Embodiments relate to tenant-side detection and mitigation of performance degradation resulting from interference generated by a noisy neighbor in a distributed computing environment. A first machine-learning model such as a k-means nearest neighbor classifier is operated by a tenant to detect an anomaly with a computer system emulator resulting from a co-located noisy neighbor. A second machine-learning model such as a multi-class classifier is operated by the tenant to identify a contended resource associated with the anomaly. A corresponding trigger signal is generated and provided to trigger various mitigation responses, including an application/framework-specific mitigation strategy (e.g., triggered approximations in application/framework performance, best-efforts paths, run-time changes, etc.), load-balancing, scaling out, updates to a scheduler to avoid impacted nodes, and the like. In this manner, a tenant can detect, classify, and mitigate performance degradation resulting from a noisy neighbor.