Splunk AppDynamics Reviews

We use the solution to monitor transactions and to keep track of, like, data analytics.

I like that AppDynamics allows every organization to have what they want to see, like for my organization, we're able to customize the dashboard to show us details of what we want to see in our transactions. So, it shows us the transactions that are coming in, outgoing transactions, and field transactions. So, we had the freedom to customize, and I think that was priceless.

Regarding Search Guard functionality, there is room for improvement. Also, I think it was pretty good for the area I used.

I have experience with AppDynamics.

I rate the solution's stability as a ten out of ten because it is a very stable platform.

It was scalable on other platforms where we needed to buy licenses because we simply had to customize it again to accommodate whatever we were adding. We didn't use it much since many users weren't using it. It was just for the IT and executive personnel who wanted to view the dashboard. Yeah. So, it was quite easy. Up to 200 users were using the solution.

The initial setup was quite easy because we were given an option or leverage to ask AppDynamics to send staff members over for training. After that training, they were able to come back and deploy the solution for us. So, the process was quite easy, and they were also offering support. For deployment, we prefer to deploy it on-premises. So, we have it in our DR and production environment. The deployment process didn't take long since it was done by AppDynamics' team, which is quite a big institution.

We did the implementation ourselves, but we had their support virtually.

I have experienced an ROI using the solution. So, AppDynamics provides us with details to have a live view of our transactions, especially whenever we're having failures, during which we have a live view of it provided by the monitoring guys. We link it to our MySQL so we can query what transactions are failing or what error they are getting. So we know what the customers are facing from the comfort of our offices. The solution was worth the money.

There were no added costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

Since it is an excellent application, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. I would suggest others use the products and just make sure that they get in touch with the administrator of AppDynamics so that they can devote their time and energy to learning about it so that they can at least administer the platform properly.

I use AppDynamics when there's a performance issue with an application, but if it's a network-related performance issue, I use Accedian Skylight.

What I like best about AppDynamics is that it's functional, particularly in APM in Java and .NET.

What needs improvement in AppDynamics is installation. The installation process needs to be more straightforward. Deploying the product is also tricky, so this is an area for improvement.

Pricing is another area for improvement in AppDynamics because its current pricing model is no longer suited to containers and technologies.

The product used to be the best in the market ten years ago, but it now needs to regain its position as the leading product in its niche.

I've been using AppDynamics for ten years. I started my job ten years ago and remained in this area.

In terms of stability, AppDynamics is a four out of ten.

Scalability is the product's performance when you scale, and because the company is a SaaS company, it's not a very big deal. However, AppDynamics uses a MySQL database behind the engine, which is not the best for keeping metrics.

The solution could be more scalable and dynamic in terms of installation and configuration. Scalability-wise, AppDynamics is a four out of ten.

The support for AppDynamics used to be very good, and now it could be better. The support team could be more knowledgeable.

The technical support for AppDynamics is a four out of ten for me.

Neutral

I'm using AppDynamics, Datadog, and Dynatrace simultaneously.

Setting up and configuring AppDynamics is challenging because you need to give specific names to every container and server you deploy. Each name has to be unique, so it isn't easy to think of names in terms of dynamic environments. This means that when you move to microservices, AppDynamics has a very complex setup.

I'd rate the setup for the product as two out of ten.

The pricing model for AppDynamics isn't good. You have to subscribe to a yearly or a three-year licensing, which isn't very handy.

You buy a license for five hundred containers for a very large application, and you only need the containers for a limited time in that domain. For example, you only need five hundred containers once in that specific year, but you must buy five hundred licenses.

The current AppDynamics pricing model isn't fair. It's one out of ten pricing-wise. The solution is one of the most expensive in the market today.

I've switched to solutions such as Dynatrace, Datadog, and AppDynamics.

My rating for AppDynamics is four out of ten because it has a lot of room for improvement.

I work with a global bank that operates across Asia, the United States, and Europe. It's a few thousand people. We primarily use AppDynamics for Kubernetes, web applications, middleware APIs, Java, etc. In terms of technology, it's either Java Spring Boot or some of the API calls, and some of the use cases include continuously checking API availability. 

Some use cases are related to front-end tuning or the user experience across the globe. The applications are used across America, Europe, and some parts of Asia. It's a global system, and user experience is what we wanted to measure. AppDynamics is SaaS. I've never used an on-prem version. The controllers are mostly on AWS, while the agents are deployed on-premises.

Transition tracing is the most valuable is pretty easy and useful, but the user experience piece is also good. 

The Kubernetes cluster agent has not yet matured. That's one area that requires a lot of improvement. You have two options for implementing the Kubernetes agent. One is deployed in DocCloud, but you can't download those images from DocCloud for security reasons at most organizations, so this option isn't that useful.

The installation for the second option isn't that user-friendly. Transition tracing for the Kubernetes application is challenging. You have to navigate to a new set of user interfaces in AppDynamics, so that's the pain point. There is an icon you need to click on to get a newer user interface.

I've been using AppDynamics for almost five years. 

AppDynamics scaled well up to around 3,000 agents. The performance deteriorated after that, while Dynatrace could support more than 10,000 agents. We were surprised that AppDynamics' scalability is not so good.

I had a good experience with tech support. When we raised a ticket with AppDynamics, we usually got a response within a few hours. If we set up a call, their engineers will get on the phone with us. That was also reasonably good. 

Setting up AppDynamics is relatively straightforward except for the Kubernetes part. It was all easy for the Kubernetes cluster agent part. We implemented thousands of agents using Ansible, so it was automated. It was about 15 to 20 minutes in terms of pipeline and restarting because a lot of the scripting and automation were already done. 

The AppDynamics license is divided. It isn't one all-inclusive license. Dynatrace has one agent, but AppDynamics has different sets of licenses. You need to define your use case and what you want to monitor. That is something you need to be clear about. Once you know your use case clearly, take time to figure out your target state metric, and go for AppDynamics. 

I rate AppDynamics seven out of 10. In the modern world, Dynatrace is moving toward helping the companies in the current landscape, but AppDynamics is a second-generation company. It needs to adopt more of a lifecycle perspective rather than limiting itself to triage, tracing, etc.

I am not a user, I am an implementer.

For EUC, one of the use cases would be to monitor online shopping from retail, for example, to understand the client's journey and if they are experiencing any difficulties in, at the very least, making their purchase or browsing, the front-end of a specific customer's online shopping.

The second would be internal applications to determine whether the application is living in an order that allows it to process its workloads. It's quite generic because we have so many different types of applications.

With Real-User Monitoring, the most valuable features are what I have described. We can see the customer's path from their computer to the backend systems. It gives us full visibility end-to-end, and if there are any issues, we can observe and record them to improve application performance quality. In addition to the EUC, you can add synthetic transactions, where you can see from every point if your application is performing adequately in terms of reachability if you are running a global site.

As AppDynamics partners, we are fully aware of the roadmap, but I would like them to enhance their SAP monitoring.

One of the features that I would like to see is centralized agent management in the platform console.

While I am not expecting it in the next release, I would want more centralized management of the agent in the platform and better support.

I've been working with AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring for six years. Since the existence of AppDynamics.

It is deployed both on the cloud and on-premises.

We don't have a specific version, we have several instances. I work for an MSP, and we offer these services to a large number of customers.

We have clients using the latest versions, as well as clients using older versions.

AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring is stable if it's quick. Depending on where the application is hosted, for example, the same time it takes someone in Singapore to access an application is unlikely to be the same time it takes someone in the UK to access it.

Scalability is also important. That is not directly related to end-user monitoring, but it will be one of the business cases involving the use of microservices and the dynamic expansion of a solution.

In terms of technical support, they don't need to be faster, but they could be more usable. I believe they can contribute more than robots because they do not always adhere to the same standards. They can be a little more helpful, and I'm speaking broadly because they have good guys in there, but we don't always get the good guys, the good resources. To be honest, I can't say I have any complaints.

I am familiar with AppDynamics, Dynatrace, New Relic, and Datadog, which are the four main ones that we currently use.

When it comes to AppDynamics, we use all of it, all the stack.

The setup is straightforward. I don't see an issue if it's on-premises, but if it's SaaS, we don't install anything other than the agent.

AppDynamics does not usually do monthly payments. They do it on an annual basis, at the very least.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using this solution.

I would rate AppDynamics Browser Real-User Monitoring a seven out of ten.

We are monitoring lots of different databases with AppDynamics Database Monitoring, such as Couchbase, SAP HANA, DB2, Oracle, MySQL, MongoDB, and Postgres. 

In Turkey, most companies push their workers to work with the on-prem side because the government regulation is very strict. So 97% of my customers are working on the on-prem side, although we have three accounts working with the SaaS solution.

The most profitable benefit of this solution is that it reduces the mean time to resolution, which is very important for solving extraordinary problems. With AppDynamics Database Monitoring, problems are easy to understand and pinpoint, significantly reducing operational costs.

The most beneficial feature is the ability to correlate different metrics from the core APM to the database. You can fully see lots of different views of the pages. You can also measure each database query historically and see the reaction of your business transactions on the database side. 

AppDynamics Database Monitoring provides a single view of the problem and helps identify the guilty database query, which is unique compared to other solutions.

Based on my experience, some databases like Couchbase, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB require a little bit of enhancement as they are newer and not as widely used as other databases. The limitations are often due to the vendors not supplying all the profiling features to AppDynamics.

I guess we have been using it for more than 11 years.

I can give the stability of the solution a ten out of ten. It is very stable.

The scalability of the solution is also ten out of ten.

Customer service and support are good. The quality has been affected recently due to the company's acquisition by Splunk, causing some workers to leave and new ones to join. Hence, I would rate it an eight out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup is very straightforward and takes only two or three minutes to install a collector on an independent computer. After installation, you can use the collector on up to a hundred different database instances. No other installation is needed.

With the mean time to resolution reduction provided by AppDynamics Database Monitoring, it greatly reduces operational costs, thus offering a good ROI.

The price is not cheap, however, considering the benefits and the price ratio, I would rate it nine out of ten.

This is really a unique solution. If you want to monitor both the application and database sides, there is no other solution like this in the market. Most products offer only database solutions, yet AppDynamics combines both APM and independent database monitoring.

We use it to monitor the end-user responses of Oracle and Microsoft SQL. We still use OEM for deep dives.

The product provides visibility to the end-users who didn’t have visibility before.

Visibility to the end-users is a valuable feature.

The solution must improve security and setup. It runs off its own box now. The metrics could be standardized. It should add more databases.

I have been using the solution since 2016.

I rate the tool’s stability a seven out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a six out of ten. We run quite a few servers.

I have used a lot of database monitoring products like OEM and SolarWinds SQL Sentry. We chose AppDynamics Database Monitoring because we bought APM.

The tool is deployed on the cloud, but we put an agent on-premise. The initial setup is straightforward. There are some complexities if we want additional features like automatic password rotation. We needed five people to deploy the product. It requires maintenance. There's not a great way to know when it's not reporting. We have to figure it out. It does not have a good alarm system to notify us when it stops.

We have seen a return on investment.

The price is okay.

We’re planning to replace the solution. It is a good tool. Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

When compared to its major competitor, Dynatrace, AppDynamics stands out by providing dynamic learning capabilities for infrastructure and server metrics. Unlike Dynatrace, AppDynamics enables dynamic baselining for all server metrics, such as CPU and memory. This allows customers to establish patterns, like CPU trends every Wednesday from 9 to 11 AM, and set dynamic baselines accordingly. With this feature, alerts can be triggered based on deviations from the dynamic baseline rules. This capability is distinctive, as other APM solutions and monitoring tools lack dynamic baselining options for infrastructure visibility.    

If we consider the implementation of alternative solutions, such as Dynatrace, there is a notable difference in the approach to agent-based service monitoring. For instance, Dynatrace employs a single-agent solution, which can pose security concerns. When installing Dynatrace, granting the agent ld pro payload rights is a requirement. In contrast, our solution ensures a more secure approach by not requiring root and administration access. While we currently utilize an agent-based solution, there may be a shift in the next one or two years, possibly with the adoption of Open Telemetry. It's anticipated that many APM vendors, including Dynatrace, may alter their structure or strategy for implementation. However, as of now, the trend is towards an increasing number of implementations daily.

I have been using AppDynamics Server Monitoring recently.

It is very stable and I would rate it 9 out of 10. 

It is very scalable and I would rate it 10 out of 10.

It's very easy.It takes couple of minutes only.

It's true; it's not an inexpensive solution. Dynatrace and AppDynamics are consistently on the pricier side. However, when comparing with other solutions like Datadog or New Relic, it becomes apparent that they are significantly more affordable. The pricing may seem high at the list or discounted level, but what truly matters is the business value assessment. After completing this assessment, customers often recognize the value proposition and find the cost justified.

In all honesty, APM solutions, including AppDynamics, tend to be expensive, and they may have fewer features compared to other legacy monitoring solutions. I typically advise against using AppDynamics or similar APM solutions solely for server monitoring due to their cost and potential limitations. To maximize usefulness, it's crucial to complement these solutions with other monitoring tools and features.

I would rate it 9 out of 10.

The solution is used for observability, AIOps, monitoring microservices, SAP monitoring, and application performance monitoring.

AppDynamics is predominantly marketed and sold as an APM solution. Customers use it for both database and application monitoring. I have not seen a customer buying AppDynamics only for database monitoring. The product is good at database monitoring, availability and performance monitoring. I have always used it as a holistic product.

The product requires high maintenance. We need a dedicated resource to manage it because the solution manages a complex environment.

I’ve been using the solution as a system integrator for eight years.

The tool is stable, but our clients are not using its features to the fullest due to a lack of knowledge of APM. The customers are not very clear on what features an APM product offers. Customers have a limited understanding of APM and its use cases.

The tool’s scalability is good. Our customers are enterprise-level businesses such as large hospitals, manufacturers, and banks.

Technical support is good. Support must provide faster responses for production-related issues.

Positive

We have used ManageEngine before. AppDynamics is better than the other products we have used. The tool provides a pretty good user experience. The dashboards are very well-defined. Business-related data is very well projected on the dashboards. The technical team also gets good information on their dashboards.

AppDynamics monitors pretty much all the applications, though the applications are built on various technologies. ManageEngine has a limitation. It cannot monitor various technologies. The most important factor is security. Security is very well defined in AppDynamics, whereas ManageEngine's security is not up to the mark.

The initial setup is neither easy nor very difficult. It requires specific knowledge of the infrastructure. When installing the product, we must be aware of how it will be configured at the database, application, and infrastructure levels. Earlier, the tool was deployed on-premises. Nowadays, customers are willing to deploy it on the cloud.

Typically, to install the product, we take help from infrastructure experts. We need to be aware of the infrastructure before installing the product. The deployment takes seven to ten days. We need one architect and two engineers to deploy the product. The number of resources required to maintain the solution depends on the environment. We need two resources for medium-sized environments, but we may need four to five resources for larger environments.

One of the main downsides to the solution is its cost. We pay a yearly licensing fee for the product. AppDynamics and Dynatrace have almost the same pricing. Compared to ManageEngine, AppDynamics is relatively higher in cost. For cloud-based solutions, users only pay for licenses if they opt for a subscription. However, for on-premises solutions, they must buy support separately.

The application layer in AppDynamics performs fairly well. However, network monitoring is not at an advanced level. It is mediocre.

People wanting to use the solution must not use it only for database monitoring. It should be used for end-to-end application performance monitoring. If someone has requirements involving applications, observability, and AIOps, they must consider the product. If they need only database monitoring, several other tools are available in the market that are lower in cost and offer a lot of capabilities.

When it comes to end-to-end monitoring, network monitoring also plays a crucial role. It is an area of improvement for AppDynamics. Network monitoring could be better. AppDynamics has acquired a product called ThousandEyes. How well the product grows in the network monitoring space is yet to be seen.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.