Modern observability without the legacy baggage.

Where Splunk Excels

Best-in-class log analytics and a SIEM heritage that IAPM does not challenge.

• Log analytics and SIEM leadership: the Splunk Platform's log analytics is best-in-class for security and compliance use cases. If your primary need is security operations or SIEM, Splunk is the right tool.
• Two decades of enterprise relationships and the depth of platform maturity that comes with them.
• Cisco portfolio integration: broad integration with Cisco's networking and security stack since the 2024 acquisition.
• NoSample full-fidelity tracing captures 100% of traces with no sampling artifacts (source: splunk.com APM features page, verified 2026-06-01), genuinely valuable for debugging rare issues.

The Two-Product Problem

Splunk APM and AppDynamics. Two products. One company. A multi-year merge in progress.

• Two active APM products inside Cisco with different positioning: Splunk APM (SignalFx) for cloud-native, AppDynamics for on-prem and hybrid. Both are kept active and sold under one Splunk Observability portfolio, and convergence is now actively shipping (a new OTel-based AppDynamics agent, deep linking, shared dashboards, unified identity), but customers adopting new workloads still choose between them today (source: splunk.com/en_us/appdynamics-joins-splunk.html, verified 2026-06-21).
• The real risk is the integration window: you pick a product lineage now for a net-new cloud-native workload that might later go hybrid, and you carry the merge risk while it completes.
• Enterprise-heavy pricing at $60-75/host/month for the full-stack bundles ($55 is standalone APM-only), plus separate Splunk Platform costs for log analytics.

What If You Could Choose Clarity Instead?

Modern observability, purpose-built on OpenTelemetry.

• Single platform with a single roadmap. No acquisition integration uncertainty. No competing products from the same vendor.
• Your system rendered spatially in 3D, with AI that accesses your codebase workspace, diagnoses from 3D topology, and makes the fix.
• Built exclusively on OpenTelemetry, without the legacy baggage of multi-billion dollar acquisition consolidation.

Architecture: How We Differ

OpenTelemetry exclusive vs Splunk distribution.

IAPM is built exclusively on OpenTelemetry with no proprietary distribution. Standard OTel SDKs and Collectors work out of the box. No Splunk-specific forked collector, no enterprise sales motion, no multi-year commitment required.

Splunk has deep enterprise relationships built over two decades, a log analytics heritage that remains best-in-class for security and compliance use cases, and broad integration with Cisco's networking and security portfolio. Their NoSample full-fidelity tracing captures 100% of traces with no sampling artifacts (source: splunk.com APM features page, verified 2026-06-01), which is genuinely valuable for debugging rare issues.

AI: Tessa vs Splunk AI Assistant

Human on the loop.

Tessa connects your production telemetry to your codebase. Add your repositories as workspaces, and Tessa can trace a production issue from your 3D topology straight to the source file. Tessa accesses your codebase workspace, diagnoses from 3D topology, makes the fix. You review, you own it. Human on the loop.

Splunk has moved well beyond log-only AI: the AI Troubleshooting Agent (GA Q1 2026) does cross-signal root-cause analysis across metrics, events, logs, and traces and produces remediation plans, and a Splunk MCP server exposes observability data to external AI clients (source: help.splunk.com, verified 2026-06-21). It is genuinely capable. The durable difference is what the AI can reach and own: Splunk's agent does not access your source code (its remediation is copy-and-run guidance) and has no spatial context, so when the investigation is done you still context-switch to your IDE to make the fix. Tessa accesses your codebase workspace, diagnoses from 3D topology, and proposes the fix in your workspace, human on the loop. Tessa closes that gap.

Pricing: The Full Picture

Scenario: 40 nodes, 10 engineers.

Splunk Observability Cloud prices by bundles with per-host and per-activity billing. Here is what a realistic production deployment looks like:

Run Both. Migrate Gradually.

Same telemetry, two destinations, zero re-instrumentation.

• Dual-destination: Splunk Observability already uses OpenTelemetry for data collection. Your OTel Collector can fan out telemetry to both Splunk and IAPM simultaneously.
• No code changes: Keep Splunk for your existing services. Point new services at IAPM. Compare the experience side by side with the same production data.
• Keep Splunk for logs and security: The Splunk Platform excels at log analytics and SIEM. Use IAPM for APM and spatial visualization alongside Splunk for security.
• No enterprise lock-in: IAPM has no multi-year commitments. Start free. Upgrade when ready. Leave if it is not right.
• Exit guarantee: If IAPM is not right for you, change one endpoint URL. Your instrumentation stays exactly the same.