IBM Instana vs. Splunk Application Performance Monitoring (APM)

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 Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Splunk APM is an application performance monitor that uses AI to drive troubleshooting of issues that arise within applications.
$55
per month
Pricing
IBM InstanaSplunk Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
Editions & Modules
SaaS
$75
per month per host
Self-Hosted
$93.80
per month per host
Standard
$55 ($660 billed annually)
Per Host, Per Month
Enterprise
$85 ($1,020 billed annually)
Per Host, Per Month
Enterprise (Usage-based Price)
Per TAPM
Trace Analyzed Per Minute
Standard (Usage-based Price)
Per TAPM
Trace Analyzed Per Minute
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM InstanaSplunk Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsSplunk APM offers Host-based Pricing or Usage-based Pricing, billed annually. Significant Volume Discounts offered.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM InstanaSplunk Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
Considered Both Products
IBM Instana
Chose IBM Instana
IBM Instana goes beyond simply offering visibility into our IT operations, it is also a source of business intelligence and operational analytics.
Splunk Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
Chose Splunk Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
Because it's very easy to use & detailed and I love the graphics you feel everything under control any issue you can track it immediately
Features
IBM InstanaSplunk Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
Application Performance Management
Comparison of Application Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
IBM Instana
-
Ratings
Splunk Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
7.8
9 Ratings
2% above category average
Application monitoring00 Ratings8.29 Ratings
Database monitoring00 Ratings7.79 Ratings
Application performance management console00 Ratings7.89 Ratings
Virtualization monitoring00 Ratings7.49 Ratings
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User Ratings
IBM InstanaSplunk Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(27 ratings)
8.1
(9 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(9 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM InstanaSplunk Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
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
Splunk
Good for below cases 1. There is a front end and need to correlate data with front end data 2. multiple microservices and need to check the health of each system 3. correlate data from various sources 4. Application performance is a key to be captured 5. application performance is a key metric.
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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
Read full review
Splunk
  • Detect and Troubleshoot, which allows team to eliminate errors.
  • Dashboard creates a one stop location for environment health
  • Provides visibility, access to logs and user data real time.
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
Splunk
  • I wish Splunk Application Performance Monitoring could integrate with packet capture and analysis tools and provide the integrated analysis results on each tier of the application
Read full review
Usability
IBM
No answers on this topic
Splunk
Splunk is a great tool for log mining. It is less time-consuming and easy to use. It provides high security, it has customisable dashboards. Furthermore, it acts as a search head, and it gives real-time status. It has the ability to collect data from any source and multiple sources, and it can correlate them.
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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
It is good that the correlation analysis and the cause of the failure can be analyzed more extensively through the collection of many data. It is good because it provides a user interface (usability) well and can be used conveniently.
It is good because it can utilize anomaly detection through various AI-based ML models.
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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
  • It gave us more quicker alerts in a organize way to distribute to specific audience.
  • Helped us to improve our uptime by getting pro-active alerts via emails
  • More collaboration in a DevOps culture
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ScreenShots