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Instana Dynamic APM vs Sentry 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

Instana Dynamic APM
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
18th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sentry
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Debugging (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Instana Dynamic APM is 1.0%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sentry is 7.0%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Jawwad Hassan - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Abdullah Baig - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-use solution that has a good dashboard, performs well, and provides flexible pricing
Sentry was easy to learn compared to New Relic and Azure Monitor. I saw some valuable input. It took us the least amount of time to see how Sentry is valuable. It took just a few minutes. Session Replay provides a replay of the recorded errors. It is a good feature. Azure Monitor does not have this feature. The error reporting is straightforward. We can see everything that we need to see. The dashboard seems pretty fine. The product performs well. We can see the user's IP addresses.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is user-friendly, but we encounter issues processing input and understanding the graphics, such as seeing a flatline without knowing the cause. When these problems occur, I have to contact my support team to address and fix them. Also, monitoring processing is good."
"The detailing of our application behavior and user experience is most valuable. In case there is an issue, we typically use Instana to figure it out. We can drill down to the application and figure out what's going on and where the issue is."
"The overall capabilities are the most valuable."
"With auto-discovery, we didn't need to consider much. We just installed the agent on the host and it was able to detect everything from the host level up to the service level, for whatever stack was installed, and that includes containers and dockers."
"Instana is very fast to implement and deploy because the dashboards are automated and don't need configuration."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis."
"If a key monitored value has crossed a threshold, it sends out an alert. And the solution is able to intelligently find out if something is beyond the range that it normally resides in."
"Visually, it's very good. It provides everything needed for dynamic detection, which is very useful."
"The product performs well."
"Sentry is a pretty stable product... Sentry's documentation is pretty straightforward and neat."
"Sentry is more accurate than some other tools such as Datadog because it has more integration with Slack, GitLab, Jira, or other ticketing tools."
"It's a great visibility tool for the developer team."
"The stability is very good for Sentry and in general works well."
"Great for capturing application performance metrics and error logs."
"Sentry breaks everything down in real time."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to create and assign rules and give access to particular users."
 

Cons

"The App Connect middleware does not integrate with or show corresponding sub nodes."
"Its SLI and SLA features need improvement in setting up alerts."
"The configuration of Instana Dynamic APM needs improvement because it requires quite a bit of work."
"Sometimes, the issue arises from user changes, such as adjusting firewall settings without proper consideration, leading to compatibility issues within the network monitoring."
"New Relic has a better UI in terms of how it presents the data."
"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."
"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."
"Lacks user metric tracking and the ability to create more dashboards."
"It would be nice if the product provided a map showing the users’ geographic location."
"To deal with its shortcomings, Sentry needs to continuously improve in areas like the user interface and documentation, apart from its other features."
"I would like to see a role registration feature added."
"We cannot restrict particular columns on particular data. It would be helpful if that feature was improved."
"I have not worked with Sentry long enough to provide advice for improvements. I need more experience and time."
"It should be easier to integrate Sentry with other tools, and the end-to-end tracing capabilities could be improved."
"I would like to have alert policies and alert conditions enhanced in the next release."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is $1,200 per year which is a bit high compared to other vendors."
"The solution is less expensive than one of its competitors."
"It's reasonably priced and manageable, especially for individuals who grasp the significance of application monitoring."
"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"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."
"Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies compared to other vendors."
"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."
"We are currently paying through Cloudera for the Sentry service."
"We can adjust the price a little bit based on our needs."
"Currently, we are in the production phase of our project and we are on free plans to use Sentry. Once we go live we will have to be on a subscription-based plan."
"I am currently using a self-hosted open version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Instana Dynamic APM?
The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Instana Dynamic APM?
I rate the pricing a seven out of ten. There are no additional costs associated with the product.
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 experience regarding pricing and costs for Sentry?
The product costs $26 a month if we choose a yearly subscription. Code coverage can be added for an additional $29 per month. The Team plan is the cheapest package available. We can make our own bu...
What needs improvement with Sentry?
I have not worked with Sentry long enough to provide advice for improvements. I need more experience and time.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about Instana Dynamic APM vs. Sentry and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.