IBM Instana vs. Splunk Log Observer

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
Splunk Log Observer
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Splunk's Log Observer reduce time troubleshooting. The live Tail allows SREs and developers to filter and watch critical logs without having to learn a query language.
$6.25
per month per host
Pricing
IBM InstanaSplunk Log Observer
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 InstanaSplunk Log Observer
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Best Alternatives
IBM InstanaSplunk Log Observer
Small Businesses
InfluxDB
InfluxDB
Score 8.5 out of 10
SolarWinds Papertrail
SolarWinds Papertrail
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
GitLab
GitLab
Score 8.9 out of 10
SolarWinds Papertrail
SolarWinds Papertrail
Score 8.8 out of 10
Enterprises
GitLab
GitLab
Score 8.9 out of 10
LogicMonitor
LogicMonitor
Score 8.7 out of 10
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User Ratings
IBM InstanaSplunk Log Observer
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(27 ratings)
8.7
(10 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM InstanaSplunk Log Observer
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.
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Splunk
Great for organizations that need to centralize different types of logging across integration, qa, sandbox and production environments. Would be less impactful for organizations that don't have complex logging needs.
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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
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Splunk
  • Providing in-depth insights
  • A related content feature which really helps us to figure out which service is breaking the infrastructure.
  • The Log explorer which helps us to explore the entire log and pin point the errors/issues.
  • Fast and powerful log investigation
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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.
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Splunk
  • Integrating the system with Slack channels
  • Saving the logs in different cloud provider
  • Viewing the logs at more fine grained level based on user roles and permissions
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Likelihood to Renew
IBM
No answers on this topic
Splunk
I'm a Splunk specialist, and I'm involved in its use and improvement.
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Usability
IBM
No answers on this topic
Splunk
It gives access to data features for every level of users: from managers and executives to Analysts, each one with the correct level of observation and analysis.
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Support Rating
IBM
No answers on this topic
Splunk
Splunk support is very quick and efficient. Pre-sale specialists are very skilled and available.
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Implementation Rating
IBM
No answers on this topic
Splunk
Follow a training before starting.
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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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Splunk
I had not considered other products because Splunk Log Observer was in use in my company before I started working there.
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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.
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Splunk
  • Significantly reduced the MTTR (Mean Time To Recovery), which in turn has improved the end-user experience tremendously.
  • Meets compliance requirements of security policies, audit, regulation, and forensics.
  • Helps us to track/manage the resource usage on our cloud instances which has a direct implication on the recurring cost.
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ScreenShots