Elastic Observability vs Instana Dynamic APM comparison

Elastic and Instana are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Elastic is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.1, while Instana is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.1. Elastic holds a 5.1% mindshare in APM, compared to Instana’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Elastic users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 84% of Instana users who would recommend it.

Elastic Observability

Read 26 Elastic Observability reviews

9,722 Views
8,552 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Instana Dynamic APM

Read 14 Instana Dynamic APM reviews

2,459 Views
2,042 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

Elastic Observability

Instana Dynamic APM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

Instana Dynamic APM and Elastic Observability are leading products in performance management and observability. User reviews indicate that Elastic Observability holds a slight edge in feature-richness and overall value based on comprehensive comparisons.

Features: Instana Dynamic APM offers real-time data processing, AI-powered anomaly detection, and efficient root cause analysis. Elastic Observability excels in scalability, comprehensive data visualization, and extensive integrations.

Room for Improvement: Instana Dynamic APM users seek better integration with legacy systems, improved alerting functionalities, and simplified scalability management. Elastic Observability users highlight the need for enhanced user guidance, streamlined configuration, and optimized resource utilization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Instana Dynamic APM's deployment is straightforward, though some users experience complexities with scaling. Customer service receives mixed reviews regarding responsiveness. Elastic Observability has a user-friendly deployment process and consistently praised customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Instana Dynamic APM is deemed cost-effective, offering significant value relative to setup costs and achieving quicker ROI. Elastic Observability, though slightly more expensive, is seen as a worthy investment due to its robust features and integration benefits, delivering substantial ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Elastic Observability vs. Instana Dynamic APM Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. Instana Dynamic APM

April 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

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 (7th), Log Management (14th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)

Instana Dynamic APM

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

19th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 5.1%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Instana Dynamic APM is 1.0%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Subramani K

Solution Architect at HCL Technologies

The user interface framework lets us do custom development when needed.

So Elastic is basically clusters, right? Basically three, we can go with the basic cluster is a three note cluster. So the implementation is quite simple. It's not very complex. So we have to architect the solution in such a way that we have the right number of replicas and right number of charts and all those to hold the data. So basically we have to architect based on the data ingestion, how much data we are going to ingest in the cluster. So this setup is pretty simple, but we have to have the right inputs, right decisions in place before we even implement it.

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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

"The product has connectors to many services."

"It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it."

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

"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 over a month from multiple data sources can be completed within seconds."

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

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

"Its diverse set of features available on the cloud is of significant importance."

"Elastic provides built-in features for queries and report generation. It's a very good tool for monitoring integration capabilities."

More Elastic Observability pros

"Its GUI is really good and it easy to understand for non-technical users."

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

"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."

"Sometimes it's able to provide a proper RCA on its own. It's able to correlate different events that occurred and that becomes like an RCA in itself."

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

"The most valuable feature of Instana Dynamic APM is auto-instrumentation."

"With Instana, the interface and the UI are very simple to use."

More Instana Dynamic APM pros

Cons

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

"Improving code insight related to infrastructure and network, particularly focusing on aspects such as firewalls, switches, routers, and testing would be beneficial."

"If we had some pre-defined templates for observability that we could start using right away after deploying it – instead of having to build or to change some of the dashboards – that would be helpful."

"The cost must be made more transparent."

"In the future, Elastic APM needs a portfolio iTool. They can provide an easy way to develop the custom UI for Kibana."

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

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

"The auto-discovery isn't nearly as good. That's a big portion of it. When you drop the agent onto the JVM and you're trying to figure things out, having to go through and manually do all that is cumbersome."

More Elastic Observability cons

"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."

"Many managers, as well as our customers, used to ask for reports, such as "top X number of queries that are slow," or "top pages that have the highest number of issues." This is something that can be improved by Instana. Currently, they don't have that kind of reporting available out-of-the-box."

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

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

"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."

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

"Maybe log monitoring could be better."

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

More Instana Dynamic APM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"We will buy a premium license after POC."

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

"The product is not that cheap."

"The price of Elastic Observability is expensive."

"Elastic Observability's pricing could be better for small-scale users."

"One needs to pay for the licenses, and it is an annual subscription model right now."

More Elastic Observability pricing and cost advice

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

30%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

See all answers

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

Elastic Observability is cost-efficient and provides all features in the enterprise license without asset-based licensing. However, sizing and licensing information could be clearer.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?

Of course, maintenance is necessary, as with any software, requiring updates with the latest features and security enhancements. It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like netw...

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

New Relic vs Elastic Observability

Compared 14% of the time

Sentry vs Elastic Observability

Compared 13% of the time

Dynatrace vs Elastic Observability

Compared 12% of the time

Grafana vs Elastic Observability

Compared 9% of the time

Zabbix vs Elastic Observability

Compared 8% of the time

More Elastic Observability Competitors

Dynatrace vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 48% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 18% of the time

IBM Application Performance Management vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 9% of the time

Datadog vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 9% of the time

Prometheus Group vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 3% of the time

More Instana Dynamic APM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability

May 2025

Download Elastic Observability product report

Buyer's Guide

Instana Dynamic APM

May 2025

Download Instana Dynamic APM 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

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

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

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

Elastic Observability vs. Instana Dynamic APM

April 2025

Free Report: Elastic Observability vs. Instana Dynamic APM

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