IBM Instana vs. Kibana

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Instana
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Instana, 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 host
Kibana
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Kibana allows users to visualize Elasticsearch data and navigate the Elastic Stack so you can do anything from tracking query load to understanding the way requests flow through your apps.N/A
Pricing
IBM InstanaKibana
Editions & Modules
SaaS
$75
per month per host
Self-Hosted
$93.80
per month per host
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM InstanaKibana
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM InstanaKibana
Considered Both Products
IBM Instana
Chose IBM Instana
The ease of use and reliability made us keep Instana and we're happy with it.
Kibana

No answer on this topic

Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

No answers on this topic

Features
IBM InstanaKibana
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
IBM Instana
-
Ratings
Kibana
9.0
5 Ratings
7% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings9.05 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings9.03 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
IBM Instana
-
Ratings
Kibana
5.7
5 Ratings
34% below category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings7.05 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings7.04 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings3.04 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
IBM Instana
-
Ratings
Kibana
8.8
2 Ratings
5% above category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings9.52 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings8.52 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
IBM Instana
-
Ratings
Kibana
8.8
4 Ratings
7% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings7.04 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings9.52 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
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IBM InstanaKibana
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User Ratings
IBM InstanaKibana
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(27 ratings)
7.0
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.7
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM InstanaKibana
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
I would recommend IBM Instana based on its strengths in automating application performance monitoring, dynamic tracing, and its ability to handle modern, containerized environments effectively. The automatic discovery and mapping feature, along with AI-powered anomaly detection, provide valuable insights for proactive issue resolution. However, I would consider factors such as the organization's specific technology stack, scalability requirements, and budget constraints. Conducting a thorough evaluation, including a trial or proof of concept, would be essential to ensure that IBM Instana aligns with our unique needs and contributes positively to our technology and business objectives.
Read full review
Elastic
Kibana integrates seamlessly with Elastic Search which gives us access to parse and analyze data generated from our systems in order to make decisions. Also, Kibana helps us create insightful reports and dashboards that give us insights into the end-users usage on the system and helps us find the root cause of issues as well.
Read full review
Pros
IBM
  • Collecting Kubernetes and Infra level logs and presenting in easy to understand visuals.
  • Tracing the end-to-end journey of an event and also categorizing by technology and Endpoints
  • Built-in and custom alerts help to monitor almost all of scenarios without much additional configuration.
  • Ability to create Applications to logical group important flows
Read full review
Elastic
  • Fast searches with powerful index.
  • Beautiful data visualizations.
  • Real-time observability.
Read full review
Cons
IBM
  • I believe that the "live" option in monitoring does not truly update the status in real-time, thus I must manually update to feel comfortable.
  • The call analysis tool might be improved, third-party resources are restricted, and the pricing is slightly more than competitors in comparable categories.
Read full review
Elastic
  • Some performance issues with large datasets.
  • Linking to dashboards makes extremely long urls.
  • Lack of reports.
Read full review
Support Rating
IBM
No answers on this topic
Elastic
We did not use the official Kibana support. Documentation was easy enough to follow.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
IBM
We chose IBM Instana for several reasons, and the most important one is that we didn't have to make changes in our code for nearly all of our applications for it to work. We are happy with the decision we made to use IBM Instana.
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Elastic
Kibana has a better usability experience, the core features I was using existed in all of them. I liked more in Kibana how you can easily create dashboards, charts, and reports without the need to be a tech person.
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Return on Investment
IBM
  • System down time is shortened as our ability to troubleshoot issues goes up.
  • Potential downtime is stopped as we are able to slow down calls/ availability of calls in response to monitoring the dashboard.
  • We are able to react to issues quickly through the smart alert system rather than manual checks.
Read full review
Elastic
  • Issues that affect checkout experiences for customers are able to be prioritized and solved quickly.
  • We are able to more efficiently use resources due to the automation of reporting alerts. Decreasing employee resources needed.
  • Visualization allows us to quickly share issues and explain to coworkers in order to escalate issues that can cost our bottom line.
Read full review
ScreenShots