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IBM Instana Observability vs Prometheus Group comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

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

IBM Instana Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
44th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Prometheus Group
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
34
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 IBM Instana Observability is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prometheus Group is 3.4%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

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.
MuhammadAzhar Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Free to use and provides valuable monitoring capabilities
Prometheus is a scalable and flexible tool that I can deploy on any cloud platform. It is free to use and provides valuable monitoring capabilities. It allows me to save money by avoiding costs associated with AWS native services like CloudWatch or Amazon Prometheus. The ability to deploy on any cloud platform or environment, including Kubernetes, is a major advantage.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of IBM Instana are its quick data collection and analytics after installing the agent."
"The solution has a one-second resolution, giving you the status of your application within one second."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is performance."
"The solution helps us to scale our products and services, and it helps me by gathering those metrics."
"The product is easy to maintain."
"The most valuable features of Prometheus are the many functions available. The functions are helpful for understanding the behavior of applications and infrastructure."
"Prometheus is a scalable and flexible tool that I can deploy on any cloud platform."
"The product’s scalability is valuable."
"The good thing is it integrates well with the Grafana dashboard. It comes with a UI where you see everything as a graph."
"Prometheus is a great solution for monitoring."
"The sky is the limit because the solution is a flexible open box that can be used vastly to do anything you need to monitor applications."
 

Cons

"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."
"The initial setup of Prometheus is complex and rated one out of five in ease of setup."
"They could provide efficient logs in terms of clarity and ease of access similar to Datadog’s paid version."
"Its stability could be even better."
"The UI and GUI are areas of concern in the product."
"The setup could be made easier for new users because it requires a bit of advance knowledge or experience."
"The primary area where Prometheus could be improved is in terms of pricing, particularly when used with managed services."
"Prometheus has a learning curve when setting it up. It definitely requires a little bit more hands-on than other solutions. It is an open source solution which means you do need to go through and read the literature that they have online for setting it up. The setup could be made easier."
"I would like to see improvement in the analysis tools and customization features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is reasonable compared to that of its competitors like Dynatrace."
"The tool's cost is normal as per the market. The tool is not expensive."
"Prometheus is an open-source solution."
"We use the solution's open-source version."
"Prometheus is available as an open-source product."
"It is an open-source tool."
"The product is free."
"Prometheus is an open-source tool."
"Prometheus is an open-source solution."
"The solution is free of cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Prometheus?
The most valuable feature of Prometheus is its ability to collect metrics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Prometheus?
Prometheus is cost-effective for me as it is free. Using cloud-native alternatives like Amazon Prometheus would incur charges.
What is your primary use case for Prometheus?
I use Prometheus for monitoring purposes in IT infrastructure. It is particularly useful for environments using Kubernetes, as it monitors ports, containers, instances, and applications effectively.
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Instana Observability vs. Prometheus Group and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.