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Azure Monitor vs IBM Instana Observability comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Azure Monitor
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (5th)
IBM Instana Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
51st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Azure Monitor is 9.5%, up from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Instana Observability is 0.3%, 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

Swapan Biswas - PeerSpot reviewer
A powerful Kusto query language but the alerting mechanism needs improvement
Alerts cannot be configured to monitor at a certain point in time. For example, we might want to alert people at zero hours but that is not possible. Splunk can accomplish this and its alerts are far better than the solution's options. The alerting mechanism is not up to the market. The default interface should be improved. You can prepare your own dashboard by using custom query language, but the default interface is not good.
Tomas Kim - PeerSpot reviewer
Not expensive and offers good performance
The most valuable feature of the solution is performance. A one-vendor solution serves as a good feature of the tool. In the IT industry, the IT support team has lots of vendors to contact. DB monitoring is done by one company, while WaaS monitoring is done by another and done by another company, which makes it really complicated for the IT team concerned about the security levels. The tool's main feature is that it is a one-vendor solution. The analysis done by the tool is a good feature. The tool is used as an open-source tool. The tool is growing, and new features are being added to the product.

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 tons of valuable features."
"It is a robust, stable product."
"Azure Monitor is very stable."
"The solution is quite stable."
"The features that are most valuable are the alerting function and also the logging functionality to analyze certain issues using log analytics"
"It has good troubleshooting features."
"The most valuable feature is the universality of their functionalities in all Azure services, including, software solutions."
"Azure Monitor gives us the observability to check everything that we have in the cloud."
"The solution has a one-second resolution, giving you the status of your application within one second."
"The most valuable features of IBM Instana are its quick data collection and analytics after installing the agent."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is performance."
 

Cons

"I would like more transparency when we use the solution with another environment, like on-premises, or on another cloud environment, like AWS or GCP."
"This solution could be improved with more out-of-the-box functionalities and artificial intelligence to complete event correlation."
"What I feel is when I open a screen of Azure, some places are very complex to navigate to. It is not very user-friendly when it comes to accessing certain sections."
"Although it's not always the case, the price can sometimes get expensive. This depends on a number of factors, such as how many services you are trying to integrate with Azure Monitor and how much storage they're consuming each month (for example, how large are the log files?)."
"I need connectivity with cost management."
"This solution has fewer features than some of its competitors, so adding more features to it would make it better."
"The default interface should be improved."
"In terms of pricing, Azure Monitor's billing based on data size can sometimes lead to increased costs, especially when developers need to purge data frequently. While there are mechanisms in place to track and manage this, there is room for improvement in terms of optimizing data pausing and related processes. Enhancements in this area could help mitigate potential billing concerns and provide a more seamless experience for users."
"The product's initial setup phase is not very easy."
"The solution should include log management and improve reporting and integration with Cognos."
"One area that requires improvement is related to the automation part, specifically automated actions like sending SMS."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is a pay-as-you-go consumption service and is the least expensive in the market."
"Azure Monitor is a low-priced solution, which is why it would work best on small-scale projects."
"Besides standard licensing fees the customer needs to additionally pay based on the ingested data size"
"Customers of Azure Monitor must pay an amount that depends largely on how many services they need to integrate and the storage space required in terms of logs, etc. If they only have a few small services to monitor, the price won't be too high, but on the opposite side of the spectrum, it can certainly get pricey."
"Azure Monitor is cheaper compared to other third-party monitoring tools."
"The solution is very costly because you have to pay for various things such as adding to logs and internet alerts."
"The tool's pricing is very good. I could say that Microsoft offers different cost models, which are listed on the product's website."
"The tool is expensive."
"The tool's cost is normal as per the market. The tool is not expensive."
"The solution's pricing is reasonable compared to that of its competitors like Dynatrace."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Construction Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does Splunk compare with Azure Monitor?
Splunk handles a high amount of data very well. We use Splunk to capture information and as an aggregator for monitoring information from different sources. Splunk is very good at alerting us if we...
What do you like most about Azure Monitor?
Azure Monitor is a very easy-to-use product in the cloud environment.
What needs improvement with Azure Monitor?
Azure Monitor could improve by adding capabilities for data observability and integrating more tightly with their data platform components.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Instana Observability?
The tool's cost is normal as per the market. The tool is not expensive.
What needs improvement with IBM Instana Observability?
The tool should offer more LDR AI models. The monitoring is just a status, but the next level of a monitoring solution is to prevent an accident or stop an accident status. The solution should be t...
What is your primary use case for IBM Instana Observability?
Before IBM, I ordered our company's engineer to have a look at the tool and test it. I think it was two years ago, the transfer to IBM happened in our company. At the beginning, IBM Instana Observa...
 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rackspace, First Gas, Allscripts, ABB Group
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Monitor vs. IBM Instana Observability and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.