Elastic Observability vs IBM Instana Observability comparison

Elastic Observability vs. IBM Instana Observability

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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

Elastic Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (10th), Log Management (16th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)

IBM Instana Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

42nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

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 Elastic Observability is 4.8%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Instana Observability is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Adelina Craciun

Product Owner at Swisscom

Customization enables tailored monitoring and alerting across departments

The possibility to customize it has been quite useful. Whatever the other departments want to dream up, we implement. Whatever they want to monitor, the granularity of it, the changes in the threshold, and the anomalies that they want reported all require some development. So far, every single request has been fulfilled.

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Tomas Kim

Managing Director at BA Solutions

Not expensive and offers good performance

The most valuable feature of the solution is performance. A one-vendor solution serves as a good feature of the tool. In the IT industry, the IT support team has lots of vendors to contact. DB monitoring is done by one company, while WaaS monitoring is done by another and done by another company, which makes it really complicated for the IT team concerned about the security levels. The tool's main feature is that it is a one-vendor solution. The analysis done by the tool is a good feature. The tool is used as an open-source tool. The tool is growing, and new features are being added to the product.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"All the features that we use, such as monitoring, dashboarding, reporting, the possibility of alerting, and the way we index the data, are important."

"It's easy to deploy, and it's very flexible."

"It is a powerful tool that allows users to collect and transform logs as needed, enabling flexible visualization and analysis."

"The ability to ensure that the data is searchable and maintainable is highly valuable for our purposes."

"It is scalable and supports multitenancy, which is beneficial for MSPs."

"The architecture and system's stability are simple."

"Good design and easy to use once implemented."

"I recommend Elastic Observability for its completeness of vision and wide ecosystem."

More Elastic Observability pros

"The most valuable features of IBM Instana are its quick data collection and analytics after installing the agent."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is performance."

"The solution has a one-second resolution, giving you the status of your application within one second."

Cons

"Elastic Observability needs to improve the retrieval of logs and metrics from all the instances."

"Elastic Observability’s price could be improved."

"Elastic Observability is an excellent product for monitoring and visibility, but it lacks predictive analytics. Most solutions are aligned with the AIOps requirements, but this piece is missing in Elastic and should be included."

"More web features could be added to the product."

"They need more skills in the market. There are not enough skills in the market. It is not pervasive enough on the market, in my opinion. In other words, there isn't a big enough user base."

"The solution would be better if it was capable of more automation, especially in a monitoring capacity or for the response to abnormalities."

"There's a steep learning curve if you've never used this solution before."

"I am familiar with Azure Monitor, which I find more user-friendly compared to Elastic, which is a very technical tool."

More Elastic Observability cons

"The solution should include log management and improve reporting and integration with Cognos."

"The product's initial setup phase is not very easy."

"One area that requires improvement is related to the automation part, specifically automated actions like sending SMS."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We will buy a premium license after POC."

"The product is not that cheap."

"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."

"We have been using the open-source version."

"So far, there are just the standard licensing fees. Several of the components are embedded in the license or are even open source. They're even free depending on what you use, which makes it even more appealing to someone that is discussing pricing of the solution."

"The price of Elastic Observability is expensive."

"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."

"There are two types: cloud and SaaS. They charge based on data ingestion, ingest rate, hard retention, and warm retention. I believe it costs around $25,000 annually to ingest 30GB of data daily. That is the SaaS version. There is also a self-managed license where the customer manages their own infrastructure on-prem. In such cases, there are three license tiers that respectively cost $5,000 annually per node, $7,000 per node, and $12,500 per node."

More Elastic Observability pricing and cost advice

"The tool's cost is normal as per the market. The tool is not expensive."

"The solution's pricing is reasonable compared to that of its competitors like Dynatrace."

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860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Elastic Observability?

Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?

The license for Elastic Observability is the same as for other uses; you pay for Elastic, and you can use it for various cases. Observability is actually cheaper compared to logs because you're not...

What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?

I think they are working on the AI-based features, which are currently in technical preview. The only challenging aspect for new users is often writing the query language. Basic searching is very e...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Instana Observability?

The tool's cost is normal as per the market. The tool is not expensive.

What needs improvement with IBM Instana Observability?

The tool should offer more LDR AI models. The monitoring is just a status, but the next level of a monitoring solution is to prevent an accident or stop an accident status. The solution should be t...

What is your primary use case for IBM Instana Observability?

Before IBM, I ordered our company's engineer to have a look at the tool and test it. I think it was two years ago, the transfer to IBM happened in our company. At the beginning, IBM Instana Observa...

Sentry vs Elastic Observability

Comparisons

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Dynatrace vs Elastic Observability

Compared 12% of the time

Grafana vs Elastic Observability

Compared 9% of the time

AWS X-Ray vs Elastic Observability

Compared 2% of the time

More Elastic Observability Competitors

Grafana vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 17% of the time

Splunk Observability Cloud vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 11% of the time

Dynatrace vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 7% of the time

Zabbix vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM Instana Observability Competitors

Product Reports

Elastic Observability

Download Elastic Observability product report

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Download IBM Instana Observability product report

Overview

Elastic Observability is primarily used for monitoring login events, application performance, and infrastructure, supporting significant data volumes through features like log aggregation, centralized logging, and system metric analysis.

Elastic Observability employs Elastic APM for performance and latency analysis, significantly aiding business KPIs and technical stability. It is popular among users for system and server monitoring, capacity planning, cyber security, and managing data pipelines. With the integration of Kibana, it offers robust visualization, reporting, and incident response capabilities through rapid log searches while supporting machine learning and hybrid cloud environments.

What are Elastic Observability's key features?

Economic licensing: Offers cost-effective plans.
Extensive metrics tracking: Helps in comprehensive system monitoring.
Comprehensive logging: Centralizes log data efficiently.
Performance Monitoring: Provides robust APM capabilities.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other solutions.
Kibana visualization: Facilitates data visualization and reporting.
Machine learning support: Enables advanced data analysis.
Flexible deployment: Supports various deployment environments.
Rapid log searches: Enhances quick incident response.
Accessibility: Offers extensive online documentation and connector support.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in Elastic Observability reviews?

Stability: Look for consistent performance and reliability.
Compliance: Effective monitoring aids in regulation adherence.
System Security: Enhanced system monitoring and alert management.
Cost-Effectiveness: Evaluate the economic pricing models.
Scalability: Adequate scalability options for growing needs.

Companies in technology, finance, healthcare, and other industries implement Elastic Observability for tailored monitoring solutions. They find its integration with existing systems useful for maintaining operation efficiency and security, particularly valuing the visualization capabilities through Kibana to monitor KPIs and improve incident response times.

Elastic

IBM Instana Observability is a versatile tool tailored for real-time monitoring and management of applications, especially in complex cloud environments. It excels in automated root cause analysis, improving system reliability, and dynamic graphing for visualizing system interconnections. With features like real-time alerting, it enhances operational efficiency and aids in prompt issue resolution, making it invaluable for maintaining robust IT operations.

IBM

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank

Information Not Available

Elastic Observability vs. IBM Instana Observability