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Elastic Observability vs IBM Instana Observability comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 10, 2025

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
6.7
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (10th), Log Management (14th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
IBM Instana Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
38th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 3.9%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Instana Observability is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Elastic Observability3.9%
IBM Instana Observability0.8%
Other95.3%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Adelina Craciun - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Tomas Kim - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The Elastic User Interface framework lets us do custom development when needed. You need to have some Javascript knowledge. We need that knowledge to develop new custom tests."
"The tool's most valuable feature is centralized logging. Elastic Common Search helps us to search for the logs across the organization."
"We use AppDynamics and Elastic. The reason why we're using Elastic APM is because of the license count. It's very favorable compared to AppDynamics. It's inexpensive; it's economical."
"Elastic APM has plenty of features, such as the Elastic server for Kibana and many additional plugins. It's a comprehensive tool when used as a logging platform."
"Machine learning is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"I have built a mini business intelligence system based on Elastic Observability."
"The most valuable feature of Elastic Observability is the text search."
"It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it."
"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

"There could be more low-code features included in the product."
"The tool's scalability involves a more complex implementation process. It requires careful calculations to determine the number of nodes needed, the specifications of each node, and the configuration of hot, warm, and cold zones for data storage. Additionally, managing log retention policies adds further complexity. The solution's pricing also needs to be cheaper."
"There is room for improvement regarding its APM capabilities."
"Improving code insight related to infrastructure and network, particularly focusing on aspects such as firewalls, switches, routers, and testing would be beneficial."
"There's a steep learning curve if you've never used this solution before."
"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 price is the only issue in the solution. It can be made better and cheaper."
"One example is the inability to monitor very old databases with the newest version."
"The product's initial setup phase is not very easy."
"The solution should include log management and improve reporting and integration with Cognos."
"One area that requires improvement is related to the automation part, specifically automated actions like sending SMS."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not that cheap."
"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."
"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."
"Elastic Observability is cheaper than other similar solutions, such as Dynatrace. Its license calculation is based on various factors like data volume and physical infrastructure, particularly related to RAM capacity."
"We have been using the open-source version."
"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."
"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."
"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."
"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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise16
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 problem is their licensing model, which is a bit confusing. Many customers struggle to understand their total cost of ownership because Elastic licensing is not dependent on easy, quantifiable ...
What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?
Out-of-the-box use cases have room for improvement in Elastic Observability. They don't invest a lot in building out-of-the-box observable use cases, and they are more focusing on giving a very fle...
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...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. IBM Instana Observability and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.