AWS X-Ray vs Cribl comparison

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AWS X-Ray

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

AWS X-Ray and Cribl are complementary products in the monitoring and data management category. Cribl seems to have the upper hand due to its data management flexibility across multi-cloud platforms, although AWS X-Ray is strong in its pricing and support within AWS environments.

Features: AWS X-Ray offers deep integration with AWS services, detailed request tracing, and dependency mapping to identify performance bottlenecks. Cribl provides versatile log data management, allowing for data collection, reshaping, and routing with greater control and efficiency.

Room for Improvement: AWS X-Ray could enhance its features to support multi-cloud environments, improve its flexibility in data handling, and add advanced analytics capabilities. Cribl may improve by streamlining its initial setup, reducing complexity in advanced configurations, and offering more competitive pricing options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AWS X-Ray benefits from seamless integration within AWS, supported by comprehensive documentation and strong customer service. Cribl offers a user-centric deployment process adaptable to various infrastructures, backed by a responsive support team providing hands-on assistance.

Pricing and ROI: AWS X-Ray's pricing is competitive within AWS environments, delivering favorable ROI for native AWS use cases. Cribl, while having a higher initial cost, provides significant ROI through its expansive data management capabilities, making it a valuable investment for complex data tasks across multiple platforms.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS X-Ray vs. Cribl Report (Updated: April 2025).

AWS X-Ray vs. Cribl

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

AWS X-Ray

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

19th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Cribl

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

14th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (13th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (13th), Observability Pipeline Software (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of AWS X-Ray is 3.3%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cribl is 0.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Willy Moura

Solutions Architect/ Analyst at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Identifying and resolving deployment issues while configuring can be challenging

I have two use cases with my customers. One involves using AWS Fargate, and the other involves an application running on WordPress. The WordPress application was very slow, and we used AWS X-Ray to understand the main problem. X-Ray helped us identify issues with our EFS, allowing us to adjust…

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Phanindra Ponnada

Splunk SME at Sbase Technologies India PVT Lmtd

Provides good documentation and worth the investment

As of now, there are some environments where some organizations are still on legacy infrastructure, so they are still in virtual environments and are using old versions of devices. Some companies bought Splunk, while others bought Cribl for a very low-priced license. There are some protocols to connect from Cribl to Splunk. I understand Cribl has come into the market very recently, but the tool might have had a picture in its mind where organizations might also have some legacy infrastructure. In the future, with our protocols or our level of architecture, Cribl should not come and say that it is not compatible with them. If Cribl is the reason because I have to change my environment, then I will have to end up investing more. There are some organizations where the end machines have forwarders that forward the data to Cribl, and from it, the data is forwarded to Splunk. This is how general architecture works. There are two methods of connection between Cribl and Splunk. One is the S2S protocol, which collects logs from Cribl or sends data between Cribl and Splunk. There is another method called HTTP Event Collector (HEC) and HTTPS protocol. With Cribl, connecting to Splunk mostly uses the S2S protocol. The tool supports all the latest devices and platform devices, like all the latest operating systems. There are some organizations where there is legacy infrastructure or if they are still on the old platforms. Companies using old platforms have to consider HTTP Event Collector (HEC), and then they have to change their infrastructure setup in order to fulfill that setup. In order to have Google and Splunk set up in my organization, if I have to change my existing infrastructure connectivity or setup, that might incur more cost or more investment for me to have Cribl and Splunk. Cribl should provide compatibility, or else the tool's developers should speak to the people of such organizations and understand the challenges. Cribl could have developed some version that can give backward compatibility.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The solution has made it easier for us to trace the problems that we have with our requests and to monitor the timing of each step in each request we do in our endpoints."

"I would give AWS X-Ray a nine out of ten overall."

"AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process."

"AWS X-RAY identifies bottlenecks in terms of stability and performance and how long certain data lives in terms of response time and duration."

"The error analysis capabilities of X-Ray are really good."

"AWS X-Ray shows us exactly when there are delays, helping us understand the depth of issues and what is happening point-to-point."

"The most beneficial feature is that it shows a dashboard for performance intervals, which reveals latencies."

"AWS X-Ray's endpoints and user monitoring are considered the most valuable features."

More AWS X-Ray pros

"Features such as Cribl Stream, Cribl LogStream, and Cribl Edge have been the most beneficial. The Cribl LogStream, in particular, is valuable for routing data, creating firewalls on pipelines, and putting security measures in place to ensure data reaches its destination without issues."

"Cribl offers easy plugin configurations and source collection settings, allowing us to collect logs from any source."

"The support team was very helpful and managed to get everything production-ready."

"When it comes to the product's installation phase, it is not tough for people who have good knowledge...The tool is worth the investment."

"The capability to reduce logs in a user-friendly manner is a standout feature. Cribl allows us to view logs live as they are being processed, giving us quick feedback on the changes made."

"The product's most valuable features include the internal management of events, coding perspective, data processing, and serialization."

"Cribl offers other valuable features. For instance, you can replay data from an edge device, store your daily data in a stream, and replay specific event data into Splunk if a security incident occurs"

"My favorite option in Cribl is the Stream product."

More Cribl pros

Cons

"A significant downside is that it is very expensive."

"They can improve how traces are sent to other providers."

"Like most Amazon products, the user interface, configuration, and tuning aren't the easiest. That's the biggest reason why people tend to go to products like TerraForm and Terragrunt. We use TerraForm and Terragrunt. So, for setting things up and interacting with X-Ray, it's definitely the user interface that can be better."

"Compared to other open-source tools, AWS X-Ray needs improvement in providing discounts."

"I do not have any notes in terms of improvements."

"Sometimes, the collector agents are confusing to configure initially."

"It should have X-Ray SDKs for different languages like Node.js, Python, or Java."

"AWS X-Ray should improve its implementation process to make it easier for developers."

More AWS X-Ray cons

"There have been several administrative issues. Another point is that the browsing functions aren't very intuitive."

"The sys logging could be enhanced to make it easier to identify errors, especially when dealing with multiple functions."

"Cribl doesn't have as many packs available"

"Cribl should consider adding more features that are applicable to smaller firms, allowing broader access to their data migration through Cribl."

"Cribl could have developed some version that can give backward compatibility."

"Cribl could improve by offering easier integrations with enterprise products, similar to what Splunk provides."

"There is room for improvement in the documentation and knowledge base, particularly regarding configurations like sources where logs are being ingested"

"There is no alerting mechanism for the leader/worker nodes status."

More Cribl cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for AWS X-Ray is a six out of ten."

"The solution is a bit expensive."

"As you develop a relationship with Amazon, your pricing gets lower. You get credits for the amount of the system you use, and then if you're the government, you can get government pricing. For commercial users, there's a hump when you go from small to medium to big enterprise. Small businesses can live pretty easily off the free tier in a lot of cases, but when you go from a medium to a big enterprise, it becomes more expensive on a per-user basis. I'd like to see that curve going in a different way where pricing can be driven down while people are trying to adopt the technology."

"I would not say it is a cheaply priced tool as it has been doing wonders in the market. The tool has been budget-friendly for organizations."

"The product pricing is reasonable compared to other solutions."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS X-Ray?

AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS X-Ray?

Compared to other open-source tools, AWS X-Ray needs improvement in providing discounts. Customers often seek cheaper solutions. When using many AWS resources, pricing can be a mid-range cost, give...

What needs improvement with AWS X-Ray?

Sometimes, the collector agents are confusing to configure initially. It requires research to understand the correct configurations, especially when deploying on-premises or on an EC2 instance. Usi...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cribl?

I am not aware of the pricing details, however, I know they use a credit format for billing.

What needs improvement with Cribl?

At the moment, I don't have specific feedback on what can be improved as I do not work with Cribl daily. Perhaps more flexibility in terms of metrics would be helpful.

What is your primary use case for Cribl?

I am using Cribl to have everything centralized in one tool in terms of data collection. We were working with different Splunk customers, and Cribl helps collect data and then send it to an S3 buck...

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Product Reports

AWS X-Ray

Download AWS X-Ray product report

Download Cribl product report

Overview

AWS X-Ray is a powerful debugging and performance analysis tool offered by Amazon Web Services. It allows developers to trace requests made to their applications and identify bottlenecks and issues.

With X-Ray, developers can visualize the entire request flow and pinpoint the exact location where errors occur. It provides detailed insights into the performance of individual components and helps optimize the overall application performance.

X-Ray integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, making it easy to trace requests across different services and identify dependencies. It also offers a comprehensive set of APIs and SDKs, enabling developers to instrument their applications and capture valuable data for analysis. With its user-friendly interface and powerful features, AWS X-Ray is a valuable tool for developers looking to improve the performance and reliability of their applications.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Cribl optimizes log collection, data processing, and migration to Splunk Cloud, ensuring efficient data ingestion and management for improved operational efficiency.

Cribl offers seamless log collection directly from cloud sources, allowing users to visually extract necessary data and replay specific events for in-depth analysis. It provides robust management of events, parsing, and enrichment of data, along with effective log size reduction. Cribl is particularly beneficial for migrating enterprise logs, optimizing usage, and reducing costs while streamlining the transition between different log management tools.

What are Cribl's most important features?

Real-Time Data Transformation: Enables immediate data processing for accurate insights.
Simplified Log Collection: Gathers data from diverse sources effortlessly.
Powerful Data Reduction: Reduces log size without losing critical information.
Inbuilt Packs: Ready-to-use functions simplify complex tasks.
Live Testing: Allows testing before production deployment for reliability.
Master Node Updates: Manages worker groups efficiently for consistent performance.
Advanced Data Processing: Offers robust data serialization and coding perspectives.
Easy Plugin Configurations: Facilitates direct integration with reduced setup time.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Optimized Usage: Ensures effective resource management and cost reduction.
Streamlined Migration: Simplifies the transition between log management tools.
Enhanced Data Management: Improves data quality and processing efficiency.
Reduced Time and Effort: Direct-to-production capabilities save operational time.

Cribl is widely implemented in industries requiring extensive data management, such as technology and finance. Users leverage Cribl to handle log collection, processing, and migration efficiently, ensuring smooth operation and effective data analysis. It aids in managing temporary data storage during downtimes and better handling historical data, preventing data loss and allowing extended periods for viewing statistics and monitoring trends.

Sample Customers

COMCAST, ConnectWise, skyscanner, AirAsia, cookpad, cimpress, VTEX, zowdow

Information Not Available

AWS X-Ray vs. Cribl