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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Google Analytics

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/AGoogle Analytics is perhaps the best-known web analytics product and, as a free product, it has massive adoption. Although it lacks some enterprise-level features compared to its competitors in the space, the launch of the paid Google Analytics Premium edition seems likely to close the gap.

    $0

    per month

    IBM Instana

    Score7.8 out of 10
    N/AInstana, an IBM company since the December 2020 acquisition, provides APM services for SOA, microservices, containerized applications and Kubernetes, and cloud native applications, as well as discovery and monitoring for IT assets.

    $75

    per month per Managed Virtual Server (MVS)

    Pricing
    Google AnalyticsIBM Instana
    Editions & Modules
    Google Analytics 360
    150,000
    per year
    Google Analytics
    Free
    Essentials
    $20
    per month per Managed Virtual Server (MVS)
    Standard
    $75
    per month per Managed Virtual Server (MVS)
    Self-Hosted
    $93.80
    per month per Managed Virtual Server (MVS)
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Google AnalyticsIBM Instana
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    Google AnalyticsIBM Instana
    Web Analytics
    Comparison of Web Analytics features of Google Analytics and IBM Instana
    Feature
    Google Analytics
    8.4
    11 Ratings
    4% above category average
    IBM Instana
    -
    Ratings
    Lead Conversion Tracking8.210 Ratings00 Ratings
    Bounce Rate Measurement8.410 Ratings00 Ratings
    Device and Browser Reporting9.311 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pageview Tracking9.111 Ratings00 Ratings
    Event Tracking8.411 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reporting in real-time7.810 Ratings00 Ratings
    Referral Source Tracking8.610 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable Dashboards7.910 Ratings00 Ratings
    Monitoring Tasks
    Comparison of Monitoring Tasks features of Google Analytics and IBM Instana
    Feature
    Google Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    IBM Instana
    7.6
    3 Ratings
    9% below category average
    Remote monitoring00 Ratings9.14 Ratings
    Network device monitoring00 Ratings5.54 Ratings
    Multiple Server Monitoring00 Ratings8.94 Ratings
    Multi-device monitoring00 Ratings5.54 Ratings
    Automated alerts and notifications00 Ratings9.14 Ratings
    Management Tasks
    Comparison of Management Tasks features of Google Analytics and IBM Instana
    Feature
    Google Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    IBM Instana
    5.5
    1 Ratings
    23% below category average
    Software and hardware inventory00 Ratings6.42 Ratings
    Policy-based automation00 Ratings4.52 Ratings
    Reporting
    Comparison of Reporting features of Google Analytics and IBM Instana
    Feature
    Google Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    IBM Instana
    6.5
    3 Ratings
    20% below category average
    Performance data reports00 Ratings8.34 Ratings
    Customizable reporting00 Ratings4.52 Ratings
    Data visualization00 Ratings8.83 Ratings
    Risk analysis00 Ratings4.52 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Google AnalyticsIBM Instana
    Small Businesses
    Matomo Analytics
    Score9 out of 10
    Amazon CloudWatch
    Score7.8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Lead Forensics
    Score8.9 out of 10
    LogicMonitor
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Chartbeat
    Score9.2 out of 10
    ManageEngine Site24x7
    Score10 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Google AnalyticsIBM Instana
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (193 ratings)
    7.8
    (60 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (51 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    7.4
    (19 ratings)
    8.3
    (3 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.0
    (42 ratings)
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    6.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Google AnalyticsIBM Instana
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Google
    Google Analytics is particularly well suited for tracking and analyzing customer behavior on a grocery e-commerce platform. It provides a wealth of information about customer behavior, including what products are most popular, what pages are visited the most, and where customers are coming from. This information can help the platform optimize its website for better customer engagement and conversion rates. However, Google Analytics may not be the best tool for more advanced, granular analysis of customer behavior, such as tracking individual customer journeys or understanding customer motivations. In these cases, it may be more appropriate to use additional tools or solutions that provide deeper insights into customer behavior.
    Read full review
    IBM
    Well-suited for an org with a large application base, where many microservices are created and destroyed daily. IBM Instana doesn't require any manual configuration, so deploying the Instana agents takes very little time. Data capture from IBM Instana is highly granular and can detect even short spikes lasting a few seconds. Not suitable for legacy applications where there will be rarely any changes. They can use a simpler monitoring mechanism. Also, highly dense data capturing can sometimes overload the information.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Google
    • Multiple reports to see website use and behavior
    • Allows you to customize reports with days, weeks, months, and years
    • You can build out a dashboard to easily view stats from multiple websites in one place
    • You can share analytics reports via the dashboard, automatically emailed PDFs or in other formats
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    • Can monitor application(s) and system(s) with very large throughput of transactions by the second ( it gets everything !!!)
    • Provide strong drill down for your applications and will tell you where the points of failure of an application's is ( servers , network , Databases , etc you name it )
    • Very easy to set up and have it up and running when using the SaaS solution. There's an on premise solution which works just as well but requires more effort and preparation from an infrastructure point of view for your teams to implement.
    • Continuously improve their features and their agents auto-update and keep up. All while not interfering with your applications.
    • Let's you create your own dashboards and visualizations that can be tailored for different kind of users with the data collected.
    • Create your own events and smart alerts so you can know on the spot if something is happening or is likely to happen that needs addressing on your applications / systems
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Google
    • Data sampling is somewhat inaccurate on the free tier - this is addressed in premium but is expensive.
    • Some of the UI is very similar in naming when presenting different data, some in-situ information might be useful.
    • Gotchas around filtering and data validation.
    • Implementation can be tricky, it can take a lot of time and expertise to get a full, accurate picture of your metrics.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    • It's very difficult to create custom dashboards, only a handful of scenarios can be visualized to dashboards.
    • Extracting information from Instana to further analysis into excel for example is something that can be improved. Using an API to get data is very limiting.
    • Open telemetry features which allow to send application data to Instana is not working as documented.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Google
    We will continue to use Google Analytics for several reasons. It is free, which is a huge selling point. It houses all of our ecommerce stores' data, and though it can't account for refunds or fraud orders, gives us and our clients directional, real time information on individual and group store performance.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    Instana has been able to fulfill our all requirement and provide out of box solution for multiple component like AWS RDS Monitoring and real time alerting setup on basis of that. it is also easy to integrate with other open-source alerting and monitoring tools which makes it easier to incorporate into our solutions
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Google
    Google Analytics provides a wealth of data, down to minute levels. That is it's greatest detriment: find the right information when you need it can be a cumbersome task. You are able to create shortcuts, however, so it can mitigate some of this problem. Google is continually refining Analytics, so I do not doubt there will be improvements
    Read full review
    IBM
    IBM Instana totally alters our monitoring approach since it increases the stability of the system and simplifies the process of problem solving. And since it helps to lower the degree of alert exhaustion that we experience, it is a total game changer for us.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Google
    We all know Google is at top when it comes to availability. We have never faced any such instances where I can suggest otherwise. All you need is a Google account, a device and internet connection to use this super powerful tool for reporting and visualising your site data, traffic, events, etc. that too in real time.
    Read full review
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Google
    This has been a catalyst for improving our site's traffic handling capabilities. We were able to identify exit% from our sites through it and we used recommendations to handle and implement the same in our sites. We have been increasing the usage of Google Analytics in our sites and never had any performance related issues if we used Analytics
    Read full review
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Google
    The Google reps respond very quickly. However, sometimes they can overly call you to set up an apportionment. I'm very proficient and sometimes when I talk to reps, they give beginner tutorials and insights that are a waste of time. I wish Google would understand my level of expertise and assign me to a rep (long-term) that doesn't have to walk me through the basics.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    IBM instana support team is good but when we ask them for support, they keep asking same thing again and again and mostly there is no solution
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Google
    love the product and training they provide for businesses of all sizes. The following list of links will help you get started with Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented by Google Analytics.
    1. How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners – Mahalo’s how-to guide for beginners.
    2. A beginner’s guide to Google Analytics – A free eBook walking you through Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented.
    3. Getting to Know Your Google Analytics Dashboard – The title says it all! This is a brief post with one goal: to introduce you to the Google Analytics dashboard.
    4. Google Analytics for Beginners: How to Make the Most of Your Traffic Reports– This guide doesn’t cover setup, but it does a great job of helping you to better understand the data being presented.
    5. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 1: Setup – A video presentation that walks you through Google Analytics setup.
    6. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 2: Essential Stats – A video presentation that introduces you to some of the most important data being presented in Google Analytics.
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Google
    I think my biggest take away from the Google Analytics implementation was that there needs to be a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it before you start. Originally the analytics were added to track visitors, but as we became more savvy with the product, we began adding more and more functionality, and defining guidelines as we went along. While not detrimental to our success, this lack of an overarching goal resulted in some minor setbacks in implementation and the collection of some messy data that is unusable.
    Read full review
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Google
    I have not used Adobe Analytics as much, but I know they offer something called customer journey analytics, which we are evaluating now. I have used Semrush, and I find them much better than Google Analytics. I feel a fairly nontechnical person could learn Semrush in about a month. They also offer features like competitive analysis (on content, keywords, traffic, etc.), which is very useful. If you have to choose one among Semrush and Google Analytics, I would say go for Semrush.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    Instana is much more robust and modern compared to our previous product which was AppDynamics. We compared Dynatrace and Datadog and they were very similar in many aspects. The licensing simplicity with Instana and our existing relationship with IBM made it a much more enticing option and accelerated the adoption timeline
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    Scalability
    Google
    Google Analytics is currently handling the reporting and tracking of near about 80 sites in our project. And I am not talking about the sites from different projects. They may have way more accounts than that. Never ever felt a performance issue from Google's end while generating or customising reports or tracking custom events or creating custom dimensions
    Read full review
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Google
    • It has helped us gain understanding of what is going on on our website.
    • It has helped us determine areas that need fixing (i.e. pages with extremely high bounce rates may need to be redone).
    • It has helped us understand our biggest avenues for bringing traffic to the website and business in general.
    • It has helped guide our website redesign.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    • Increase up time by early failure identification and performance optimization based on findings in Instana.
    • Enhance user experience by mapping user issues with backend failures
    • Automated actions help fixing known issues without human intervention
    • increase support team efficiency by root cause analysis which decrease the incident solving time
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots