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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)

    Retrace (legacy)

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AStackify Retrace provides application performance management across the entire stack. Coupled with aggregated logs from common logging frameworks, find every exception in code. Retrace code with lightweight code profiling and track and monitor all key application and server metrics. The vendor states that with coverage for full lifecycle development, the Stackify Retrace software offering is tailored to be inclusive for multiple role types, and presents everything your team needs to know about…

    $99

    up to 3 servers, 500,000 traces, and 1,000,000 logs

    Pricing
    IBM InstanaRetrace (legacy)
    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)
    Essentials
    $99
    up to 3 servers, 500,000 traces, and 1,000,000 logs
    Standard
    249+
    2,000,000+ traces and 5,000,000+ logs
    Enterprise
    Custom
    Customer number of traces and logs
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM InstanaRetrace (legacy)
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—Pricing is based on trace and log usage.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM InstanaRetrace (legacy)
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    61 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    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
    No answers on this topic
    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
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    IBM InstanaRetrace (legacy)
    Monitoring Tasks
    Comparison of Monitoring Tasks features of IBM Instana and Retrace (legacy)
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    7.6
    3 Ratings
    9% below category average
    Retrace (legacy)
    -
    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 Retrace (legacy)
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    5.5
    1 Ratings
    23% below category average
    Retrace (legacy)
    -
    Ratings
    Software and hardware inventory6.42 Ratings00 Ratings
    Policy-based automation4.52 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reporting
    Comparison of Reporting features of IBM Instana and Retrace (legacy)
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    6.5
    3 Ratings
    20% below category average
    Retrace (legacy)
    -
    Ratings
    Performance data reports8.34 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable reporting4.52 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data visualization8.83 Ratings00 Ratings
    Risk analysis4.52 Ratings00 Ratings
    Application Performance Management
    Comparison of Application Performance Management features of IBM Instana and Retrace (legacy)
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    -
    Ratings
    Retrace (legacy)
    6.4
    1 Ratings
    20% below category average
    Application monitoring00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Database monitoring00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
    Out-of-the box templates to monitor applications00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
    Application dependency mapping and thresholding00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Server availability and performance monitoring00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM InstanaRetrace (legacy)
    Small Businesses
    Amazon CloudWatch
    Score7.8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    LogicMonitor
    Score8.9 out of 10
    SolarWinds AppOptics
    Score7.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    ManageEngine Site24x7
    Score10 out of 10
    Splunk AppDynamics
    Score8.5 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM InstanaRetrace (legacy)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.8
    (60 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.3
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM InstanaRetrace (legacy)
    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
    Discontinued Products
    If I need to change a logo design on the invoice, the new logo is slightly larger or smaller so the type below the logo is in a different area than before. In this case, you would need to load the new version of the document into APM Plus and redo the mapping of the field areas to properly grab the information needed to process the document. Without doing this, the document could fail or go to the wrong archive based on the fields.
    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
    Discontinued Products
    • Integration of performance management with log management so you get the parameters sent
    • In-line log and error data in trace
    • Integration of error and log data, so in one click you can see all the logs recorded when an error was thrown
    • Very reasonably priced
    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
    Discontinued Products
    • To set up the fields that APM Plus monitors, you need to map each field area on each document.
    • APM Plus could use a way to link the documents back into the finance or business software so you can find the document under the PO, Sales Order, Invoice, etc.
    • APM Plus setup is only for the professionals. There are many areas that need tweaking on setup, having a better default setup would lessen the learning curve to set it up for use.
    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
    Discontinued Products
    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
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Discontinued Products
    It is a very impressive tool which doesn't overwhelm you with unnecessary data. They have combination of tools that haven't seen by any other company which makes it a very powerful tool
    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
    Discontinued Products
    • APM Plus has freed up users from having to manually attach documents to each place they are sending it. APM Plus will do it automatically.
    • APM Plus provides a searchable archive to re-visit sent documents with customers and vendors. Having to reprint a document you risk the potential that something has changed since it was last printed.
    • APM Plus does need IT staff for adjustments and to review sending problems. Not for an average user.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Retrace (legacy) Screenshots

    Screenshot of Detailed stack trace with inline error and logsScreenshot of Web Apps Dashboard:
The Apps Page gives you a high-level overview of all applications found and monitored across all servers in each environment. Click on any app to take you to the App Dashboard to view more information for a particular app.Screenshot of Apps Dashboard:
The App Dashboard is a powerful monitoring and troubleshooting perspective that gives you a view of application health across one or more environments.Screenshot of Performance (APM+) Dashboard:
The Performance section will give you a report of how well the application is performing overall, as perceived by your users.  A graph will allow you to view all requests by Satisfaction by viewing "Fast", "Sluggish", "Too Slow", or "Failed" types of requests.  Another report includes graphs of HTTP Error%, Satisfaction Score%, and Page Load Time.  Lastly, you will have the ability to sort each page request of your App by different categories: Satisfaction, Slowest page, Failed pages, pages hit, and total load time.  By clicking on an individual page a Performance Details page with further information about that specific page's health, performance, and errors will be displayed.Screenshot of Performance Traces:
One of the ways we strive to deliver relevant insights is to only collect traces around interesting requests. Some examples of these request types that are interesting would be faster than normal, slower than normal, new web requests, requests introducing new SQL, requests introducing new exceptions, or abnormal satisfaction scores. Under performing requests will be profiled more often than fast requests. As long as the app is getting steady traffic Retrace should be saving a trace every 5 to 15 minutes.Screenshot of Errors Dashboard:
From the Errors Dashboard, you can get an overview of all the exceptions of all your applications across different environments. It gives you a central location to view details about your errors.