Apica vs IBM Application Performance Management comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Apica and IBM Application Performance Management based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability.
To learn more, read our detailed Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Our application SREs do script checks in such a way that closely mimic our customers' actions using the platform. Because there are so many different ways and options to be able to configure checks to closely mirror your applications' capabilities, it provides a lot of optionality for teams to create the right type of check that can notify when there are any issues. At the end of the day, we want our monitoring tools to be able to catch any outage before our customers do. This is where Apica Synthetic does a great job.""There are several features that are really good. The first one is the flexibility and the advanced configuration that Apica offers when it comes to configuring synthetic checks. It provides the ability to customize how the check should be performed and it is very flexible in the number of synthetic locations that it can use. It allows us to run scripts from different locations all over the world, and they have a really good number of these locations.""With the ZebraTester, the ability to have and store dynamic variables, when setting up the monitors, means you can extract that value and use it in a subsequent service call. This is something that has made our lives easier... This is one of the features that I like the most because it helps us in configuring these services, in a certain flow, without the need to re-record the whole thing.""We see the benefit almost every day. It allows us to be alerted whenever there is a store that is not responding properly around the world. We do have a network operation center (NOC) who receives these alerts, immediately checking if everything is okay.""From our standpoint, there are a number of valuable features. The WebHooks are obviously really great. The alert framework is really good and then the reporting and visualizations that you get from the dashboards is good. Those three areas are primarily what my team's focused on in terms of usage from day to day.""As always, within the IT industry, everybody's always looking to upgrade and update everything else like that. Apica has been one of those things but it's really hard to replace because it offers us the unique capability to see what the customer is seeing. A lot of other ones can do Selenium script and things like that, but there's a lot in Apica that we use right now. We utilize a lot of the scenario options in Apica right now, and there's a lot of other ones that do parts of it, but it doesn't do everything that Apica does.""You can tell from the operational space of people who are using and consuming this data that they are more integrated. It is not dependent on one team anymore. It saves a lot of time by capturing and pinpointing the exact problem that is happening quickly. We have moved from getting escalations manually to getting escalations synthetically.""It helps with releases because we monitor them in staging. We can tell if something is critically wrong before it gets into production, e.g., if it was load related or function related and also what was different in the dev stage. It then alerts us straightaway inside of our production monitors once it has been released. Therefore, it has improved how we run our systems since we monitor multiple environments."

More Apica Pros →

"The transaction tracking feature from IBM is the most important feature for us. It is something that provides a terrific value for us and our clients. It has a lot of data sources and agents that are collectors. It is also stable.""The initial setup was straightforward and took minimal effort.""Because we have partnerships with other partners, I can share a bit about what I've noticed with IBM APM compared to other vendor solutions. Specifically, with IBM, the visibility into detailed process information is more tangible. On the OS level, APM displays all processes (or the top 10 processes) that are consuming CPU or resident memory. This is the most important thing that is not always available with other vendors.""IBM Application Performance Management helped us increased our response time by 80% and cost 60% less.""The most valuable feature is the breakdown that it provides, such as a description of the fields for a particular transaction.""It's easy to use.""I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten."

More IBM Application Performance Management Pros →

Cons
"We have been focused on reducing polling times for synthetic checks. We have gone from 10 minutes down to five minutes for a pretty broad swath, but there is some appetite to reduce that further, which could be an improvement.""The having to install an application on your desktop to utilize something like ZebraTester is a little cumbersome. It would be nice to see that become a web-based application. Having the documentation a little more accessible, and easier to digest by people who are just learning how to use the framework, especially when it comes to more complex or more edge-based cases would be really helpful to have.""There are some components of the user interface that are not up to date. Just to give you an idea, today we have web applications that are called single-page applications that are much faster than the old style of web application. If we can move faster into the flow of the graphic user interface, and in a more effective way, it will save us a lot of time.""Learning the tool has always been a little difficult from a scripting perspective because the framework is proprietary and unique. Once we became used to what it does and how to perform it, then it became easier for my team and me. I would like to see some of the testing steps be part of a more well-known language, like Java or Python. That would be a big improvement.""When it comes to the way the internal agent is installed, because you can install an application on a server, I would love to see the application Docker-ized. If you could install internal agents using Docker or using containers, it would be easier for us to manage them and spin up internal agents.""The accuracy of alerts can be improved a little bit. Right now, it's pretty good in terms of alerting pretty quickly about failures or changes in response times. However, what we have seen happen is the number of alerts that we are getting is very frequent, and we would like to tone down the number of alerts. That's the only trouble we have. Apica could tone down those settings because there is no option for us to tone it down to a level that would reduce the alerts to a minimum. As a platform, it does send us good alerts, but it could be improved a bit.""Alerting needs improvement. It's a little noisy. It needs some better options. Currently, they have an issue, when you set up a synthetic monitor, you can set up where it's monitoring from, a data center that Apica owns.""The reporting part that we use for our executives needs a bit more customization capabilities. Right now, you can use only the three main templates for reporting. We would like to be able to customize them."

More Apica Cons →

"It's still missing some platforms. For example, if you look to applications itself, it is missing the interface.""Technical support can be slow and needs improvement.""The demo that was provided to us is not working very well. At times, there are errors.""Its web user interface is a little bit old in comparison to other solutions, such as New Relic, and it should be improved. Its scalability and technical support should also be improved. Currently, it is scalable, but only in a vertical way. They provide good technical support, but the initial steps for a new case can be improved to fasten the resolution process.""The stability is not great and should be better.""With APM, we noticed that the agent can cause a lot of issues for the application, making the agent very unreliable. Many issues are happening, and we've had to discuss it with support to try and get a fix. It affects application availability, and sometimes actions fail because of the agent, degrading the performance of the application.""They should focus on potentially enhancing the dashboard to make it more contemporary and adding some customization options. Furthermore, there might be room for improvement in the pricing policy."

More IBM Application Performance Management Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The pricing and licensing are very reasonable. At the end of the day, you are using their technology/software and getting X amount of checks for a very decent value. As for discounts, they try to meet your budgets as much as they can. For example, if you need 100 checks and you have X amount of budget for it, then they will try and get down to that price. Costing-wise, it is a reasonably cost product. They will always try and come down to your price if you need them to come down to it by knocking off certain areas."
  • "Apica is pretty cost-effective if you buy both solutions together: Synthetic and LoadTest. If you are going for one solution, the cost is on par with any tool in the market."
  • "The level of alerting accuracy has saved us time and money in operational costs. Overall, it has automated a lot of the manual efforts which have been more complex with some of our other scripting tools or monitors. So, it brings things together by doing things faster and saves us money."
  • "License management is another area that Apica could do better. We have already had these conversations with our account teams. This is something that they are looking at largely improving in upcoming releases. I believe that this is already on their roadmap."
  • "The pricing is very reasonable, but it is not cheap."
  • "Another main difference between Apica and the other products was the cost. We really thought that the balance in Apica between the features and costs was the best among all the products on which we did a PoC."
  • More Apica Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "IBM APM is one of the cheaper products on the market, while everything necessary to get started is included in the license."
  • "The licensing fees can be paid every six months or on a yearly basis."
  • "As I previously indicated, I initiated the IBM and uncovered all its elements. Consequently, I'm not inclined towards a licensing approach."
  • More IBM Application Performance Management Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Questions from the Community
    Ask a question

    Earn 20 points

    Top Answer:They should focus on potentially enhancing the dashboard to make it more contemporary and adding some customization options. Furthermore, there might be room for improvement in the pricing policy. The… more »
    Top Answer:I monitor business applications for more than four end users.
    Ranking
    Views
    976
    Comparisons
    584
    Reviews
    0
    Average Words per Review
    0
    Rating
    N/A
    Views
    1,329
    Comparisons
    827
    Reviews
    2
    Average Words per Review
    298
    Rating
    6.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Apica LoadTest, Apica Synthetic
    IBM APM
    Learn More
    Overview

    Apica offers a unified perspective on the entire technology stack, encompassing logs, metrics, traces, and APIs. This operational data fabric facilitates quick identification and resolution of performance issues throughout an enterprise's infrastructure. The platform's user-friendly features, including a drag-and-drop interface for dashboards and seamless integrations with tools like Prometheus and Elasticsearch, enhance ease of use and management. Apica's active observability swiftly analyzes telemetry data in real-time, enabling prompt issue resolution, while automated root cause analysis, powered by machine learning, streamlines troubleshooting in complex distributed systems. The platform's advanced data management centralizes observability data, simplifying storage, search, and analysis, thereby unveiling valuable insights and patterns. Apica also ensures compliance and governance, providing audit trails to help enterprises meet regulatory requirements. Whether for enterprises of all sizes or those with intricate distributed systems, Apica emerges as a robust tool to elevate technology stack observability and performance.

    The IBM Application Performance Management portfolio provides visibility, control and automation of your mission-critical applications. It helps pinpoint the root cause of application's issue more quickly and resolve the problem. The integrated capabilities cover the five key areas: discovery, end-use experience, transaction tracking, enterprise diagnostics and analytics. It also easily monitors applications to ensure optimal performance to extend your hybrid management environment capabilities, to measure the customer experience from multiple locations and to further eliminate blind spots in your application environment.
    Sample Customers
    HBO
    Mibtree, EatDrinkDeals.com, IT Performance Advisor
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm44%
    Retailer11%
    Hospitality Company11%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm38%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Insurance Company10%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Government12%
    Media Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business9%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise82%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise6%
    Large Enterprise80%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business67%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise22%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise69%
    Buyer's Guide
    Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Apica is ranked 55th in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability while IBM Application Performance Management is ranked 52nd in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 7 reviews. Apica is rated 8.6, while IBM Application Performance Management is rated 6.4. The top reviewer of Apica writes "Their support makes the product so much easier to use. They sped up our migration process". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Application Performance Management writes "A multi-functional solution but has poor stability and performance-related issues". Apica is most compared with Datadog, Dynatrace, AppDynamics, Apache JMeter and OpenText LoadRunner Cloud, whereas IBM Application Performance Management is most compared with Instana Dynamic APM, Dynatrace, BMC Compuware Strobe, IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager and AppDynamics.

    See our list of best Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability vendors.

    We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.