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Sematext Review Inc Alternatives
UPDATED: January 11, 2024
Where there is software, there are valuable data like logs, metrics, and events— data that helps monitor different aspects of any business. Whether that is application performance, servers, containers, databases, uptime, website, networks, APIs, or programming languages, such systems will generate data that needs to be centralized for easier management and analysis.
Sematext Cloud (SaaS) and Sematext Enterprise (on-premises) provide a unified platform that integrates different solutions, including application performance monitoring, infrastructure monitoring, log management, real user and synthetic monitoring, and transaction tracking.
- Site24x7 – EDITOR'S CHOICE A comprehensive alternative to Sematext, Site24x7 stands out for its extensive IT monitoring capabilities. It excels in application performance monitoring with detailed server and client-side metrics, in-depth network monitoring, and effective log management. These features, combined with real-time alerts and customizable dashboards, make Site24x7 a versatile choice for organizations seeking an all-encompassing IT monitoring solution with advanced functionalities. Start a 30-day free trial.
- Datadog Standing out for its comprehensive cloud-based application observability, Datadog offers real-time network monitoring and flexible scaling options, making it ideal for diverse business needs.
- AppDynamics Tailored for large-scale enterprises, AppDynamics excels in visualizing complex systems and providing a robust free version for effective application performance monitoring.
- Splunk Platform Offering powerful visual analytics and machine learning capabilities, Splunk Platform caters to enterprises with a focus on security and operation enhancements.
- Dynatrace Best for large enterprises and MSPs, Dynatrace provides AI-powered analytics and cloud observability, with highly customizable dashboards for complex deployments.
- ELK Stack Known for its simplicity and extensive community support, ELK Stack offers an efficient combination of Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana for both cloud and on-premise deployments.
- Sumo Logic With its user-friendly interface and template-driven approach, Sumo Logic is an excellent choice for small to medium-sized businesses needing comprehensive log management and analytics.
- LogicMonitor Ideal for enterprises and MSPs, LogicMonitor offers full-stack observability with a focus on cloud-based application performance monitoring and hybrid cloud environments.
- NewRelic One Specializing in Azure network monitoring, NewRelic One provides intuitive dashboards and anomaly detection, best suited for small to medium-sized Azure networks.
This Sematext review will review the Sematext product description, features, highlights, pros and cons, and pricing. We’ll also check the installation process, integration, and dashboard last section will go through the top eight Sematext alternatives.
What is Sematext
Sematext is a globally distributed organization that creates modern cloud and on-premises IT system monitoring solutions for DevOps, SysAdmins, or SREs. They build Application Performance Monitoring (APM), log centralization and management, alert and anomaly detection, and real-user monitoring solutions.
Sematext runs the Sematext Cloud— the Infrastructure and APM, and log management solution that gives complete visibility through either the cloud or on-premise solution, using logs, metrics, and traces.
- Deployment Web-based cloud-app (Sematext Cloud) and on-prem logging and infrastructure observability with Sematext Enterprise.
- Mobile app N/A
- Customer Support Support includes robust documentation, knowledgebase, email, phone, and chat.
- Pricing model Sematext Logs Standard prices start at $50/month for 1GB/day and 7-day retention. More on pricing is below.
- Free Trial A free 14-day trial is available upon registration.
How does Sematext Stand Apart?
Sematext is not like any other IT monitoring solution, which might only provide logging or performance monitoring. Sematext stands out from its competition because it (Sematext Cloud) provides a unified solution suite of products and services to accomplish both capabilities.
The Sematext Cloud is an all-in-one monitoring solution that includes:
- Sematext infrastructure monitoring Map and keep track of all your infrastructure in real-time. The Sematext platform integrates easily with multiple solutions or services, including database, cloud, containers, etc., and provides a real-time view of the on-premise, cloud, or hybrid infrastructure. For instance, you can see the metrics (historical and real-time), including CPU disk usage, I/O, etc., of all your on-prem servers or cloud instances.
- Sematext Log management and analytics Sematext centralizes, aggregates, and stores logs into a central storage location from any data source. It provides real-time log monitoring and analysis from the main dashboard for easier troubleshooting. In addition, the Sematext Logs services is a fully managed cloud-based ELK (as a Service) without the need for Elasticsearch and infrastructure management. It provides all the advantages of the Elasticsearch API and Kibana without the management overhead.
- Sematext Experience for Real User Monitoring Analyze data collected from real-user sessions, detect anomalies, send alerts in real-time, and enhance overall customer digital experience. Sematext analyzes your website or web app and identifies the areas currently affecting UX. It provides your teams with real-time data and metrics and alerts them when a bug affects the UX.
- Sematext Synthetics Synthetic monitoring emulates users’ paths when interacting with an application or site. It uses various scripts that simulate user behaviors in a wide degree of scenarios, geographic locations, device types, or other variables. As a result, synthetic monitoring helps deliver faster, more consistent, and reliable sites and APIs. Sematext provides HTTP monitors that help track the uptime and availability of websites and applications worldwide. In addition, to monitoring SSL certificates, giving status pages, and more.
- Sematext Tracing Sematext helps you optimize end-to-end app performance with tracing. Transaction tracing is a feature that lets one trace coding execution from start to finish. It provides end-to-end visibility into distributed apps and distributed transaction tracing. Sematext Tracing integrates with log management, infrastructure, and accurate user monitoring.
Sematext additional services
Sematext also provides extensive data consulting, training, and production support for Elasticsearch, ELK/Elastic Stack, and Apache Solr to customers worldwide. Furthermore, Sematext helps customers troubleshoot and optimize their Apache Solr, Elasticsearch, or ELK Stack. In addition, they also offer the managed ELK SaaS to manage your logs without needing Elasticsearh and infrastructure management.
Sematext Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Friendly and amazing support
- A lot of out-of-the-box integrations
- Integrations and agent installation is easy
- Documentation is quite comprehensive
- Easy-to-use and intuitive UI
- Detailed reports
Cons:
- Needs more integrations with security tools
- Lacks full-featured code profiler
- User management needs some improvement
- A bit more expensive than alternatives
Starting with Sematext
The Discovery process. The first step when starting with Sematext is to configure the discovery process. This process scans and finds assets in your infrastructure that Sematext can monitor. Then, it uses the Sematext Agent installed on the host to discover services and logs.
If you want to visualize logs, you’ll need to ship them from your infrastructure, containers, cloud, custom events, etc. You’ll need to create a separate App for each log type. Click on “Start Shipping Logs”.
Note: Apps act as data buckets, where you can store performance metrics or logs from servers, containers, databases, software, etc. Every App is standalone and isolated.
You’ll need to install the Sematext agent on the application host. Then, you can select any environment, from cloud providers (AWS ECS, AKS, etc.), containers (Docker, Podman, etc.), or on-premises, bare-metal/VM (RedHat, Ubuntu, etc.) or automation tools (Ansible, Puppet, or Chef).
Installing the agent
If you installed the Sematext Agent on a cloud environment (AWS) like me, you’d need to wait a few minutes to start seeing performance data on the Sematext Monitoring. The safety questions Sematext agent automatically collects cloud metadata and user-defined tags.
Monitoring with Sematext
The Sematext Cloud serves as a centralization point for all reported data from your multiple systems. It lets you analyze and visualize data using Sematext APM and logging tools. Plus, it also enables you to configure alerts based on behavior.
Once the agent is installed and activated, you’ll notice Sematext tools immediately start filling in the following information:
With this information on the Sematext Cloud, you’ll be able to filter and analyze metrics and events, query data, create custom dashboards and reports, generate custom alerts based on the service’s performance.
Managing Logs with Sematext
Sematext Pricing
Register to get a 14-day free trial of the Pro Monitoring Plan.
Sematext Alternatives
Below are the top eight alternatives to Sematext. Such choices combine APM, infrastructure monitoring, log management, accurate user monitoring, and synthetic capabilities.
In addition, all the below alternatives to Sematext are cloud-based platforms. These products have great data analytics, automation, and intelligence capabilities. All products offer a free trial.
Our Methodology for Selecting Observability and Monitoring Tool:
We've broken down our analysis for you based on these key criteria:
1. Site24x7 – FREE TRIAL
As an alternative to Sematext, Site24x7 offers a comprehensive suite of tools for monitoring, managing, and analyzing IT infrastructure and applications. It stands out for its versatility and depth, catering to a wide range of monitoring needs, from server and network monitoring to application performance management.
Site24x7 offers a broad range of features and functionalities, making it a versatile tool for comprehensive IT monitoring. Its strengths in application performance monitoring and network monitoring are particularly notable. For organizations seeking a holistic approach to IT monitoring with advanced features, Site24x7 presents a compelling option.
Key Features
Why do we recommend it?
Site24x7 is recommended for its comprehensive and integrated monitoring capabilities, which encompass a wide range of IT infrastructure components. Its ability to provide deep insights and real-time data across different layers of IT infrastructure makes it a robust alternative to Sematext.
Who is it recommended for?
This tool is ideal for medium to large enterprises with diverse IT environments. It is especially beneficial for IT administrators, DevOps teams, and network engineers who need an all-in-one solution to monitor, analyze, and optimize their IT resources.
Pros:
Cons:
EDITOR'S CHOICE
Site24x7 stands out as our top recommendation as an alternative to Sematext, particularly for its versatility and comprehensive monitoring capabilities. Its strength lies in the wide range of features that cover application performance, network monitoring, and log management, catering to the diverse needs of medium to large enterprises.
I was particularly impressed by its integrated approach, which allows seamless monitoring across various IT components, providing a unified view that is often missing in other tools. Additionally, the customizable dashboards and real-time alerts significantly enhance the user experience, making monitoring both efficient and insightful. For any organization looking to deepen its IT infrastructure monitoring with a robust and feature-rich tool, Site24x7 is an excellent choice.
Download: Get a 30-day free trial
Official Site: https://www.solarwinds.com/pingdom
OS: Cloud-based
2. Datadog
Datadog is an observability platform for cloud-based applications. It provides SaaS-based data analytics to monitor servers, databases, tools, and third-party services. In addition, Datadog provides turn-key integrations for the complete DevOps stack to gather metrics and events. It also allows infrastructure monitoring, network performance monitoring, log management, APM, synthetic monitoring, accurate user monitoring, continuous profiler, and more.
Key Features
Why do we recommend it?
Datadog is recommended for its comprehensive, real-time monitoring capabilities, offering an integrated view across servers, databases, and third-party services, ideal for modern cloud-based applications.
Who is it recommended for?
Suitable for businesses of all sizes seeking a robust, scalable, and flexible observability platform, especially those with a focus on DevOps and cloud-based applications.
Pros:
Cons:
Datadog is one of the best observability and monitoring platforms because it exemplifies what modern cloud-based applications require for efficient and effective monitoring. With its SaaS-based analytics, Datadog offers a comprehensive view of servers, databases, and third-party services. Its turn-key integrations for the complete DevOps stack enable seamless gathering of metrics and events, crucial for today’s dynamic IT environments. Datadog’s robust feature set, coupled with its scalability and flexibility, makes it an ideal choice for businesses seeking a comprehensive and efficient observability and monitoring platform. Try Datadog on a 14-day free trial.
3. AppDynamics
AppDynamics by Cisco is full-stack observability, IT infrastructure monitoring, and APM. Gartner has named the Cisco AppDynamics a Leader in the 2021 Magic Quadrant for APM tools. The software can monitor the entire stack, from business, user, application, infrastructure, network, and security.
Key Features
Why do we recommend it?
AppDynamics excels in providing detailed visualizations and dependency mapping, making it a top choice for large enterprises needing full-stack observability.
Who is it recommended for?
Ideal for large-scale enterprises, AppDynamics is recommended for organizations requiring in-depth monitoring of complex application systems.
Pros:
Cons:
Get a 15-day SaaS trial.
4. Splunk Platform
Splunk is a data platform built for the cloud. It empowers security, IT, and DevOps teams to monitor, analyze, and act based on data and improve security and operations. The Splunk platform comes with observability, event analytics and management, APM, AIOps, logs for observability, infrastructure monitoring, digital experience monitoring, and more.
Key Features
Why do we recommend it?
Splunk is recommended for its powerful data analytics and visual displays, coupled with machine learning capabilities, making it a strong choice for enterprise-level data analysis.
Who is it recommended for?
Particularly suited for large enterprises focusing on security, IT, and DevOps teams who need a comprehensive data platform for monitoring and analytics.
Pros:
Cons:
Register for a 14-day free trial of Splunk Cloud.
5. Dynatrace
Dynatrace is a software automation and intelligence observability platform. It is designed to simplify complex cloud deployments with observability, automation, and intelligence from a single platform. It is an all-in-one platform that delivers true AIOps, Cloud Observability, UX, and business analytics.
Key Features
Why do we recommend it?
Dynatrace is recommended for its AI-powered analytics and all-in-one cloud observability, offering unparalleled insights for complex cloud deployments.
Who is it recommended for?
Best suited for larger enterprises and MSPs that require a sophisticated, comprehensive platform for monitoring cloud deployments and application performance.
Pros:
Cons:
Register for a 15-day free trial.
6. ELK Stack
ELK stands for Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana (three open-source projects). Elasticsearch is the search and analytics engine. Logstash is the lightweight server-side data processing pipeline that collects, transforms, and sends data to the desired destination. Kibana provides data visualization in Elasticsearch.
Key Features
Why do we recommend it?
The ELK Stack is recommended for its straightforward setup, community support, and effectiveness in both cloud and on-premise deployments.
Who is it recommended for?
Ideal for organizations looking for a reliable, open-source solution for data visualization and analysis, especially those with a preference for customizable and community-backed tools.
Pros:
Cons:
Register to start your Free Elastic Cloud Trial.
7. Sumo Logic
Sumo Logic is a cloud-based machine-data-driven analytics platform for logs, metrics, and traces. It uses machine-generated big data to power log management and analytics services and provides real-time security, observability, and reliability insights.
Key Features
Why do we recommend it?
Sumo Logic's user-friendly approach and its ability to support multiple environments make it a recommended choice for businesses needing comprehensive log management and analytics.
Who is it recommended for?
Particularly suited for small to medium-sized businesses looking for a cloud-based, machine-data-driven analytics platform that's easy to install and use.
Pros:
Cons:
Register to Sumo Logic to start a free trial.
8. LogicMonitor
LogicMonitor is a full-stack, cloud-based observability and infrastructure monitoring platform. It is a fully automated platform designed for IT and managed service providers. Logic Monitor provides IT insights, data collaboration, and complete visibility into the cloud, applications, servers, networks, log data, databases, and more from a central platform.
Key Features
Why do we recommend it?
LogicMonitor is recommended for its ability to provide comprehensive cloud-based observability and infrastructure monitoring, with a focus on IT and managed service providers.
Who is it recommended for?
Particularly suitable for enterprises and MSPs needing a fully automated platform for detailed IT insights and visibility into cloud, applications, servers, and networks.
Pros:
Cons:
Sign up for a free 14-day trial.
9. NewRelic One
NewRelic One is a complete observability platform, which combines various capabilities, including AIOps, alerts, APM, browser monitoring, distributed tracing, log management, infrastructure monitoring, and more. In addition, the new Relic One offers an exhaustive list of out-of-the-box integrations.
Key Features
Why do we recommend it?
NewRelic One is recommended for its specialized Azure monitoring capabilities, intuitive dashboards, and effective anomaly detection features.
Who is it recommended for?
Best for small to medium-sized businesses utilizing Microsoft Azure, seeking a complete observability platform with a focus on AIOps and browser monitoring.
Pros:
Cons:
Sign up for a perpetual free access license (100 GB/month of free data ingest and one free full-access user).