Instana Infrastructure Monitoring vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

Instana and Splunk are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Instana is ranked #32 with an average rating of 10.0, while Splunk is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.4. Instana holds a 0.7% mindshare in IM, compared to Splunk’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Instana users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

Instana Infrastructure Moni...

Read 2 Instana Infrastructure Monitoring reviews

925 Views
722 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Splunk Observability Cloud

Read 75 Splunk Observability Cloud reviews

7,605 Views
2,662 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Instana Infrastructure Moni...

Splunk Observability Cloud

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Splunk Observability Cloud and Instana Infrastructure Monitoring compete in IT infrastructure management. Instana often holds the advantage with a comprehensive feature set, whereas Splunk benefits from better pricing feedback and customer support.

Features: Splunk Observability Cloud provides real-time streaming analytics, advanced data visualization, and adaptive alerts. Instana offers automatic application discovery, contextual insights, and AI-powered root cause analysis, providing an integrated approach to performance monitoring.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Instana's deployment is typically straightforward due to its automatic discovery and setup, while Splunk might need more configuration. However, customer service feedback highlights Splunk as more responsive and supportive during deployment.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk Observability Cloud is linked with higher setup costs yet delivers valuable ROI through robust analytics and reliable support. Instana has a favorable initial price but may incur additional costs as businesses scale, offering significant long-term benefits with its feature set and scalability.

To learn more, read our detailed Instana Infrastructure Monitoring vs. Splunk Observability Cloud Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Instana Infrastructure Monitoring vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

December 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

Instana Infrastructure Moni...

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

32nd

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

22nd

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Splunk Observability Cloud

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

7th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (8th), Network Monitoring Software (6th), Container Management (6th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Instana Infrastructure Monitoring is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 2.0%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud	2.0%
Instana Infrastructure Monitoring	0.7%
Other	97.3%

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Hakimuddin Ronaque

Assistant Manager at Lauren Information Technologies Pvt Ltd

Has the capability to automatically integrate with a large number of products

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten. I have not worked much on other technologies, like SAP or VMware's virtualization part, on-prem infrastructure, or cloud infrastructure. Instana Infrastructure Monitoring is so fast and easy to adapt that it works fine. I have not explored other operating systems or infrastructure solutions because my company doesn't have that customer scale. Most of our customers are on-prem or on AWS or Azure, but Instana Infrastructure Monitoring adapts to their infrastructure very well. My company came to know how well Instana Infrastructure Monitoring adapts to our customers' infrastructures when we take care of the PoC phase. Around 12 to 15 people in my company use the product.

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Dhananjay Dileep

Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

Unified monitoring has improved end-to-end visibility and reduced detection time across apps

When we have too many detectors in place for one particular app, such as when I have created 50+ detectors through my account, the entire page becomes a bit loaded when creating the 51st detector, feeling heavy and taking time to load. Additionally, it throws random errors; for example, when we try to save one detector, it might throw some random error which is not even related, with something else being wrong, not that particular error, but the underlying root cause might be different. Sometimes the error is just "some problem occurred," and we are not able to point out what the real cause is. This mainly happens when we have too many detectors or too many alerts in place rather than a standard number. One more thing is in the alert rules; if we have a main general alert, and instead of creating a new detector, we are adding a new rule under one detector, when the number of rules also increases, such as when we have 10 or 15 rules under one generic detector, that again creates the same kind of problem, taking some time to save that particular newly added rule, and it might not save at times, just keeps on spinning. Those are the two drawbacks which I spotted recently; other than that, everything looks perfect.

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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's initial setup is easy."

"The product is easy to deploy."

"The alerts are the most valuable feature."

"It is a good tool. It allows you to set alerts for application and infrastructure monitoring, and it allows you to create dashboards."

"The dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are amazing, and if you configure them correctly, they are amazing, and it is quite fast as well."

"After moving to Splunk Observability Cloud, it is almost zero downtime."

"The solution's basic visibility is one of its most valuable features. So, it is a solution that is easy to use...The solution's initial setup process was straightforward."

"The best feature of this product is the latency and processing of all the telemetry that is being received, which gives full visibility at the right time."

"It supports proactive management, enhances security, and improves operational efficiency."

"I find the monitoring console very helpful. With one click, I can see how we are performing, and at the same time, I can see what data is flowing."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pros

Cons

"Instana Infrastructure Monitoring needs to support monitoring of the .NET framework since it is one of the areas where the solution currently has shortcomings."

"The product’s scalability is an area with certain limitations, making it an area where improvements are required."

"One thing I recently ran into was that the logs on the server most often get Gzipped after they have been rotated. We found that we were not monitoring some of the things, so we had to go back and pull them in. Right now, it pulls one at a time, untars it, or unzips it, so I cannot look at the entire history. There can be an improvement in that area."

"There is not a lot of support for the tool's on-premises version, especially since everything is on the cloud."

"The RUM part of Splunk Observability Cloud can be improved significantly."

"In terms of additional features I would want to see in future releases, since Cisco acquired Splunk, more Cisco integration could be beneficial."

"The pricing would be one area for improvement."

"We currently lack log analysis capabilities in Splunk APM."

"Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved with better integration with AppDynamics, as we know that's coming, however, it is an issue we've had between the OpenTelemetry and the AppDynamics collector."

"Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring's data analytics can be improved by including suggestions for various types of continuous monitoring."

More Splunk Observability Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of the tool is around 130 USD per month."

"I am not in that circle, but we are currently licensing based on our queries. That is working out for us. Previously, it was by volume of data, and now, we can store as much data as we want."

"It appears to be expensive compared to competitors."

"The pricing is based on several factors, including the scale of deployment."

"Splunk APM is expensive."

"Splunk APM is a very cost-efficient solution."

"The product is a bit expensive considering the competition but the company may negotiate the price."

"The solution's pricing is competitive. I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten. The price of the solution could be cheaper."

"The price of Splunk APM is less than some of its competitors."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	47

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Instana Infrastructure Monitoring?

The product is easy to deploy.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Instana Infrastructure Monitoring?

The product’s scalability is an area with certain limitations, making it an area where improvements are required.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Instana Infrastructure Monitoring?

I use the solution in my company, especially if an application is down and it is considered to be a P1 issue or a critical issue. The network team will blame the application team, while the applica...

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What do you like most about SignalFx?

The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SignalFx?

Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and pr...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SignalFx?

The solution involves observability in general, such as Application Performance Monitoring, and generally addresses digital applications, web applications, sites, and mobile applications. I worked ...

See all answers

Comparisons

NetApp Data Infrastructure Insights vs Instana Infrastructure Monitoring

Compared 14% of the time

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs Instana Infrastructure Monitoring

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon CloudWatch vs Instana Infrastructure Monitoring

Compared 10% of the time

Elastic Observability vs Instana Infrastructure Monitoring

Compared 10% of the time

Zabbix vs Instana Infrastructure Monitoring

Compared 7% of the time

More Instana Infrastructure Monitoring Competitors

Sentry vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

Avantra vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Observe vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Cribl vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Honeycomb Enterprise vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

More Splunk Observability Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

December 2025

Instana Infrastructure Monitoring report

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Buyer's Guide

Splunk Observability Cloud

January 2026

Download Splunk Observability Cloud product report

Also Known As

No data available

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring

Overview

Instana ensures that your application delivery organization has the data, visibility and information they need to manage the performance of critical business applications across the DevOps lifecycle. Built to handle the dynamic nature of containerized, microservice architectures, Instana automates infrastructure and application monitoring helping you to ensure the performance and quality of custom applications and accelerate your CI/CD cycle.

Instana

Splunk Observability Cloud offers sophisticated log searching, data integration, and customizable dashboards. With rapid deployment and ease of use, this cloud service enhances monitoring capabilities across IT infrastructures for comprehensive end-to-end visibility.

Focused on enhancing performance management and security, Splunk Observability Cloud supports environments through its data visualization and analysis tools. Users appreciate its robust application performance monitoring and troubleshooting insights. However, improvements in integrations, interface customization, scalability, and automation are needed. Users find value in its capabilities for infrastructure and network monitoring, as well as log analytics, albeit cost considerations and better documentation are desired. Enhancements in real-time monitoring and network protection are also noted as areas for development.

What are the key features?

Log Searching: Efficiently search and analyze logs from various sources.
Data Integration: Seamlessly integrate with multiple environments.
Dashboard Customization: Tailor dashboards to specific monitoring needs.
Monitoring Capabilities: Provides comprehensive insights into application performance.
Security Features: Analyze and address security threats across systems.
Visualization Tools: Enhance data analysis and system performance optimization.

Why consider this for ROI?

Comprehensive Visibility: Gain complete insights into IT infrastructure.
Performance Optimization: Improve overall system performance and efficiency.
Rapid Deployment: Quick setup to meet organization demands swiftly.
Enhanced Security: Strengthen security measures through detailed analytics.

In industries, Splunk Observability Cloud is implemented for security management by analyzing logs from detection systems, offering real-time alerts and troubleshooting for cloud-native applications. It is leveraged for machine data analysis, improving infrastructure visibility and supporting network and application performance management efforts.

Splunk

Sample Customers

booxware, drivenow, scopevisio, enevo, TimoCom, mobitech

Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara

Buyer's Guide

Instana Infrastructure Monitoring vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

December 2025

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