AWS X-Ray vs Honeycomb.io comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Honeycomb.io are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #19 with an average rating of 7.3, while Honeycomb.io is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.5. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 3.3% mindshare in APM, compared to Honeycomb.io’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Honeycomb.io users who would recommend it.

AWS X-Ray

Read 10 AWS X-Ray reviews

5,836 Views
5,272 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Honeycomb.io

Read 2 Honeycomb.io reviews

2,629 Views
2,256 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

AWS X-Ray

Honeycomb.io

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between AWS X-Ray and Honeycomb.io based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

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

Buyer's Guide

AWS X-Ray vs. Honeycomb.io

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 848,207 peers since 2012

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

Honeycomb.io

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

25th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

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 Honeycomb.io is 1.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Muhmad Tabrez A Deewanji

Lead Software Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Improving performance through efficient trace metrics and data insights

As an application developer and architect, I appreciate AWS X-Ray ( /products/aws-x-ray-reviews ) for checking latency and identifying bottlenecks. I use it for performance tuning, conducting performance testing on applications, getting real-time traces, and gaining data insights. It helps in improving throughput and tuning infrastructure. The trace metrics and data collected provide valuable insights.

Read full review

Diego Gomes De Lima

Senior Software Engineer at SumUp

Easy to use and the dashboard is very intuitive

We faced some OpenTelemetry metrics lost between the communication from the service and the Honeycomb.io. I can't say if this is a Honeycomb.io issue or if there are some limitations in OpenTelemetry. Alerts are very helpful in Honeycomb.io, but we don't usually merge because we can compare queries with queries for making alerts. We can make alerts based on static numbers, which may block us from building alerts that could be generic enough or could be serviced.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most important one is compliance. We're able to achieve our regulatory levels. We're able to achieve the security level that we need for the federal government."

"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 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."

"It is a very scalable solution."

"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 most promising feature of AWS X-Ray is that you can debug the issues through the proper logs. You can also get an analysis out of the logs for some use cases, though I have yet to try all the features of AWS X-Ray."

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

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

More AWS X-Ray pros

"The solution's most valuable features are the queries for the OpenTelemetry events and all the tracing."

"The solution's initial setup process was straightforward since we were getting enough support from Honeycomb.io's team."

Cons

"If you have a small team, it's probably overkill."

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

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

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

"The user interface is sometimes kind of confusing to understand. It's not very user-friendly."

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

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

"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."

More AWS X-Ray cons

"We can make alerts based on static numbers, which may block us from building alerts that could be generic enough or could be serviced."

"The process of log scraping gets delayed on Honeycomb.io. At times, it gives false alerts to the application team."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"The solution is a bit expensive."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Honeycomb.io?

The solution's initial setup process was straightforward since we were getting enough support from Honeycomb.io's team.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Honeycomb.io?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Honeycomb.io?

The solution is mainly used for stack observability. It observes service behavior or any kind of failure that may be happening. The tool is also related to research. My company is working more on t...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 20% of the time

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Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 11% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 1% of the time

More AWS X-Ray Competitors

Sentry vs Honeycomb.io

Compared 28% of the time

Grafana vs Honeycomb.io

Compared 17% of the time

Datadog vs Honeycomb.io

Compared 12% of the time

Prometheus Group vs Honeycomb.io

Compared 6% of the time

Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs Honeycomb.io

Compared 3% of the time

More Honeycomb.io Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS X-Ray

April 2025

Download AWS X-Ray product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

April 2025

Download Honeycomb.io 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)

Many offerings tout observability. How is Honeycomb different? We have defined what Observability is and have built a tool to help modern Dev, DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering teams operate more efficiently. Because it’s all about delivering high quality code, maintaining reliability and getting precious time back.

We made a critical decision to provide a seamless, current view of your system (from logs to events and traces) in a single data store, regardless of how complex your architecture is. This means you no longer have to toil with multiple tools or stitched-together solutions – burning time as you address issues affecting users.

We also believe strongly that optimizing systems and debugging should not be difficult and draining, freeing up more time to ship new code. Our approach emphasizes efficiency and knowledge sharing, thereby elevating everyone’s game and ultimately business outcomes.

Honeycomb.io

Sample Customers

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

Clover Health, Eaze, Intercom, Fender

Buyer's Guide

AWS X-Ray vs. Honeycomb.io

April 2025

Free Report: AWS X-Ray vs. Honeycomb.io

Find out what your peers are saying about AWS X-Ray vs. Honeycomb.io and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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