Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring vs. Retrace

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
SignalFX is Real-Time Cloud Monitoring and Observability for Infrastructure, Microservices and Applications. SignalFX was acquired by Splunk in August 2019. SignalFX Infrastructure Monitoring provides real-time cloud monitoring and observability platform for infrastructure, microservices and DevOps. A new SignalFX product, SignalFx Microservices APM, was released March 2020 to detect issues, provide real-time app troubleshooting, and future-proof expectations.
$15
per month
Retrace
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Retrace (formerly APM+) is a lightweight Application Performance Management solution. Retrace gives developers continuous, real-time analysis through a combination of code-level visibility with in-line log and error data. Retrace helps identify top performance offenders by analyzing top page requests, top SQL queries, and top external web services.
$99
up to 3 servers, 500,000 traces, and 1,000,000 logs
Pricing
Splunk Infrastructure MonitoringRetrace
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Essentials
$99
up to 3 servers, 500,000 traces, and 1,000,000 logs
Standard
249+
2,000,000+ traces and 5,000,000+ logs
Enterprise
Custom
Customer number of traces and logs
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Splunk Infrastructure MonitoringRetrace
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing is based on trace and log usage.
More Pricing Information
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Splunk Infrastructure MonitoringRetrace
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Score 8.9 out of 10
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Score 8.9 out of 10
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Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Splunk Infrastructure MonitoringRetrace
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(24 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
6.4
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Splunk Infrastructure MonitoringRetrace
Likelihood to Recommend
Splunk
Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring is well suited for any complicated environment where you have apps and servers across multiple clouds and platforms and products. If you have a data centre where all your apps and servers are in one single network, you could probably get away with older solutions. But for any modern, complex, hybrid-cloud microservices environment, Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring is a must-have.
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Stackify
If I need to change a logo design on the invoice, the new logo is slightly larger or smaller so the type below the logo is in a different area than before. In this case, you would need to load the new version of the document into APM Plus and redo the mapping of the field areas to properly grab the information needed to process the document. Without doing this, the document could fail or go to the wrong archive based on the fields.
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Pros
Splunk
  • SignalFX handles historical metric aggregation exceptionally well, providing a multifaceted approach to event detection based on anomalies.
  • SignalFX's cost is incredibly flexible with their pricing model of DPM (data-point per minute) vs the traditional "per host" model that most monitoring SaaS use.
  • SignalFX support is responsive and knowledgeable, very eager to help solve your immediate problems.
  • SignalFX integrations is vast and constantly growing, making adoption easy even when multiple different open-source technologies are used in your stack.
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Stackify
  • Integration of performance management with log management so you get the parameters sent
  • In-line log and error data in trace
  • Integration of error and log data, so in one click you can see all the logs recorded when an error was thrown
  • Very reasonably priced
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Cons
Splunk
  • Better integration with our clients (native mobile clients SDKs will be great).
  • A way to easily tag filters and move them across metrics/formula.
  • Alert system to easy false [alarm] and hard to configure.
  • Be able to have group more dimensions (and have more values on each).
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Stackify
  • To set up the fields that APM Plus monitors, you need to map each field area on each document.
  • APM Plus could use a way to link the documents back into the finance or business software so you can find the document under the PO, Sales Order, Invoice, etc.
  • APM Plus setup is only for the professionals. There are many areas that need tweaking on setup, having a better default setup would lessen the learning curve to set it up for use.
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Likelihood to Renew
Splunk
Good: Stable system with low error rate Easy to use for simple use cases Bad: UI is not very clear for complex usage Mobile view (when logged in from phone) is bad No library for .net
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Stackify
No answers on this topic
Usability
Splunk
I find that learning the interface can take some time. We need a better show-and-tell on how the Teams pages, Dashboard Groups, Dashboards and charts delay. Advance SignalFlow is sometimes hard to build. Some better samples of advanced SignalFlow would be helpful. For example, Splunk SPL has a vast resource of examples.
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Stackify
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Splunk
They’re not for the same purpose but we’re using NewRelic and Honeycomb for monitoring purposes. NewRelic is used for HTTP client monitoring for system related throughput, error, database and external client monitoring. Honeycomb is used to monitor actual HTTP request/response values. Splunk [Infrastructure Monitoring] is used for real-time application related throughout and error monitoring.
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Stackify
It is a very impressive tool which doesn't overwhelm you with unnecessary data. They have combination of tools that haven't seen by any other company which makes it a very powerful tool
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Return on Investment
Splunk
  • Reduced downtime.
  • Caused us to get a lot of spam when we redeployed apps and old instances stopped sending metrics. Muting alerts solves this, but people often forget to do it or do it incorrectly.
  • Helped us find historical info about instances/apps.
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Stackify
  • APM Plus has freed up users from having to manually attach documents to each place they are sending it. APM Plus will do it automatically.
  • APM Plus provides a searchable archive to re-visit sent documents with customers and vendors. Having to reprint a document you risk the potential that something has changed since it was last printed.
  • APM Plus does need IT staff for adjustments and to review sending problems. Not for an average user.
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ScreenShots

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring Screenshots

Screenshot of Real-time monitoring for public, private and hybrid cloud

Retrace Screenshots

Screenshot of Detailed stack trace with inline error and logsScreenshot of Web Apps Dashboard:
The Apps Page gives you a high-level overview of all applications found and monitored across all servers in each environment. Click on any app to take you to the App Dashboard to view more information for a particular app.Screenshot of Apps Dashboard:
The App Dashboard is a powerful monitoring and troubleshooting perspective that gives you a view of application health across one or more environments.Screenshot of Performance (APM+) Dashboard:
The Performance section will give you a report of how well the application is performing overall, as perceived by your users.  A graph will allow you to view all requests by Satisfaction by viewing "Fast", "Sluggish", "Too Slow", or "Failed" types of requests.  Another report includes graphs of HTTP Error%, Satisfaction Score%, and Page Load Time.  Lastly, you will have the ability to sort each page request of your App by different categories: Satisfaction, Slowest page, Failed pages, pages hit, and total load time.  By clicking on an individual page a Performance Details page with further information about that specific page's health, performance, and errors will be displayed.Screenshot of Performance Traces:
One of the ways we strive to deliver relevant insights is to only collect traces around interesting requests. Some examples of these request types that are interesting would be faster than normal, slower than normal, new web requests, requests introducing new SQL, requests introducing new exceptions, or abnormal satisfaction scores. Under performing requests will be profiled more often than fast requests. As long as the app is getting steady traffic Retrace should be saving a trace every 5 to 15 minutes.Screenshot of Errors Dashboard:
From the Errors Dashboard, you can get an overview of all the exceptions of all your applications across different environments. It gives you a central location to view details about your errors.