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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    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)

    Kibana

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AKibana 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
    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)
    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
    Chose IBM Instana
    The ease of use and reliability made us keep Instana and we're happy with it.
    Incentivized
    Elastic
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    61 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    53 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    61 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    40 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    47 Answers
    80%
    Implementation went as expected
    4 Answers
    Features
    IBM InstanaKibana
    Monitoring Tasks
    Comparison of Monitoring Tasks features of IBM Instana and Kibana
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    7.6
    3 Ratings
    10% below category average
    Kibana
    -
    Ratings
    Remote monitoring9.14 Ratings00 Ratings
    Network device monitoring5.54 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple Server Monitoring8.94 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multi-device monitoring5.54 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automated alerts and notifications9.14 Ratings00 Ratings
    Management Tasks
    Comparison of Management Tasks features of IBM Instana and Kibana
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    5.5
    1 Ratings
    24% below category average
    Kibana
    -
    Ratings
    Software and hardware inventory6.42 Ratings00 Ratings
    Policy-based automation4.52 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reporting
    Comparison of Reporting features of IBM Instana and Kibana
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    6.5
    3 Ratings
    20% below category average
    Kibana
    -
    Ratings
    Performance data reports8.34 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable reporting4.52 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data visualization8.83 Ratings00 Ratings
    Risk analysis4.52 Ratings00 Ratings
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of IBM Instana and Kibana
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    -
    Ratings
    Kibana
    7.0
    5 Ratings
    14% below category average
    Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings6.02 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings7.03 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of IBM Instana and Kibana
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    -
    Ratings
    Kibana
    6.7
    5 Ratings
    16% below category average
    Drill-down analysis00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities00 Ratings7.04 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings5.01 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings6.94 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of IBM Instana and Kibana
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    -
    Ratings
    Kibana
    6.8
    2 Ratings
    18% below category average
    Publish to Web00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
    Publish to PDF00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
    Report Versioning00 Ratings6.02 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings6.02 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings6.02 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of IBM Instana and Kibana
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    -
    Ratings
    Kibana
    6.7
    4 Ratings
    14% below category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings8.04 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics00 Ratings6.02 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM InstanaKibana
    Small Businesses
    Amazon CloudWatch
    Score7.8 out of 10
    Chartio (discontinued)
    Score7.5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    LogicMonitor
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Jet Reports
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Enterprises
    ManageEngine Site24x7
    Score10 out of 10
    Looker Studio
    Score8.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM InstanaKibana
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.8
    (60 ratings)
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.3
    (3 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    7.7
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM InstanaKibana
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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
    Read full review
    Elastic
    Kibana is indeed a powerful tool and has many use cases especially in environments that rely heavily on real-time log analysis and visualisation. Kibana’s ability to handle large volumes of log data and present it in an accessible, searchable format is invaluable. We use Kibana to monitor security related issues and it proactively alerts our Slack channels about any anomality or issues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    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
    Read full review
    Elastic
    • Fast searches with powerful index.
    • Beautiful data visualizations.
    • Real-time observability.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    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
    Read full review
    Elastic
    • Some performance issues with large datasets.
    • Linking to dashboards makes extremely long urls.
    • Lack of reports.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    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
    Read full review
    Elastic
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    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
    Read full review
    Elastic
    Its usability is generally good and it provides teams with a basic to intermediate understanding about data visualization. It is very user-friendly when it comes to creating dashboards. The UI is very good and simple. Its integration with other tools for alerting and reporting is amazing. But its advance features have a learning curve and a first timer needs some time to use the advance features.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    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
    Elastic
    We did not use the official Kibana support. Documentation was easy enough to follow.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    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
    Read full review
    Elastic
    Kibana is free; it was the first and only thing we've tried in this area.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    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
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots