AWS X-Ray vs Instana Dynamic APM comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Instana are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #16 with an average rating of 7.2, while Instana is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.8. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 3.2% mindshare in APM, compared to Instana’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 84% of Instana users who would recommend it.

AWS X-Ray

Read 10 AWS X-Ray reviews

5,385 Views
3,920 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Instana Dynamic APM

Read 14 Instana Dynamic APM reviews

2,201 Views
1,679 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

AWS X-Ray

Instana Dynamic APM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

Instana Dynamic APM and AWS X-Ray are popular application performance management tools. Instana Dynamic APM has an upper hand in features and ease of deployment, while AWS X-Ray leads in pricing and ROI.

Features: Instana Dynamic APM is praised for its advanced automation capabilities, real-time data capture, and real-time insights. AWS X-Ray is valued for its deep integration with AWS services, thorough tracing abilities, and excellent AWS-centric infrastructure integration.

Room for Improvement: Instana Dynamic APM could enhance its support for non-standard environments, improve its learning curve, and broaden its platform support. AWS X-Ray users desire better support for non-AWS environments, more detailed documentation, and improvements in cross-platform integration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Instana Dynamic APM is noted for straightforward deployment and responsive customer support. AWS X-Ray offers seamless integration with AWS services but faces slower deployment in non-AWS environments; its customer service is adequate but less praised.

Pricing and ROI: Instana Dynamic APM involves higher setup costs but delivers strong ROI due to its advanced feature set. AWS X-Ray offers competitive pricing and robust ROI, particularly for AWS users, with better initial affordability and rapid return.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS X-Ray vs. Instana Dynamic APM Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS X-Ray vs. Instana Dynamic APM

June 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

AWS X-Ray

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

16th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Instana Dynamic APM

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

20th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of AWS X-Ray is 3.2%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Instana Dynamic APM is 1.0%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Muhmad Tabrez A Deewanji

Lead Software Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Improving performance through efficient trace metrics and data insights

As an application developer and architect, I appreciate AWS X-Ray ( /products/aws-x-ray-reviews ) for checking latency and identifying bottlenecks. I use it for performance tuning, conducting performance testing on applications, getting real-time traces, and gaining data insights. It helps in improving throughput and tuning infrastructure. The trace metrics and data collected provide valuable insights.

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Muhammad Jawwad Hassan

IT Consultant at Arcana Info

A really good GUI that is easy for non-technical users to understand

Our company uses the solution for one of our bank clients. We use App Connect middleware to monitor services and applications such as Docker, Kubernetes, MongoDB, and MS SQL Server. We also monitor the bottleneck for all servers. We currently have 20 users at one of our branches. We plan to expand…

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"AWS X-Ray's endpoints and user monitoring are considered the most valuable features."

"The solution has made it easier for us to trace the problems that we have with our requests and to monitor the timing of each step in each request we do in our endpoints."

"AWS X-Ray shows us exactly when there are delays, helping us understand the depth of issues and what is happening point-to-point."

"AWS X-RAY identifies bottlenecks in terms of stability and performance and how long certain data lives in terms of response time and duration."

"I would give AWS X-Ray a nine out of ten overall."

"The most beneficial feature is that it shows a dashboard for performance intervals, which reveals latencies."

"It is a very scalable solution."

"AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process."

More AWS X-Ray pros

"Instana is very fast to implement and deploy because the dashboards are automated and don't need configuration."

"We can easily perform root cause analysis using the tool."

"With auto-discovery, we didn't need to consider much. We just installed the agent on the host and it was able to detect everything from the host level up to the service level, for whatever stack was installed, and that includes containers and dockers."

"The primary selling point of this product is its unparalleled transparency into the infrastructure."

"It is a stable solution."

"It's great for monitoring services and applications."

"The detailing of our application behavior and user experience is most valuable. In case there is an issue, we typically use Instana to figure it out. We can drill down to the application and figure out what's going on and where the issue is."

"If a key monitored value has crossed a threshold, it sends out an alert. And the solution is able to intelligently find out if something is beyond the range that it normally resides in."

More Instana Dynamic APM pros

Cons

"I do not have any notes in terms of improvements."

"If you have a small team, it's probably overkill."

"It should have X-Ray SDKs for different languages like Node.js, Python, or Java."

"A significant downside is that it is very expensive."

"Sometimes, the collector agents are confusing to configure initially."

"What needs to be better in AWS X-Ray is the log filtering. Predefined filters could be helpful because the power of analytics comes from how you can filter the data. I also want to see more KPIs from AWS X-Ray."

"AWS X-Ray should improve its implementation process to make it easier for developers."

"Like most Amazon products, the user interface, configuration, and tuning aren't the easiest. That's the biggest reason why people tend to go to products like TerraForm and Terragrunt. We use TerraForm and Terragrunt. So, for setting things up and interacting with X-Ray, it's definitely the user interface that can be better."

More AWS X-Ray cons

"The configuration of Instana Dynamic APM needs improvement because it requires quite a bit of work."

"Its SLI and SLA features need improvement in setting up alerts."

"The App Connect middleware does not integrate with or show corresponding sub nodes."

"I think that Instana should improve the university and the certification process, so the users can find experts in Instana with their certification module process."

"New Relic has a better UI in terms of how it presents the data."

"They could improve the product’s dashboards and provide more dashboard options."

"We should be able to go back to scenarios during or before the issue. There should be something like a history playback. Such a feature or functionality would be good."

"We'd always like to see additional functionalities."

More Instana Dynamic APM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for AWS X-Ray is a six out of ten."

"The solution is a bit expensive."

"As you develop a relationship with Amazon, your pricing gets lower. You get credits for the amount of the system you use, and then if you're the government, you can get government pricing. For commercial users, there's a hump when you go from small to medium to big enterprise. Small businesses can live pretty easily off the free tier in a lot of cases, but when you go from a medium to a big enterprise, it becomes more expensive on a per-user basis. I'd like to see that curve going in a different way where pricing can be driven down while people are trying to adopt the technology."

"Pricing is quite competitive. Dynatrace, AppDynamics, and New Relic were all several times more expensive than Instana, both the on-prem and the SaaS versions. Price-wise they are a lot more competitive than anyone else out there."

"It's reasonably priced and manageable, especially for individuals who grasp the significance of application monitoring."

"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."

"The pricing is $1,200 per year which is a bit high compared to other vendors."

"Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies compared to other vendors."

"Its pricing isn't a big pain point. Its pricing seems to be better than some of the other competing products in the market, but they also have some of the features and functionalities that are better than Instana."

"The solution is less expensive than one of its competitors."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

29%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS X-Ray?

AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS X-Ray?

While I have not compared it with GCP or Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ), AWS generally offers cost-effective services. Some services, like Athena ( /products/odyssey-software-athena-eo...

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS X-Ray?

AWS X-Ray should improve its implementation process to make it easier for developers. The current manual instrumentation is challenging compared to the almost automatic instrumentation of other pro...

See all answers

What do you like most about Instana Dynamic APM?

The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Instana Dynamic APM?

I rate the pricing a seven out of ten. There are no additional costs associated with the product.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Instana Dynamic APM?

Sometimes, the issue arises from user changes, such as adjusting firewall settings without proper consideration, leading to compatibility issues within the network monitoring.

See all answers

Comparisons

Datadog vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 22% of the time

Sentry vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 18% of the time

Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 10% of the time

New Relic vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 9% of the time

Azure Monitor vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 9% of the time

More AWS X-Ray Competitors

Dynatrace vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 51% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 17% of the time

Datadog vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 10% of the time

IBM Application Performance Management vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 8% of the time

Broadcom DX Application Performance Management vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 5% of the time

More Instana Dynamic APM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS X-Ray

June 2025

Download AWS X-Ray product report

Buyer's Guide

Instana Dynamic APM

June 2025

Download Instana Dynamic APM product report

Overview

AWS X-Ray is a powerful debugging and performance analysis tool offered by Amazon Web Services. It allows developers to trace requests made to their applications and identify bottlenecks and issues.

With X-Ray, developers can visualize the entire request flow and pinpoint the exact location where errors occur. It provides detailed insights into the performance of individual components and helps optimize the overall application performance.

X-Ray integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, making it easy to trace requests across different services and identify dependencies. It also offers a comprehensive set of APIs and SDKs, enabling developers to instrument their applications and capture valuable data for analysis. With its user-friendly interface and powerful features, AWS X-Ray is a valuable tool for developers looking to improve the performance and reliability of their applications.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Instana’s Enterprise Observability Platform, powered by automated Application Performance Monitoring, discovers and maps all services, infrastructure, and their inter-dependencies automatically. Instana ingests all observability metrics, traces each request, profiles every process, and updates application dependency maps in real-time to deliver the context and actionable feedback needed by Dev+Ops to optimize application performance, enable innovation, and mitigate risk to help them add value and efficiency to the pipeline. Learn more at https://instana.com.

Instana

Sample Customers

COMCAST, ConnectWise, skyscanner, AirAsia, cookpad, cimpress, VTEX, zowdow

Daxko Lifts Fitness Studios Through COVID Regulations with Quick Engineering PivotsAltissia Meets SLAs to Support Student DeadlinesImmocloud Unlocks Observability to Modernize Real EstateEnento Group Boosts Service Reliability with Real-Time Visibility into Application Performance Instana’s Observability for Amazon EKS Helps Yara Deliver Digital Farming Solutions

Buyer's Guide

AWS X-Ray vs. Instana Dynamic APM

June 2025

Free Report: AWS X-Ray vs. Instana Dynamic APM

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