Top 7 Stackify Retrace Alternatives in 2025: Features, Pricing and Comparison

Known for its granular issue visibility and responsive support, Stackify Retrace (a BMC company) has been a go-to solution for developers seeking to optimize application performance, troubleshoot errors, and manage logs across .NET, Java, PHP, Node.js, Python, and Ruby applications. However, despite its strengths, some users seek Stackify Retrace alternatives due to limitations such as lack of OpenTelemetry support, limited synthetic monitoring, and challenges with platform stability.

CubeAPM stands out as the premier alternative to Stackify Retrace, offering full MELT observability, native OpenTelemetry support, and flexible deployment options (SaaS, self-hosted, or VPC). Its context-aware smart sampling reduces data costs by 60–80%, while free synthetic monitoring and direct engineering support via Slack or WhatsApp ensure rapid issue resolution.

In this article, we’ll explore the top 8 Stackify Retrace alternatives—comparing features, pricing, support, and use cases. Whether you’re looking for better OpenTelemetry support, lower costs, or faster support, this guide will help you find the right fit.

Top 8 Stackify Retrace Alternatives

1. CubeAPM
2. Elastic Observability
3. Dynatrace
4. New Relic
5. Datadog
6. Sumo Logic
7. SolarWinds

Why Look for Stackify Retrace Alternatives?

While Stackify Retrace excels in providing developer-friendly APM with robust logging and error tracking, several factors drive users to explore alternatives:

1. Limited OpenTelemetry Support:

Retrace relies on its proprietary agent-based profiling, lacking native support for OpenTelemetry, a vendor-neutral standard increasingly adopted for interoperable telemetry data (metrics, logs, traces). This can hinder integration with modern observability pipelines, as highlighted by competitors like CubeAPM and LogicMonitor, which offer OpenTelemetry-based tracing.

2. SaaS-Only Deployment

Retrace’s cloud-only model limits options for organizations needing self-hosted or on-premises solutions to comply with data residency regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, or India’s DPDP Act. Alternatives like CubeAPM provide self-hosted options for greater control.

3. No Synthetic Monitoring

Retrace lacks advanced synthetic monitoring, which is critical for simulating user interactions and testing performance proactively. Competitors like Datadog and CubeAPM offer robust synthetics, including global endpoint testing.

4. Cost and Scalability

While Retrace is praised for affordability compared to New Relic, its pricing model based on host hours (normal for production, Lite for non-production) can lead to unpredictable costs for large-scale deployments.

Stackify Retrace Cost Example:

For a mid-sized company generating 10TB (10,240GB) of data monthly, Stackify Retrace’s pricing starts at $80/month (billed annually, including 5GB data) or $249/month (50GB included). With the $80 plan, the additional 10,235GB incurs $9,109.15 (10,235 × $0.89/GB), totaling $9,189.15/month. The $249 plan covers 50GB, leaving 10,190GB at $9,069.10 (10,190 × $0.89/GB), totaling $9,318.10/month.

In contrast, CubeAPM’s flat pricing of $0.15/GB for all data ingestion costs $1,536/month (10,240 × $0.15), delivering ~83% savings compared to Retrace’s $80 plan and ~84% savings compared to the $249 plan. CubeAPM includes full MELT observability, RUM, synthetics, and smart sampling with no additional fees, making it a highly cost-effective solution for large-scale data monitoring.

5. Broader Ecosystem Support

Retrace is heavily optimized for .NET and Java, with limited support for non-Windows environments (e.g., .NET Core on Linux). Tools like Dynatrace and New Relic provide broader language and platform compatibility, including Kubernetes and microservices. These limitations push DevOps teams and developers to seek alternatives that align with modern observability needs, cost predictability, and flexible deployment options.

Criteria for Suggesting Stackify Retrace Alternatives

When evaluating alternatives to Stackify Retrace, the following criteria ensure a comprehensive comparison tailored to diverse organizational needs:

1. Full MELT Observability

Support for Metrics, Events, Logs, and Traces (MELT) in a unified platform, providing end-to-end visibility with seamless correlation, matching or exceeding Retrace’s integration of APM, logs, and error tracking.

2. OTEL Support

We prioritized tools with native integration with OpenTelemetry for standardized, interoperable telemetry collection (metrics, logs, traces), addressing Retrace’s lack of support for this modern observability standard.

3. Advanced Features & AI Monitoring

Alternatives should prioritize advanced features like anomaly detection, smart sampling, and AI-assisted alerting to handle the high data volumes of microservices. Unlike Stackify Retrace’s basic approach, these features predict issues, reduce downtime, and scale efficiently, providing actionable insights. CubeAPM, Datadog, and Dynatrace excel in AI-driven monitoring.

4. Collaboration & Integrations

Seamless integrations with DevOps tools like Slack, Jira, PagerDuty, and GitHub Actions are essential to streamline incident management workflows, enhancing Retrace’s limited integration ecosystem.

5. User Experience and Operational Simplicity

Fast onboarding, a low learning curve, intuitive dashboards, and easy setup are critical for developer adoption, matching Retrace’s user-friendly setup for .NET and Ja

6. Deployment Flexibility

Support for SaaS, self-hosted, or on-premises deployments to meet data residency and compliance needs (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA), unlike Retrace’s SaaS-only model.

7. Pricing Transparency

Predictable, cost-effective pricing without hidden fees or per-user/per-node licensing, addressing Retrace’s potential for unpredictable costs with high data volumes.

8. Support and Turnaround Time (TAT)

Responsive support via multiple channels (e.g., Slack, email, chat) with fast TAT, ideally surpassing Retrace’s 18-hour weekday support.

Stackify Retrace Overview

Known for:

Retrace is primarily known for its full-lifecycle APM, enabling developers and DevOps teams to monitor application performance, identify bottlenecks, and resolve issues quickly through code-level tracing, integrated logging, and error tracking. It excels in providing actionable insights for optimizing .NET and Java applications, particularly in cloud environments like AWS and Azure, with a focus on reducing mean time to resolution (MTTR) for performance issues and bugs.

Standout Features:

• Code-Level Tracing

Lightweight profiling delivers detailed transaction traces, pinpointing performance bottlenecks in methods, SQL queries, and HTTP calls.

• Integrated Logging and Errors

Combines logs, errors, and traces in a single platform, allowing seamless navigation from log statements to full transaction traces.

• Custom Dashboards

Role-based, user-defined dashboards with real-time metrics like Apdex scores and user satisfaction for tailored monitoring.

• Deployment Tracking

Integrates with CI/CD tools to correlate performance changes with specific deployments, enhancing troubleshooting efficiency.

• Real User Monitoring (RUM)

Merges client and server-side traces to optimize end-user experience with resource breakdown reports.

Key Features:

• APM+ Tab

Interactive graphs for aggregated application performance data, supporting advanced search and drill-down capabilities.

• Structured Logging

Supports log tags and JSON parsing for efficient log search and analysis across multiple environments.

• Error Tracking

Automatically captures exceptions with detailed stack traces, linked to logs and traces for rapid root cause analysis.

• Infrastructure Monitoring

Tracks server health (CPU, memory, disk) and supports cloud platforms (AWS, Azure) and containers (Docker, Kubernetes for PHP).

• Alerting

Granular, customizable alerts for proactive issue detection, integrated with tools like Slack and Jira.

• Prefix Integration

Free code profiler for pre-production debugging, ensuring high-quality code before deployment.

Pros:

• Easy setup with minimal configuration, especially for .NET and Java applications
• Comprehensive log aggregation and error tracking reduce troubleshooting time
• Strong integration with DevOps tools (e.g., Slack, Jira, Visual Studio) streamlines workflows.
• Responsive support team, praised for setup assistance and feature guidance.
• Lightweight profiling minimizes performance overhead, ideal for production environments.

Cons:

• SaaS-only deployment limits options for organizations needing on-premises solutions
• Lacks native OpenTelemetry support, hindering integration
• Limited synthetic monitoring compared to competitors
• Occasional platform stability issues, such as slow log loading or UI bugs
• Log filtering can be complex, requiring manual effort to sift through large datasets.
• Documentation is sufficient but could be more comprehensive for advanced use cases.

Best for:

Stackify Retrace is best for small to mid-sized development teams, startups, and enterprises using .NET or Java applications in cloud environments (AWS, Azure). It’s ideal for DevOps teams seeking an affordable, developer-friendly APM tool with strong logging and error tracking, particularly those prioritizing rapid issue resolution without complex setup. However, teams requiring advanced synthetic monitoring, OpenTelemetry support, or on-premises deployment may need alternatives.

Pricing & Customer Reviews:

• Pricing: Tiered pricing with Tier 1 at $80/month billed annually; Tier 2 at $249/month billed annually
• Rating: Retrace scores 4.2/5 on (G2)

Top 8 Stackify Retrace

1. CubeAPM

Known For

CubeAPM is a full-stack, OpenTelemetry-native APM platform designed to optimize cost efficiency and provide smart sampling. It is perfect for DevOps and SRE teams who require reliable observability without the risk of overpaying or losing control. Unlike legacy tools or open-source alternatives, CubeAPM uses AI-powered Smart Sampling to intelligently retain the most valuable traces, reducing trace volume by up to 70% and thus lowering storage and compute costs. CubeAPM also offers flexible deployment models, supporting cloud and on-premise installations, which helps organizations comply with data localization regulations such as GDPR.

Key Features

1. Full MELT Support

CubeAPM supports Metrics, Events, Logs, and Traces (MELT), along with Real User Monitoring (RUM), synthetics, and error tracking all within a unified platform.

2. Smart Sampling

Unlike Signoz, CubeAPM uses context-aware sampling, ensuring that only the most critical telemetry (e.g., slow or erroring traces) is retained, improving visibility while reducing unnecessary data noise.

3. Compliance-Ready Hosting

CubeAPM can be deployed either in cloud or on-premise to comply with local data residency laws.

4. 1-Hour Setup & Agent Compatibility

CubeAPM supports drop-in agents from Datadog, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, and New Relic, making migration seamless

Standout Features

• $0.15/GB flat pricing—no hidden user or host fees. Zero cloud egress costs.
• Real-time Slack support directly from engineers.
• Prebuilt AWS/Kubernetes dashboards.
• Flexible self-hosting and cloud-hosting options.
• 800+ integrations

Pros

• Full-stack observability with OTEL-native ingestion.
• Cost predictability with flat-rate pricing.
• 2–4x faster ingestion performance.
• Ideal for data localization and compliance use cases.
• Works out of the box for AWS, K8s, Redis, Kafka, etc.

Cons

• Not suitable for teams looking for off-prem solutions.
• Strictly an observability platform, does not support cloud security management.

Best For

• Engineering teams seeking lower costs and greater control over telemetry.
• Startups and mid-sized teams scaling quickly but with limited budgets.

Pricing & Customer Reviews

• Pricing: $0.15/GB flat ingestion rate, no per-user fees.
• Rating: 4.7 / 5 (based on pilot programs, Slack feedback, and demos).
• Praised for: Developer-friendly UX, transparent pricing, and powerful trace sampling.
• Criticized for: Growing ecosystem, fewer marketplace plugins than Datadog.

CubeAPM vs Stackify Retrace

Both CubeAPM and Stackify Retrace offer full-stack observability, but CubeAPM excels with smart sampling, compliance-ready hosting, and predictable pricing, making it a better choice for teams scaling quickly and those needing control over their telemetry. Retrace, on the other hand, offers simple, developer-focused APM with advanced analytics, but lacks the smart sampling and flexible deployment options that CubeAPM provides.

2. Elastic Observability

Known For

Elastic Observability is renowned for its powerful log analytics and centralized monitoring capabilities, built on the widely used ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana). It is popular among teams dealing with large volumes of machine data, particularly logs and metrics, across distributed systems. Elastic Observability excels at offering deep insights into machine data while providing advanced querying and visualization capabilities for logs and metrics.

Key Features

1. Centralized Log Management
Efficient ingestion, indexing, and querying of logs from various sources.

2. Metrics Monitoring
Collects and monitors time-series metrics for infrastructure, services, and containers.

3. Elastic APM
Distributed tracing support for backend services with service maps and latency breakdowns.

4. Uptime Monitoring
Provides basic synthetic checks to monitor service availability.

5. Basic RUM Support
JavaScript agent for browser monitoring (limited depth compared to other tools).

6. Alerting and Anomaly Detection
Offers both threshold-based and ML-driven alerting on metrics and logs.

Standout Features

• Sampling

Elastic Observability offers tail-based sampling, allowing for ingest filters (e.g., trace duration, error status) to be applied during sampling. This ensures only high-value traces are kept while optimizing storage costs.

• Kibana Dashboards

Kibana provides rich visualizations for logs, metrics, and traces with custom-built charts and drilldowns, offering powerful visual monitoring for distributed systems.

• Elasticsearch Query Language (KQL):

KQL enables complex, full-text search and filtering across massive telemetry datasets, making it easier to analyze large volumes of logs quickly.

• Elastic Common Schema (ECS)

ECS is a flexible schema for normalizing data across various sources, making it easier to analyze different types of telemetry data in a standardized way.

• Index Lifecycle Management (ILM)

Manages data retention and optimizes storage costs by tiering data into hot/warm/cold phases based on data importance and age.

Pros

• Highly scalable architecture, suitable for managing massive volumes of logs and metrics.
• Core components of the ELK stack are open-source and widely adopted.
• Powerful search and query capabilities enable fast queries even on large datasets.
• Kibana for custom dashboards and in-depth visual tools for monitoring.

Cons

• Steep learning curve; requires familiarity with Elasticsearch, KQL, and Kibana to build effective observability workflows.
• Requires frequent maintenance and tuning (shards, indices, retention, storage tiers).
• Limited OpenTelemetry support; requires manual setup and lacks auto-instrumentation.
• Partial MELT coverage; lacks strong support for RUM, synthetic monitoring, and unified error tracking.
• Resource-based pricing in Elastic Cloud can lead to unpredictable bills.
• No on-premise support in Elastic Cloud.

Best For

• Large enterprises with deep Elasticsearch expertise or teams prioritizing log analytics and centralized logging over full-stack observability.
• Organizations already invested in the Elastic ecosystem that can dedicate engineers to manage and tune it.

Pricing & Customer Reviews

• Pricing: Elastic Cloud pricing is not fixed by telemetry volume. It charges based on compute units, storage, ingestion rate, and retention.
• Customer Sentiment:
  G2 Rating: 4.2/5
  Praised for: Strong logging and analytics, powerful dashboards, and a rich query engine.
  Criticized for: Complexity of use, pricing unpredictability, and limited support for modern observability needs.

Elastic Observability vs Stackify Retrace

Elastic Observability is well-suited for teams focused on log analytics and complex querying. It offers powerful search capabilities and integrates well with other parts of the Elastic stack. However, its steep learning curve, maintenance overhead, and limited support for OpenTelemetry and synthetic monitoring make it less ideal for teams seeking a comprehensive full-stack observability solution. In contrast, Stackify Retrace is a developer-friendly APM tool with predictable pricing, native OpenTelemetry support, and synthetic monitoring capabilities, making it a better option for teams seeking an easy-to-use, cost-effective observability solution that covers APM, RUM, and synthetics. Retrace’s simplified, cost-effective pricing model is also more transparent compared to Elastic’s resource-based pricing, which can lead to unpredictable costs.

3. Dynatrace

Known For

Dynatrace is an AI-powered enterprise observability platform known for its deep infrastructure monitoring, application security, and real-time analytics. It’s favored by large organizations running complex microservices and cloud-native workloads. Dynatrace stands out with its Davis AI engine, which automates anomaly detection and root cause analysis.

Key Features

1. Davis AI Engine: Automates anomaly detection and root-cause analysis in complex systems.
2. OneAgent Deployment: Reduces manual configuration by auto-discovering all services and dependencies.
3. Security + Observability: Combines runtime application protection (RASP) with observability insights.
4. Cloud Automation: Integrates with AWS, Azure, GCP, and Kubernetes for intelligent workload placement.

Standout Features

• AI-driven anomaly detection and root cause automation.
• Auto-instrumentation with OneAgent.
• Built-in digital experience monitoring and session replay.

Pros

• Enterprise-grade scalability and resilience.
• No sampling—captures 100% of transactions.
• Powerful AI analytics and auto-baselining.

Cons

• Very expensive with pricing complexity.
• Steep learning curve for new users.
• Vendor lock-in due to proprietary agents and formats.

Best For

• Large enterprises with high observability maturity.
• Teams running massive multi-cloud microservices.
• Enterprises needing observability and security in one platform.

Pricing & Customer Reviews

• Pricing: $0.08/hour per 8 GiB host (~$57.60/host/month).
• Rating: 4.5 / 5.
• Praised for: Automation, AI capabilities, and breadth of coverage.
• Criticized for: High cost, complexity, and limited flexibility for smaller teams.

Dynatrace vs Stackify Retrace

Dynatrace offers AI-driven root-cause analysis and full-stack automation, which is ideal for large, complex environments. In comparison, Stackify Retrace is a developer-focused APM tool providing in-depth transaction profiling and error tracking, but lacks the enterprise-grade AI and automation found in Dynatrace. Retrace is more cost-effective, making it a better fit for small-to-mid-sized teams.

4. New Relic

Known For

New Relic is a comprehensive cloud-based observability platform that provides real-time telemetry collection, analysis, and visualization across the MELT stack. Known for its powerful query interface and customizable dashboards, New Relic integrates APM, infrastructure monitoring, logs, traces, synthetics, and real-user insights in one unified platform. Its flexible telemetry and wide range of integrations make it popular with teams managing cloud-native environments and microservices.

Key Features

1. All-in-One Telemetry Platform
New Relic unifies metrics, events, logs, and traces (MELT) into a single interface, offering comprehensive monitoring across applications and infrastructure.

2. Auto Instrumentation & APM
New Relic offers native agents and auto-instrumentation for popular programming languages like Java, Node.js, Python, and Ruby, making it easier to monitor application performance with minimal setup.

3. Distributed Tracing and Service Maps
New Relic offers distributed tracing and visual service maps, helping teams pinpoint latency and dependency issues.

4. OpenTelemetry Support
It supports OTEL, but ingestion requires extra configuration, and OTEL traces may lack the same visibility as those captured by New Relic’s proprietary agents.

5. Head-based Sampling
New Relic uses predefined head-based sampling (e.g., 1%, 5%) to reduce data volume. However, this approach may miss rare traces unless manually adjusted.

Standout Features

• Unified observability across MELT with real-time dashboards.
• Anomaly detection powered by machine learning.
• Customizable dashboards and advanced query language (NRQL).
• Supports both OTEL and proprietary agents.
• Integrates seamlessly with cloud-native tools like AWS, GCP, Azure.

Pros

• Easy onboarding with agents and prebuilt integrations.
• Comprehensive visibility from backend services to frontend interactions.
• Strong documentation and robust support ecosystem.

Cons

• Expensive at scale due to usage-based pricing.
• Fixed sampling rates lead to a lower signal-to-noise ratio.
• Advanced features are gated behind usage or enterprise tiers.
• Limited control over where data is stored (no self-hosting option).

Best For

• Mid-to-large teams needing fast setup and full-stack visibility.
• Companies with multi-language microservices and SRE workflows.
• Teams comfortable with SaaS-only, vendor-managed telemetry pipelines.

Pricing & Customer Reviews

• Free Tier: Perpetual free tier with 100 GB/month of data ingest included.
• Ingestion-based pricing of $0.35/GB + $400/user/month for full access.
• Rating: 4.4 / 5.
• Praised for: Out-of-the-box UX, wide language support, powerful UI.
• Criticized for: Pricing complexity, sampling limitations, and limited control over data flow.

New Relic vs Stackify Retrace

While New Relic is a feature-rich, mature solution with comprehensive visibility and integrations, Stackify Retrace provides a more cost-effective, developer-centric APM solution. Retrace offers predictable pricing, advanced APM features, and OpenTelemetry native support, making it more suitable for teams seeking full-stack observability at a more affordable cost. New Relic’s usage-based pricing can become expensive, especially for large-scale environments, which might make Retrace the better option for growing teams.

5. Splunk AppDynamics

Known For

Originally developed by AppDynamics (now part of Cisco and integrated into Splunk), AppDynamics specializes in business transaction monitoring and deep performance diagnostics. It’s an enterprise-grade APM solution known for its highly detailed diagnostics, AI-powered root cause analysis, and full-stack observability across both hybrid and legacy infrastructures. It’s often used in regulated industries like banking, insurance, and telecom.

Key Features

1. Business Transaction Monitoring
AppDynamics structures observability around business transactions such as checkout or order processing, making it easier for engineering and business teams to align on service health.

2. Deep Code-Level Diagnostics
AppDynamics offers stack traces, database call visibility, and execution timing breakdowns to help backend teams debug issues quickly in JVM, .NET, Node.js, PHP, and more.

3. Root Cause Analysis with AI
Machine learning is used to detect performance anomalies and correlate across layers, surfacing the root cause.

4. Hybrid Deployment Flexibility
AppDynamics offers SaaS, self-hosted, or hybrid deployments, making it ideal for organizations with strict data residency requirements.

5. Full-Stack Infrastructure Integration
Now part of Splunk Observability Cloud, AppDynamics offers enhanced infrastructure metrics, log enrichment, and security monitoring through tighter integration with Splunk.

Standout Features

• Transaction-based observability based on business workflows.
• Line-level performance tracing with real-time flamegraphs.
• AI-powered root cause detection.
• Supports hybrid/on-prem deployments.

Pros

• Enterprise-ready with strong SLAs and compliance certifications.
• Highly detailed stack and database visibility.
• Flexible deployment options (on-prem, hybrid, SaaS).

Cons

• Expensive and modular pricing based on APM units.
• UI and dashboards feel dated compared to modern tools.
• Limited OpenTelemetry support (requires connectors or adapters).

Best For

• Large enterprises with legacy infrastructure or compliance constraints.
• Teams needing business-transaction-level monitoring.
• Organizations that prioritize performance diagnostics over MELT stack unification.

Pricing & Customer Reviews

• Pricing: $75/host/month, billed annually.
• Rating: 4.3 / 5.
• Praised for: Deep diagnostics, deployment flexibility, and business alignment.
• Criticized for: High cost, aging UI, and complex setup and scaling.

Splunk AppDynamics vs Stackify Retrace

While AppDynamics offers enterprise-grade performance diagnostics and is perfect for highly regulated industries, Stackify Retrace is a more affordable solution with a stronger focus on APM and developer-friendly features. Retrace offers OpenTelemetry support, advanced error tracking, and more predictable pricing than AppDynamics, making it a better fit for mid-sized teams looking for scalable observability at a lower cost.

6. Sumo Logic

Known For

Sumo Logic is a cloud-native log management and SIEM platform designed for security-conscious organizations. It offers real-time telemetry ingestion, log analytics, and security monitoring in one unified dashboard, making it particularly suitable for DevSecOps teams. Sumo Logic is known for its scalability and multi-cloud support, catering to large organizations that need to handle massive data volumes.

Key Features

1. Unified Log and Metrics Platform
Sumo Logic combines log management, metrics, and security analytics in one platform, offering powerful monitoring and anomaly detection for security teams.

2. Cloud-Native Architecture
Fully SaaS with support for multi-cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP), Sumo Logic scales effortlessly for enterprises without requiring on-prem infrastructure.

3. Flexible Query Language & Dashboards
It offers a proprietary query language, PowerQuery, and real-time dashboards that are highly customizable for both engineers and security analysts.

4. Security & Compliance Analytics
Sumo Logic offers compliance templates and threat detection for PCI, HIPAA, SOC 2, and other standards.

Standout Features

• Built-in compliance and security analytics.
• Multi-tenant SaaS deployment.
• Live dashboards with alerting and anomaly detection.
• Scalable ingestion with cloud-native elasticity.

Pros

• No infrastructure management overhead.
• Deep log analytics with live query capability.
• Strong integration with Kubernetes and AWS.

Cons

• High costs at scale due to tiered data plans.
• Proprietary language adds a learning curve.
• Limited support for full MELT integration.

Best For

• Enterprises needing compliance, SIEM, and log-driven observability in a single platform.
• Teams looking for cloud-native solutions that combine DevOps observability with security analytics.

Pricing & Customer Reviews

• Pricing: $3.14 estimated per TB scan, typically $3,000–$8,000/month for medium-scale observability.
• Rating: 4.2 / 5.
• Praised for: Prebuilt dashboards, log depth, and security integrations.
• Criticized for: SaaS-only deployment, steep learning curve for queries, and cost unpredictability.

Sumo Logic vs Stackify Retrace

Sumo Logic excels in log analytics and security monitoring for large-scale enterprises, but Stackify Retrace provides more affordable and flexible full-stack observability, especially for developer-focused teams. Retrace offers predictable pricing, OpenTelemetry integration, and advanced APM features, making it a better option for businesses that need comprehensive observability without the high cost and complexity of Sumo Logic.

7. SolarWinds

Known For

SolarWinds is a longstanding vendor known for its IT infrastructure monitoring, network performance analysis, and on-premise observability tooling. SolarWinds is primarily used by enterprises and public sector organizations to monitor a wide range of assets, including servers, applications, databases, and IT operations. Its key products include Network Performance Monitor (NPM), Server & Application Monitor (SAM), and the SolarWinds Observability suite.

Key Features

1. Infrastructure & Network Monitoring
Tools like NPM and SAM provide visibility into server health, bandwidth usage, hardware faults, and uptime.

2. Database Performance Analyzer
Deep insights into SQL execution plans, query performance, and database load, particularly for MSSQL and Oracle environments.

3. Service Management
Built-in ticketing, technician assignment, SLAs, and email-based support workflows.

4. Incident Response & Alerting
A centralized alerting engine with role-based notifications and integrations with collaboration tools like Slack and Teams.

5. On-Premise Deployment
Full self-hosting for organizations with data residency or compliance restrictions.

Standout Features

• Modular Product Suite

Offers a range of specialized tools for monitoring, database management, service desk, and incident response, which can be customized to specific business needs.

• Network-Centric Monitoring

Strong capabilities in SNMP-based network monitoring, bandwidth usage, and topology mapping, making it ideal for network performance monitoring.

• ITSM Integration

Includes built-in service desk modules for asset management, ticketing, and technician workflows, which enhances its utility for IT operations teams.

• Hybrid Environment Support

SolarWinds can monitor both cloud and on-premise assets in distributed environments, offering a comprehensive view of infrastructure regardless of location.

• Custom Alerts & Reports

Offers customizable dashboards, performance baselines, and alert rules based on thresholds, allowing users to tailor monitoring to their needs.

Pros

• Strong in traditional IT infrastructure and network monitoring use cases.
• Offers a wide array of specialized tools—ITSM, DB monitoring, observability—all in one ecosystem.
• On-premise deployment options make it appealing for government and regulated sectors.
• SNMP monitoring and NetFlow analysis are mature and battle-tested.

Cons

• Pricing is modular and opaque—costs can escalate quickly as modules, nodes, and users are added.
• Limited OpenTelemetry-native support—OTEL ingestion is non-native, requiring manual mapping and lacking auto-dashboards.
• High operational overhead—managing different modules (e.g., SAM, NPM, DPA) can lead to a complex setup and siloed data.
• Dated UI—many users report that the interface is cluttered and unintuitive.
• Slow support response times—reviewers frequently cite multi-day resolution windows.
• No smart sampling—probabilistic sampling can result in noisy data or missed anomalies.
• Security trust issues—the 2020 Orion breach still causes vendor avoidance during compliance audits.

Best For

• Enterprises with large on-premise networks and traditional IT operations.
• Government agencies or regulated sectors with self-hosting mandates.
• Teams focused on asset discovery, server health, and infrastructure alerting rather than full-stack observability.

Pricing & Customer Reviews

• Pricing (modular):

  • Monitoring & Observability: $6/node/month
  • Database Monitoring: $117/database/month
  • ITSM: $39/technician/month
  • Incident Response: $9/user/month
  • Estimated Monthly Cost: A mid-sized company with 150 nodes, 25 databases, 20 techs, and 50 users could pay over $8,000/month. A startup with 40 nodes and 5 databases could cross $4,000/month when factoring in telemetry and add-ons.

• Rating: 4.4 / 5

  • Praised for: Breadth of features, network performance, and customization options.
  • Criticized for: Poor support, UI complexity, scaling issues, and lack of OpenTelemetry-native integration.

SolarWinds vs Stackify Retrace

SolarWinds is highly effective for network-centric monitoring and on-premise deployment, but it lacks the full-stack observability features that Stackify Retrace offers, such as advanced APM, real-time error tracking, and synthetic monitoring. Stackify Retrace also excels in OpenTelemetry-native support, providing seamless integration and cost-effective pricing, making it more suitable for teams requiring comprehensive full-stack observability with a focus on APM and developer-focused features. In contrast, SolarWinds is more tailored to IT infrastructure monitoring with its modular pricing, which can become expensive as you add more modules. Retrace’s predictable flat pricing model makes it a more scalable option for businesses that need complete observability across applications and infrastructure.

Conclusion: Choosing the Right Stackify Retrace Alternative

As engineering and SRE teams continue to modernize their observability stacks, many are moving beyond legacy tools like Stackify Retrace in favor of solutions that are OpenTelemetry-native, cost-efficient, and built for real-time, full-stack visibility. Stackify Retrace, while offering basic APM and error tracking, often struggles to meet the needs of fast-scaling, cloud-native environments due to its lack of deep telemetry support, sampling limitations, and pricing complexities.

Teams seeking flexibility and scalability need observability tools that offer more than just basic APM features—tools that provide comprehensive visibility across metrics, logs, traces, synthetics, and RUM, and that can scale with their infrastructure without escalating costs. As such, finding the right alternative is crucial for maintaining both performance and budget control.

Why CubeAPM Leads the Pack

Among all Stackify Retrace alternatives, CubeAPM stands out with its OpenTelemetry-first architecture, smart sampling, and complete MELT observability. It delivers comprehensive visibility across metrics, logs, traces, synthetics, and real-user monitoring (RUM). CubeAPM’s performance is enhanced by blazing-fast dashboards, compliance-ready self-hosting, and cost predictability, offering up to 80% lower cost compared to traditional tools. CubeAPM provides full-stack observability without the need for user-based fees, vendor lock-in, or fragmented billing.

If you’re ready to embrace the next level of observability, CubeAPM offers a powerful and scalable solution designed to meet today’s demands and accelerate your journey to enhanced performance monitoring.