Elastic Observability vs IBM Application Performance Management comparison

Elastic Observability vs. IBM Application Performance Management

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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

Elastic Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Log Management (15th), Container Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)

IBM Application Performance...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

51st

Average Rating

6.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

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 Elastic Observability is 5.4%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Application Performance Management is 0.3%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Adelina Craciun

Product Owner at Swisscom

Customization enables tailored monitoring and alerting across departments

The possibility to customize it has been quite useful. Whatever the other departments want to dream up, we implement. Whatever they want to monitor, the granularity of it, the changes in the threshold, and the anomalies that they want reported all require some development. So far, every single request has been fulfilled.

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Daniel Tamiru

Manager, Database & System Administration at Awash International Bank

A multi-functional solution but has poor stability and performance-related issues

We are using version 4 of IBM Application Performance Management, and it is deployed on-premises. We use it for internet banking and mainly for application performance on-site. For example, if we face performance-related issues in one of our software or managed services, we use this solution to…

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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

"Machine learning is the most valuable feature of this solution."

"I recommend Elastic Observability for its completeness of vision and wide ecosystem."

"It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it."

"Elastic provides built-in features for queries and report generation. It's a very good tool for monitoring integration capabilities."

"The solution allows us to dig deep into data."

"I found Elk to be excellent for log analytics, security analytics, application code-level analytics, collaboration with DevOps teams, CI/CD, microservices, and Kubernetes, specifically cloud-native or cloud-specific tasks."

"The solution has been stable in our usage."

"We use AppDynamics and Elastic. The reason why we're using Elastic APM is because of the license count. It's very favorable compared to AppDynamics. It's inexpensive; it's economical."

More Elastic Observability pros

"I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten."

"Because we have partnerships with other partners, I can share a bit about what I've noticed with IBM APM compared to other vendor solutions. Specifically, with IBM, the visibility into detailed process information is more tangible. On the OS level, APM displays all processes (or the top 10 processes) that are consuming CPU or resident memory. This is the most important thing that is not always available with other vendors."

"IBM Application Performance Management helped us increased our response time by 80% and cost 60% less."

"It's easy to use."

"The initial setup was straightforward and took minimal effort."

"The transaction tracking feature from IBM is the most important feature for us. It is something that provides a terrific value for us and our clients. It has a lot of data sources and agents that are collectors. It is also stable."

"The most valuable feature is the breakdown that it provides, such as a description of the fields for a particular transaction."

Cons

"They need more skills in the market. There are not enough skills in the market. It is not pervasive enough on the market, in my opinion. In other words, there isn't a big enough user base."

"In the future, Elastic APM needs a portfolio iTool. They can provide an easy way to develop the custom UI for Kibana."

"The interface could be improved."

"The auto-discovery isn't nearly as good. That's a big portion of it. When you drop the agent onto the JVM and you're trying to figure things out, having to go through and manually do all that is cumbersome."

"Improving code insight related to infrastructure and network, particularly focusing on aspects such as firewalls, switches, routers, and testing would be beneficial."

"If we had some pre-defined templates for observability that we could start using right away after deploying it – instead of having to build or to change some of the dashboards – that would be helpful."

"Elastic Observability’s price could be improved."

"The solution needs to use more AI. Once the product onboards AI, users would more effectively be able to track endpoints for specific messages."

More Elastic Observability cons

"The stability is not great and should be better."

"Technical support can be slow and needs improvement."

"It's still missing some platforms. For example, if you look to applications itself, it is missing the interface."

"With APM, we noticed that the agent can cause a lot of issues for the application, making the agent very unreliable. Many issues are happening, and we've had to discuss it with support to try and get a fix. It affects application availability, and sometimes actions fail because of the agent, degrading the performance of the application."

"They should focus on potentially enhancing the dashboard to make it more contemporary and adding some customization options. Furthermore, there might be room for improvement in the pricing policy."

"The demo that was provided to us is not working very well. At times, there are errors."

"Its web user interface is a little bit old in comparison to other solutions, such as New Relic, and it should be improved. Its scalability and technical support should also be improved. Currently, it is scalable, but only in a vertical way. They provide good technical support, but the initial steps for a new case can be improved to fasten the resolution process."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are two types: cloud and SaaS. They charge based on data ingestion, ingest rate, hard retention, and warm retention. I believe it costs around $25,000 annually to ingest 30GB of data daily. That is the SaaS version. There is also a self-managed license where the customer manages their own infrastructure on-prem. In such cases, there are three license tiers that respectively cost $5,000 annually per node, $7,000 per node, and $12,500 per node."

"We will buy a premium license after POC."

"The product is not that cheap."

"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."

"The price of Elastic Observability is expensive."

"Elastic Observability's pricing could be better for small-scale users."

"The product’s pricing needs improvement."

"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."

More Elastic Observability pricing and cost advice

"The licensing fees can be paid every six months or on a yearly basis."

"IBM APM is one of the cheaper products on the market, while everything necessary to get started is included in the license."

"As I previously indicated, I initiated the IBM and uncovered all its elements. Consequently, I'm not inclined towards a licensing approach."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

24%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Elastic Observability?

Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?

Elastic Observability is cost-efficient and provides all features in the enterprise license without asset-based licensing. However, sizing and licensing information could be clearer.

What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?

Of course, maintenance is necessary, as with any software, requiring updates with the latest features and security enhancements. It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like netw...

What do you like most about IBM Application Performance Management?

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

What needs improvement with IBM Application Performance Management?

They should focus on potentially enhancing the dashboard to make it more contemporary and adding some customization options. Furthermore, there might be room for improvement in the pricing policy. ...

What is your primary use case for IBM Application Performance Management?

I monitor business applications for more than four end users.

New Relic vs Elastic Observability

Comparisons

Compared 15% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

Dynatrace vs Elastic Observability

Compared 12% of the time

Grafana vs Elastic Observability

Compared 9% of the time

Zabbix vs Elastic Observability

Compared 8% of the time

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BMC Compuware Strobe vs IBM Application Performance Management

Compared 21% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs IBM Application Performance Management

Compared 13% of the time

Datadog vs IBM Application Performance Management

Compared 13% of the time

IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager vs IBM Application Performance Management

Compared 9% of the time

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Product Reports

Elastic Observability

Download Elastic Observability product report

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Download IBM Application Performance Management product report

IBM Application Performance Management report

Also Known As

No data available

IBM APM

Overview

Elastic Observability is primarily used for monitoring login events, application performance, and infrastructure, supporting significant data volumes through features like log aggregation, centralized logging, and system metric analysis.

Elastic Observability employs Elastic APM for performance and latency analysis, significantly aiding business KPIs and technical stability. It is popular among users for system and server monitoring, capacity planning, cyber security, and managing data pipelines. With the integration of Kibana, it offers robust visualization, reporting, and incident response capabilities through rapid log searches while supporting machine learning and hybrid cloud environments.

What are Elastic Observability's key features?

Economic licensing: Offers cost-effective plans.
Extensive metrics tracking: Helps in comprehensive system monitoring.
Comprehensive logging: Centralizes log data efficiently.
Performance Monitoring: Provides robust APM capabilities.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other solutions.
Kibana visualization: Facilitates data visualization and reporting.
Machine learning support: Enables advanced data analysis.
Flexible deployment: Supports various deployment environments.
Rapid log searches: Enhances quick incident response.
Accessibility: Offers extensive online documentation and connector support.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in Elastic Observability reviews?

Stability: Look for consistent performance and reliability.
Compliance: Effective monitoring aids in regulation adherence.
System Security: Enhanced system monitoring and alert management.
Cost-Effectiveness: Evaluate the economic pricing models.
Scalability: Adequate scalability options for growing needs.

Companies in technology, finance, healthcare, and other industries implement Elastic Observability for tailored monitoring solutions. They find its integration with existing systems useful for maintaining operation efficiency and security, particularly valuing the visualization capabilities through Kibana to monitor KPIs and improve incident response times.

Elastic

The IBM Application Performance Management portfolio provides visibility, control and automation of your mission-critical applications. It helps pinpoint the root cause of application's issue more quickly and resolve the problem. The integrated capabilities cover the five key areas: discovery, end-use experience, transaction tracking, enterprise diagnostics and analytics. It also easily monitors applications to ensure optimal performance to extend your hybrid management environment capabilities, to measure the customer experience from multiple locations and to further eliminate blind spots in your application environment.

IBM

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank

Mibtree, EatDrinkDeals.com, IT Performance Advisor

Elastic Observability vs. IBM Application Performance Management