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Elastic Observability vs Instana Dynamic APM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

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
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (15th), Log Management (16th), Container Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)
Instana Dynamic APM
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
49th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 1.7%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Instana Dynamic APM is 1.0%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Elastic Observability1.7%
Instana Dynamic APM1.0%
Other97.3%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammed-Abdelalim - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Vice President at QualityKiosk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Has provided powerful customization for unique monitoring needs but needs more out-of-the-box capabilities
In my opinion, the best features of Elastic Observability are their flexibility to integrate with other existing systems and the ability to build a unified monitoring tool that can integrate with existing ones and end-to-end user journeys which require a lot of customizations. The greatest feature in Elastic is the ability to customize. This is similar to my comments about customizable dashboards in Elastic because it's visible to the analyst. However, it's very great. Customizing these dashboards can meet the customer's specific use cases and specific stories that they have in their environment, their special environment that doesn't look like other environments. The dashboarding in Elastic is highly customizable to the level of logos. If the customer wants his company logo in the dashboard, it can be done.
Muhammad Jawwad Hassan - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Consultant at Arcana Info
A really good GUI that is easy for non-technical users to understand
Our company uses the solution for one of our bank clients. We use App Connect middleware to monitor services and applications such as Docker, Kubernetes, MongoDB, and MS SQL Server. We also monitor the bottleneck for all servers.  We currently have 20 users at one of our branches. We plan to expand…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ability to ensure that the data is searchable and maintainable is highly valuable for our purposes."
"Elastic provides built-in features for queries and report generation. It's a very good tool for monitoring integration capabilities."
"All the features that we use, such as monitoring, dashboarding, reporting, the possibility of alerting, and the way we index the data, are important."
"In addition to the fact that we are more proactive in the detection of incident before they occur, we can on one click see the request path from the customer to the backend."
"Its diverse set of features available on the cloud is of significant importance."
"The solution allows us to track performance via metrics and we're able to see where latency is happening."
"The customizable dashboards in Elastic Observability allow us to group relevant data to specific aspects of our solution, giving us around 20 interlinked dashboards which provide an overview, and if one aspect shows weird behavior, we can focus on that specific aspect of our software with a dedicated dashboard."
"It is scalable and supports multitenancy, which is beneficial for MSPs."
"The most valuable feature of Instana Dynamic APM is auto-instrumentation."
"Instana is very fast to implement and deploy because the dashboards are automated and don't need configuration."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring with granularity by one second, which allows real-time data generation, and the fast implementation."
"Sometimes it's able to provide a proper RCA on its own. It's able to correlate different events that occurred and that becomes like an RCA in itself."
"With Instana, the interface and the UI are very simple to use."
"It is a stable solution."
"It's great for monitoring services and applications."
"It's a good tool to implement across the board if you can make it into your images or as part of your configuration management tool."
 

Cons

"Elastic APM's visualization is not that great compared to other tools. It's number of metrics is very low."
"Elastic Observability could improve asset discovery as the current requirement to push the agent is not ideal."
"I am familiar with Azure Monitor, which I find more user-friendly compared to Elastic, which is a very technical tool."
"Elastic Observability’s price could be improved."
"Elastic support really struggles in complex situations to resolve issues."
"Improving code insight related to infrastructure and network, particularly focusing on aspects such as firewalls, switches, routers, and testing would be beneficial."
"Elastic Observability is an excellent product for monitoring and visibility, but it lacks predictive analytics. Most solutions are aligned with the AIOps requirements, but this piece is missing in Elastic and should be included."
"I would advise others to use a different solution than Elastic APM."
"We should be able to go back to scenarios during or before the issue. There should be something like a history playback. Such a feature or functionality would be good."
"They could improve the product’s dashboards and provide more dashboard options."
"The App Connect middleware does not integrate with or show corresponding sub nodes."
"We'd always like to see additional functionalities."
"Sometimes, the issue arises from user changes, such as adjusting firewall settings without proper consideration, leading to compatibility issues within the network monitoring."
"I think that Instana should improve the university and the certification process, so the users can find experts in Instana with their certification module process."
"Many managers, as well as our customers, used to ask for reports, such as "top X number of queries that are slow," or "top pages that have the highest number of issues." This is something that can be improved by Instana. Currently, they don't have that kind of reporting available out-of-the-box."
"The integration could be improved with more plugins or open API."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We will buy a premium license after POC."
"The product’s pricing needs improvement."
"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."
"So far, there are just the standard licensing fees. Several of the components are embedded in the license or are even open source. They're even free depending on what you use, which makes it even more appealing to someone that is discussing pricing of the solution."
"Elastic Observability is cheaper than other similar solutions, such as Dynatrace. Its license calculation is based on various factors like data volume and physical infrastructure, particularly related to RAM capacity."
"Since we are a huge company, Elastic Observability is an affordable solution for us."
"The price of Elastic Observability is expensive."
"We have been using the open-source version."
"Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies compared to other vendors."
"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"It's reasonably priced and manageable, especially for individuals who grasp the significance of application monitoring."
"The solution is less expensive than one of its competitors."
"Its pricing isn't a big pain point. Its pricing seems to be better than some of the other competing products in the market, but they also have some of the features and functionalities that are better than Instana."
"The pricing is $1,200 per year which is a bit high compared to other vendors."
"Pricing is quite competitive. Dynatrace, AppDynamics, and New Relic were all several times more expensive than Instana, both the on-prem and the SaaS versions. Price-wise they are a lot more competitive than anyone else out there."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
7%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?
The problem is their licensing model, which is a bit confusing. Many customers struggle to understand their total cost of ownership because Elastic licensing is not dependent on easy, quantifiable ...
What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?
After careful consideration about areas for improvement in Elastic Observability, aspects such as pricing, customization, implementation, and scalability could be improved. As a user of the system,...
What is your primary use case for Elastic Observability?
My use case for Elastic Observability is observability, as we upload our customers' data, including logs, and when there is an issue, we can analyze what went wrong.
What needs improvement with Instana Dynamic APM?
Sometimes, the issue arises from user changes, such as adjusting firewall settings without proper consideration, leading to compatibility issues within the network monitoring.
What is your primary use case for Instana Dynamic APM?
We use the solution to monitor the platform. If an issue arises, like a user experiencing errors, we can identify general errors and investigate specific secure areas to ensure the application runs...
What advice do you have for others considering Instana Dynamic APM?
It worked for us because we have many people using our solution. When we deploy a new feature, we do it live. We use Instana Dynamic APM to verify the status before and after implementing the plugi...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
Daxko Lifts Fitness Studios Through COVID Regulations with Quick Engineering PivotsAltissia Meets SLAs to Support Student DeadlinesImmocloud Unlocks Observability to Modernize Real EstateEnento Group Boosts Service Reliability with Real-Time Visibility into Application Performance Instana’s Observability for Amazon EKS Helps Yara Deliver Digital Farming Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. Instana Dynamic APM and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
903,257 professionals have used our research since 2012.