,408 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

WhatsUp Gold

Read 24 WhatsUp Gold reviews

897 Views
448 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Splunk AppDynamics

WhatsUp Gold

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on May 11, 2025

WhatsUp Gold and Splunk AppDynamics are leading tools in network monitoring and application performance management respectively. AppDynamics seems to have the upper hand with its robust application performance features, which justify its higher cost.

Features: WhatsUp Gold stands out with its network device discovery capabilities, customizable dashboards, and robust reporting features. It focuses on comprehensive network monitoring with real-time alerts. In contrast, Splunk AppDynamics excels at application performance management, offering deep insights through application flow monitoring and end-user experience tracking, with advanced capabilities for viewing JVM performance, business transaction monitoring, and automated baselining of metrics.

Room for Improvement: WhatsUp Gold could improve its application performance tracking features and expand its monitoring capabilities beyond basic network tasks. Its auto-scanning and real-time monitoring functionalities require enhanced depth to match competitors. Meanwhile, Splunk AppDynamics could simplify its deployment process, provide more straightforward configuration options, and extend integration capabilities with other popular IT management tools and environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WhatsUp Gold offers straightforward deployment with excellent customer service, beneficial for organizations with limited technical support staff. Splunk AppDynamics requires more complex setup but provides advanced support options ideal for enterprises needing detailed application insights.

Pricing and ROI: WhatsUp Gold is known for its economical pricing structure, appealing for smaller businesses with network monitoring needs and promising a faster ROI. On the other hand, Splunk AppDynamics, despite its higher cost, offers significant ROI through detailed and rigorous application management capabilities, better suited for larger enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed Splunk AppDynamics vs. WhatsUp Gold Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Splunk AppDynamics vs. WhatsUp Gold

May 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

Splunk AppDynamics

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

3rd

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

5th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

249

Ranking in other categories

IT Operations Analytics (2nd), Mobile APM (1st), Container Monitoring (3rd)

WhatsUp Gold

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

25th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

29th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (27th), Server Monitoring (15th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Splunk AppDynamics is 4.6%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Gyanesh Rahatekar

Back office at Reliance Industries Ltd

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.

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Tom Condo

Supervisor Information Services Operations at Seminole County Public Schools

If CPU, memory, or disk space is over-utilized, it alerts us immediately via text or email if there is an issue

When it comes to the intuitiveness of the topology mapping feature, our network architect created a vision diagram of our entire network and then created the links tied into the WhatsUp active monitoring to different spots on our topology map. It's one of the more critical functions we do here. We have the map displayed in different places in our room and help desk. We get alerted via emails but we can also see it visually. It does what it says it's going to do. We find this feature very helpful. The interactive mapping interface for scrolling, zooming, and drilling down on an element to learn about a network issue is good. When we see a network there will sometimes be a spot that has one link. You can go into a particular part of the topology map, scroll in, and see exactly which module it is. All the information is provided. This feature really helps. You can see the correlation between that link and what failed. This feature is very helpful. The interface is fairly intuitive. Some of our users used SolarWinds and Nagios, and WhatsUp is easy in comparison. Once you get set up, the look, feel, and configuration are good. Our network architect had never used it before but he was able to create the Visio and map. It was very simple. He has no problems with it.

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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

"I like how the AppDynamics dashboard portrays the information flows. When a task is executed, various flows between different applications and databases happen in the background. The dashboard is intuitive and helps visualize the connections, the directions of the flow, and the information related to these specific sessions."

"The metrics browser is very useful, and the deep dive feature is very useful for us."

"The correlation feature available with AppDynamics Server Monitoring is absent in other competitive solutions"

"This solution not only provides answers but also provides sensor data. This allows us to quickly resolve issues that developers may take a long time to solve."

"The most valuable feature is the end-user monitoring."

"The most valuable feature is that we can see how our end-users are interacting with our application across regions."

"The ability to check parameters for microservice applications is most valuable. It is important for me. I can manually create new business transactions for applications and individually monitor business transactions. I can also use a lot of extensions. It has a lot of extensions to monitor other third-party applications, such as NoSQL applications, memory cache applications, Kafka applications, and Couchbase applications. It is very useful. We are also using the end-user monitoring site to follow all end-user activities. It is important for us to check the errors on the customer site."

"What I like the most about Splunk AppDynamics is the end-to-end observability for the application, along with traces."

More Splunk AppDynamics pros

"We no longer have to manually search for problems because we are alerted when something in the network goes down."

"Our local support team provides excellent service."

"The interactive mapping interface for scrolling, zooming, and drilling down on an element to learn about a network issue is good. When we see a network there will sometimes be a spot that has one link. You can go into a particular part of the topology map, scroll in, and see exactly which module it is."

"The most valuable feature is the monitoring of resources."

"The interface in the last few years it has been a lot greater, they are much more user-friendly. I like the interface."

"The tool's most valuable feature is the visibility it offers of everything in the network and infrastructure."

"It handles the basics of monitoring."

"The most important features of WhatsUp Gold are the server health and uptime it provides. Additionally, WhatsUp Gold is a Windows-based solution which is a benefit."

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"The cloud licensing needs to be improved. It's quite pricey."

"SQL statement monitoring"

"The infrastructure is not as good as other solutions."

"The network diagnostics that they are adding will be really useful. They could add more detail into what is going on in the network."

"One area for improvement is the MST model. It would be more helpful if it could be offered as a managed service provider model with more multi-tenancy and features."

"I would like the solution to be more customizable to meet our client's requirements."

"I am not very impressed with support. The service could be better."

"Application Analytics' performance in pure and native cloud environments could be improved."

More Splunk AppDynamics cons

"Pricing is too high relative to how many devices we use. The price list is not linear to number of devices."

"The point system is not clear and clarity around this would improve our understanding of the system."

"I would like to see them do an enhancement to the application monitoring. A lot of other products do better application monitoring so they should do some improvements to the application monitoring."

"The pricing for this solution has gone up quite recently, which has led some of our customers to buy an alternative product."

"The product is old and not updated."

"I might like to see a better interface in the future."

"Users want SMS available via Whatsapp Gold. They don't want to go through third party SMS servers. The solution should work to make this possible."

"I think there are a few bugs now. Although they give some resolution for this, we cannot share the network remotely because of our company policy."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We do not have any issues with the price."

"There is no standard license instead, the license is adapted to the organization's requirements."

"We have purchased a few licenses for AppDynamics Database Monitoring and the price is high."

"As a technical person, and as an application development team, they all understand that this is the right tool for us. But when it comes to budget and financial matters, it takes days and weeks to convince upper management to buy this tool. So they should do something more on licensing costs."

"Purchasing the product through the AWS Marketplace was good."

"It could be a bit lower, but looking at the scalability, functionality, and other things, you can understand why AppDynamics is so expensive as compared to some of the cheaper products that don't have that full single pane of glass they've got. Dynatrace has got three different elements that you need to log into just to get a full view, which is not so good, and because of that, it is a bit cheaper."

"Yearly payments have to be made toward the licensing costs of the solution. The solution has no additional costs apart from the licensing costs."

"The pricing for AppDynamics is expensive, but it is possible to negotiate special pricing through bids."

More Splunk AppDynamics pricing and cost advice

"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."

"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."

"This is a well priced solution."

"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."

"It is per device, per year. The pricing is very clear. If you have a service agreement, you get all of your major upgrades and minor upgrades. It was under $10,000 to go all-in with all of the different add-ons for it."

"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."

"There are some subscription charges that are quite heavy. I need to pay for support every year and these charges can be quite expensive. Aside from the initial cost for the tool, you need to pay additionally for support."

"The price of WhatsUp Gold is good."

More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

34%

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...

See all answers

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 focus on SMBs and enterprises in Israel, Dynatrace seems like a solid choice with...

See all answers

What do you like most about AppDynamics?

The solution saves time and cost.

See all answers

What do you like most about WhatsUp Gold?

The interactive mapping interface for scrolling, zooming, and drilling down on an element to learn about a network issue is good. When we see a network there will sometimes be a spot that has one l...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WhatsUp Gold?

Clients find the licensing calculator confusing, but we simplify this for them by collecting relevant information first. The licensing is based on devices, providing better cost-effectiveness than ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with WhatsUp Gold?

Improvements are needed in integration, especially for WhatsApp call and messages. Our region heavily uses WhatsApp Messenger for communication, and integration with this platform would be benefici...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dynatrace vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 15% of the time

Datadog vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 9% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 8% of the time

New Relic vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 7% of the time

Grafana vs Splunk AppDynamics

Compared 5% of the time

More Splunk AppDynamics Competitors

Grafana vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 13% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 10% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 9% of the time

Zabbix vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 8% of the time

ManageEngine OpManager vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 6% of the time

More WhatsUp Gold Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Splunk AppDynamics

May 2025

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Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold

May 2025

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Overview

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?

Real-time Performance Monitoring: Offers immediate insights into application behavior.
Business Transaction Tracking: Tracks transactions from start to finish for bottleneck identification.
JVM Memory Monitoring: Provides detailed JVM metrics and memory use information.
Deep-dive Diagnostics: Enables in-depth analysis of code and stack traces.
Adaptable Dashboards: Customizable views for better data interpretation.

How does AppDynamics benefit users?

Improved Incident Resolution: Faster problem detection and solution implementation.
Enhanced Application Performance: Real-time monitoring optimizes system operations.
Comprehensive Visibility: Provides a full view of application infrastructure.
Informed Decision Making: Detailed analytics guide performance improvements.
Customer Satisfaction: Enhances user experience through faster issue resolutions.

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.

Splunk

Explore and manage your entire network infrastructure effortlessly with WhatsUp Gold's robust layer 2/3 discovery, creating a detailed interactive map from the edge to the cloud. Monitor devices, wireless controllers, servers, virtual machines, applications, and traffic flows across various environments. Real-time alerts ensure optimal performance, allowing you to meet or exceed SLAs. The platform offers customizable maps, dashboards, and alerts for easy network management. Quickly resolve issues with intuitive workflows, reducing Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR). WhatsUp Gold's integrated log management provides easy visibility and control of device log data, allowing monitoring, filtering, searching, and alerting on syslogs or Windows logs. Archive logs to comply with regulatory requirements and preserve historical data, all through a user-friendly interface. Streamline network monitoring and issue resolution with WhatsUp Gold, making network management efficient and hassle-free.

Progress Software

Sample Customers

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

Artoni Trasporti, Austin Independent School District, Banca Marche, Burke County North Carolina, Cambridge University School of Clinical Medicine, Clayco, Community Integrated Care, Desca, Deutsche Bergbau, Flexi-Van, Gropper, Hamleys, Hammonds Furniture, Knowledge IT, Idras S.P.A., Sibeg, Swann Engineering, Trivium Lindenhof

Buyer's Guide

Splunk AppDynamics vs. WhatsUp Gold

May 2025

Free Report: Splunk AppDynamics vs. WhatsUp Gold

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