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Instana Dynamic APM vs New Relic comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

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

Instana Dynamic APM
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
29th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
New Relic
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
173
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (9th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (9th), IT Operations Analytics (3rd), Mobile APM (3rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (5th), AIOps (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Instana Dynamic APM is 1.1%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of New Relic is 4.0%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
New Relic4.0%
Instana Dynamic APM1.1%
Other94.9%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Jawwad Hassan - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real-time alerts have reduced server outage impact and support fast incident response
In the dashboard, if they could show a little more metrics regarding the application and related things, that would be how New Relic could be improved. Currently, there are things showing from the server level and application level, but it can be improved. That is what I felt. Regarding user interface, I do not feel much concern, but for some kind of issues when we are trying to get support from the New Relic team, their SLA seems to be long. They are taking seven to ten working days for resolving some kind of scenario or issue. That is a bit difficult for us. If they could improve the customer support by reducing their SLA within three to five days, if they could remediate everything, that will be so much helpful. When it comes to the customer support part, I felt they need to be a little more improved on that part. The support overall is good, but they can improve. That is the reason I have given it eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With Instana, the interface and the UI are very simple to use."
"Its GUI is really good and it easy to understand for non-technical users."
"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."
"It's a good tool to implement across the board if you can make it into your images or as part of your configuration management tool."
"It's great for monitoring services and applications."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Instana Dynamic APM is auto-instrumentation."
"The best features in New Relic include its numerous API integrations and a good source of support."
"Before New Relic, dev and ops were separate, and now they’ve come together more and there’s less finger-pointing."
"Its most valuable feature is application performance monitoring, as it gives me a complete x-ray of the application to understand where the bottlenecks are, then improve and fix issues."
"The solution is good for sending alerts, drawing graphs about system usage, and creating plug-ins."
"However, as a dev-ops tool, it has been priceless."
"The alert mechanism is quite accurate when something goes wrong in your system. For example, if you have hundreds of APIs on your server, and any of the APIs is not performing well, you get an alert. When there is a drop or change in the threshold value, the beauty of New Relic is that within a fraction of seconds, all the stakeholders who are configured in the New Relic system will get an alert. That's one good thing."
"It integrates everything, which is awesome."
"I feel like it’s the best-in-class, and its differentiator is aggregation and the speed at which you can query large amounts of data."
 

Cons

"Maybe log monitoring could be better."
"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."
"The configuration of Instana Dynamic APM needs improvement because it requires quite a bit of work."
"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."
"PHP was less stable. The coverage of Python versions was maybe less than it could be, but we didn't have any stability issues with Python, as such."
"The solution's monitoring is pretty weak and should be improved."
"While it is already quite good, there is room for improvement in terms of providing better functionality"
"We'd always like to see additional functionalities."
"Some of the 3rd party plugins could be improved - especially the requirement for java to monitor simple network services is not ideal."
"The UX/UI design of New Relic APM could be improved. The solution currently has some slow pages in terms of loading and viewing the pages, for example, the reports. The reports and other pages take a long time to load."
"Integration with Azure websites as well as Azure cloud services."
"The price needs improvement."
"It would help customers if there were an on-premises version available."
"I would like to be able to invest less time in IT and ad hocs. We should be concentrating on other issues."
"Error handling and reporting is a little lackluster, but they're announcing a whole new analytics approach."
"There are times when you restart the engines and the servers have a unique ID for the host and you need to remove the server. It is difficult because some are on-premise and others are production hosts. Having downtime is not very good when updating. However, it is not a constant issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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's pricing is comparable to other products."
"It's reasonably priced and manageable, especially for individuals who grasp the significance of application monitoring."
"The pricing is $1,200 per year which is a bit high compared to other vendors."
"The solution is less expensive than one of its competitors."
"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."
"Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies compared to other vendors."
"If it’s the right tool, it doesn’t matter what it costs because you’re going to get it back many-fold from your productivity."
"This solution required a license and it is better than some other competitors."
"The solution is cheap, but prices can go up when users grow."
"Because of budget, we are not using the mobile app part of this tool."
"This is an expensive tool."
"We feel it's a little bit pricey."
"If I remember it correctly, the pricing was based on the core, and the monthly subscription used to cost us $1,500 or $2,000. We had pre-prod and production services. Costing was different for pre-prod and production. For pre-prod, it was 40% less than the production service cost. It was a combined package."
"The pricing is fine."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Retailer
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business65
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise77
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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.
What is your primary use case for Instana Dynamic APM?
We use the solution to monitor the platform. If an issue arises, like a user experiencing errors, we can identify general errors and investigate specific secure areas to ensure the application runs...
Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...
What do you like most about New Relic Insights?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What needs improvement with New Relic Insights?
I have noticed discrepancies between New Relic's documentation and Terraform resources. For example, there have been instances where new features launched in the New Relic UI have not been updated ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
New Relic Browser, New Relic Applied Intelligence, New Relic Insights, New Relic Synthetics, New Relic Servers, New Relic APM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
World Fuel Services, Verizon, FootLocker, McDonald's, Trainline, Mondia Media, Confused, Costa Coffee, Ryanair, Marks & Spencer, William Hill, Delivery Hero, Skyscanner, BASF, DAZN, Veygo, Virtuo, movingimage, talabat, Australia Post, Tokopedia, Seven Network, Virgin Australia, Zomato, BigBasket, Mercado Libre, Lending Club
Find out what your peers are saying about Instana Dynamic APM vs. New Relic and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.