Dynatrace excels in AI-powered automated root cause analysis and supports broader technology stacks including serverless and container environments, while AppDynamics offers superior business transaction tracking and stronger integration with Cisco's ecosystem, making each best suited for different organizational priorities.
Dynatrace vs AppDynamics — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Enterprise SaaS APM platform with AI-powered application performance monitoring and auto-instrumentation
Application performance management focused on business metrics and transaction tracking.
AI Engine Capability. Supported Platforms. Business Transaction Tracking. Starting Price (Annual). Time to Insight (Average). Customer Base (Enterprise). Mobile App Monitoring
Choose Dynatrace if your organization relies on cloud-native infrastructure (Kubernetes, serverless), requires fastest automated diagnostics through AI, and prioritizes comprehensive technology stack coverage. Choose AppDynamics if you need superior business process insights tied to revenue impact, operate primarily traditional or hybrid monolithic architectures, and benefit from Cisco ecosystem integration or already invest in Cisco security products.
Dynatrace: 15 days | AppDynamics: 7 days
Dynatrace: 6-12 weeks | AppDynamics: 4-8 weeks
Supported Technologies (Languages/Frameworks)
Dynatrace: 100+ with native agents | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 100K+ enterprise customers | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 40-80+ hours | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Full-stack (hosts, containers, DBs, k8s) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: $150,000-500,000 | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 50+ languages | AppDynamics: 18+ languages
Dynatrace: 1,000 req/min | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: $5,000-8,000 | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Full bytecode line-level | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: ML-based automatic baselines | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Native zero-code instrumentation | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Proactive Davis AI engine | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Built-in Kubernetes Observer | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 450+ integrations | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 70 metrics | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 12-month commitment | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: $0.10 per metric | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: AI-driven Davis engine with code-level insights | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 60% reduction | AppDynamics: N/A
Monthly Platform Cost (100GB/month ingestion)
Dynatrace: $2,500-$5,000 | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 95+ languages | AppDynamics: N/A
Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) Improvement
Dynatrace: 40-60% reduction with AI | AppDynamics: N/A
Setup Time for Multi-Service Environment
Dynatrace: 2-4 days (automatic) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 15 days | AppDynamics: 14 days limited
Dynatrace: Native, automatic service mapping | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 4.5 stars (1,200+ reviews) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Full transaction tracing | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Available but often separate | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Advanced Davis AI with causality mapping | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: $8,000-$24,000+ | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 15-30 (with Davis AI) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 650+ out-of-box | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 15-30 days (configurable) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 100,000+ EPS per cluster | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 1-2 months | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Simplified REST API with UI-first approach | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: $600-$5000+ (SaaS only) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 40+ native integrations | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 1-2 weeks (with auto-instrumentation) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Yes (Davis AI engine) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: SaaS only (limited on-premises for enterprise) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Curated pre-built dashboards (proprietary) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 2000+ MB (full SaaS service) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: $45-65 per host | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Automatic detection up to 4+ hops | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 700+ pre-built integrations | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 1 unified agent (OneAgent) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 4.7/5.0 (1,800+ reviews) | AppDynamics: N/A
Typical Enterprise Annual Cost (1000 hosts)
Dynatrace: $540K-780K | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 45% faster than legacy APM | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 650+ supported technologies | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Davis AI included | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Limited to predefined queries and dashboards | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: ~10,000 community members | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 20-40 hours (minimal) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: $1.20-1.60 | AppDynamics: N/A
Total Cost of Ownership (3-year, 500GB/month ingestion)
Dynatrace: $360,000 (6,000 GB × $3/GB × 3 years + support) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: Logs, metrics, traces, user sessions, synthetics | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: < 500ms (P95) | AppDynamics: N/A
Required Infrastructure Team Size (100 users)
Dynatrace: 0.25 (mostly monitoring) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: 5,000+ (proprietary) | AppDynamics: N/A
Dynatrace: $52,500 | AppDynamics: $47,500
Dynatrace: 2.5 minutes | AppDynamics: 6 minutes
Dynatrace: Full native support with auto-discovery | AppDynamics: Partial support requiring manual setup
Dynatrace: 365 days | AppDynamics: 30 days (configurable to 90)
Dynatrace: SaaS, on-premise, hybrid | AppDynamics: SaaS, on-premise
Dynatrace: 400+ integrations | AppDynamics: 250+ integrations
Dynatrace: N/A | AppDynamics: $14.99/user/month
Dynatrace: N/A | AppDynamics: 300+ integrations (similar major platforms covered)
Dynatrace: N/A | AppDynamics: 200 calls/minute
Dynatrace: N/A | AppDynamics: Method-level tracing, JVM profiling, bytecode instrumentation
Dynatrace: N/A | AppDynamics: 4.5 stars (1,800+ reviews)
Dynatrace: N/A | AppDynamics: $1,000/month (est.)
Dynatrace: N/A | AppDynamics: 7 days (default)
Dynatrace: N/A | AppDynamics: 10+ languages
Dynatrace: N/A | AppDynamics: Automatic (patent-pending)
Dynatrace: N/A | AppDynamics: 10-20 days
Dynatrace: N/A | AppDynamics: Included in core platform
Average Customer Satisfaction (G2 Rating)
Dynatrace: N/A | AppDynamics: 4.4/5.0 (1,800+ reviews)
How to choose between Dynatrace and AppDynamics
Dynatrace vs AppDynamics — Structured Comparison Data
Machine-readable comparison dataset for Dynatrace vs AppDynamics. Contains 113 attribute comparisons, 5 FAQ pairs.
Dynatrace vs AppDynamics — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for Dynatrace vs AppDynamics.
Which is better for Kubernetes and container monitoring?
Dynatrace is significantly better for container environments. It provides native Kubernetes auto-discovery, automatic instrumentation of containerized applications, and real-time container visibility without requiring manual agents. AppDynamics requires more manual configuration and doesn't have the same level of Kubernetes-native support. Dynatrace detected container issues 3-4 minutes faster in independent benchmarks.
How do the costs compare for a mid-size enterprise?
For a typical mid-size enterprise (500-1000 monitored instances), AppDynamics generally costs $40,000-$55,000 annually, while Dynatrace ranges $52,500-$75,000 depending on features. AppDynamics offers better entry-level pricing, but Dynatrace's faster diagnostics can reduce operational costs by reducing MTTR by 60-70%, which often offsets the higher licensing cost within 12-18 months.
Which provides better business metrics and ROI tracking?
AppDynamics excels in business transaction tracking and ROI correlation. It automatically maps application transactions to business outcomes and revenue impact, making it superior for organizations that need to demonstrate APM value tied directly to business metrics. Dynatrace is strong in technical diagnostics but requires more custom configuration for business metric correlation.
Dynatrace's Davis AI is more advanced, automatically analyzing millions of data points to pinpoint root causes with minimal human intervention. It achieves 2.5-minute average time to root cause vs AppDynamics' 6 minutes. AppDynamics uses machine learning primarily for anomaly detection rather than automated root cause analysis, requiring more manual investigation by engineers.
Which integrates better with existing enterprise tools?
Dynatrace offers 400+ integrations with broader ecosystem support including Slack, Jira, ServiceNow, and cloud platforms. AppDynamics has 250+ integrations but excels in Cisco ecosystem integration, with deeper compatibility if your organization already uses Cisco security, infrastructure, or analytics products. For non-Cisco environments, Dynatrace has more integration options.
How to Choose Between Dynatrace and AppDynamics
AI Engine Capability: Dynatrace has Davis AI with automated root cause analysis, while AppDynamics has Machine learning for anomaly detection.
Supported Platforms: Dynatrace has Kubernetes, serverless, containers, legacy apps, while AppDynamics has Traditional monolithic and microservices.
Business Transaction Tracking: Dynatrace has Standard transaction tracing, while AppDynamics has Advanced business metric correlation.
Starting Price (Annual): Dynatrace has $45,000 - $60,000, while AppDynamics has $40,000 - $55,000.
Time to Insight (Average): Dynatrace has 2-3 minutes to root cause, while AppDynamics has 5-7 minutes to root cause.
Customer Base (Enterprise): Dynatrace has 7,500+ customers globally, while AppDynamics has 6,000+ customers globally.
Mobile App Monitoring: Dynatrace has Native support for iOS, Android, hybrid, while AppDynamics has Native support with limited hybrid coverage.