Instana Dynamic APM vs Sumo Logic Observability comparison

Instana and Sumo Logic are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Instana is ranked #21 with an average rating of 8.1, while Sumo Logic is ranked #23 with an average rating of 7.8. Instana holds a 1.3% mindshare in APM, compared to Sumo Logic’s 0.1% mindshare. Additionally, 84% of Instana users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Sumo Logic users who would recommend it.

Instana Dynamic APM

Read 14 Instana Dynamic APM reviews

2,876 Views
2,371 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

Sumo Logic Observability

Read 6 Sumo Logic Observability reviews

368 Views
264 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Instana Dynamic APM

Sumo Logic Observability

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

Instana Dynamic APM and Sumo Logic Observability are top contenders in the APM and Observability market. Instana Dynamic APM has an edge in deployment and customer service, while Sumo Logic Observability stands out with its pricing and feature set.

Features: Instana Dynamic APM users value its AI-powered automation, real-time monitoring, and robust incident management. Sumo Logic Observability users find its comprehensive data analytics, extensive integrations, and customizable dashboards beneficial. Differences in automation and data analytics are notable, with Instana emphasizing automation and Sumo Logic focusing on data insights.

Room for Improvement: Instana Dynamic APM users desire better support for microservices, enhanced UI, and more detailed dashboards. Sumo Logic Observability users seek improved alerting mechanisms, faster query performance, and better onboarding support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Instana Dynamic APM is praised for its intuitive deployment process and responsive customer support. Sumo Logic Observability users appreciate its flexible deployment options but indicate a need for better onboarding support.

Pricing and ROI: Instana Dynamic APM users find it cost-effective with a good ROI. Sumo Logic Observability users consider it more expensive but justify the cost due to its extensive features and analytics capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Instana Dynamic APM vs. Sumo Logic Observability Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Instana Dynamic APM vs. Sumo Logic Observability

January 2025

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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

Instana Dynamic APM

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

21st

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Sumo Logic Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

23rd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Monitoring Software (22nd), AIOps (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Instana Dynamic APM is 1.3%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sumo Logic Observability is 0.1%, down from 0.2% 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

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…

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Shamshir Nangla

Site Reliability Engineer at LHV Bank

Getting up and running is easy, even for a newbie but management of searches definitely needs improvement

Operational effectiveness with regards to when there's an issue, when there's a reactive issue, people are able to, or as well as proactively, actually, because we use their PagerDuty integrations. We use queries in Sumo Logic to trigger alerts based on logging. That allows us to proactively identify issues as they're happening. With those same alerts, obviously, with that platform, you can use it to reactively start looking at troubleshooting issues as they're happening right then and there or incidents. So it's been very, very good for alerting and for troubleshooting issues. For predicting issues before they happen, it is not very good. They have a feature called anomaly detection, but I think it's quite premature compared to other stuff out there. So it's good for alerts and for troubleshooting operational effectiveness. When your operations are down or segregated, it's perfect because it will help you diagnose the issues.

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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

"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."

"It's great for monitoring services and applications."

"With Instana, the interface and the UI are very simple to use."

"We can easily perform root cause analysis using the tool."

"The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis."

"Instana is very fast to implement and deploy because the dashboards are automated and don't need configuration."

"Its GUI is really good and it easy to understand for non-technical users."

"The overall capabilities are the most valuable."

More Instana Dynamic APM pros

"The product is easy to learn."

"Sumo Logic Observability presents a range of valuable features, including well-crafted dashboards and a diverse selection of helpful apps. However, personally, I don't hold a favorable opinion of the solution. While I don't struggle with writing queries, my main difficulty lies in recruiting competent individuals and ensuring their proficiency in utilizing the solution. This often leads to additional challenges and complexities. From my perspective, when compared to Microsoft Sentinel or even Splunk, Sumo Logic Observability has a steeper learning curve. One contributing factor to this disparity is the solution's long existence in the market compared to Synlogic. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that there are capable and knowledgeable professionals employed at Sumo Logic Observability. The effectiveness of the solution largely depends on how it is integrated into your internal operations and environment. Its utility and benefits can vary significantly. It is worth noting that organizations like the NSA and, I believe, the CIA used it in the past, primarily for rapidly searching and analyzing large volumes of data. To leverage its capabilities effectively, you must determine how to tailor it to your specific needs."

"We use queries in Sumo Logic to trigger alerts based on logging. That allows us to proactively identify issues as they're happening."

"Alerting and consistency are key. We have different tiers with log collectors, and continuous querying provides near-real-time updates. It's almost like instantly when something happens, like pending transactions or error fees. This helps reduce incident resolution time compared to waiting for thresholds on other platforms. We can continue logging in with them seamlessly and quickly get into action."

"The solution allows multiple groups to converge on a unified platform, allowing for different utilization by various teams."

"I have not seen any stability issues in the product."

Cons

"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."

"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."

"The solution's monitoring is pretty weak and should be improved."

"Maybe log monitoring could be better."

"The integration could be improved with more plugins or open API."

More Instana Dynamic APM cons

"Fine-grained data can be quite frustrating to work with and should be made easier."

"SearchUI.exe is a bit clunky in the product, making it an area where the product needs improvements."

"Implementing a more streamlined enrichment process, and conceptualizing the observability data collection as an ETL pipeline would be helpful."

"The speed of queries could be improved. When using more advanced functions, especially with large datasets like the 90-day log retention we had, queries could be slow, sometimes taking up to five minutes."

"Documentation could be better. While it's generally good, sometimes finding what you need requires extensive searching. It's not always clear where to look for specific things."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"It's reasonably priced and manageable, especially for individuals who grasp the significance of application monitoring."

"I started on the free tier to try it out, but because of our usage, we're now paying for it."

"Now, they’re not charging by ingests anymore. You should expect the price to be a bit of an unknown and to basically increase as the business increases."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

27%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Transportation Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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.

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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.

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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.

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What do you like most about Sumo Logic Observability?

The product is easy to learn.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Sumo Logic Observability?

The speed of queries could be improved. When using more advanced functions, especially with large datasets like the 90-day log retention we had, queries could be slow, sometimes taking up to five m...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Sumo Logic Observability?

We used it for log observability – log aggregation specifically.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dynatrace vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 43% of the time

AppDynamics vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 18% of the time

IBM Application Performance Management vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 10% of the time

Datadog vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 8% of the time

New Relic vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 5% of the time

More Instana Dynamic APM Competitors

Dynatrace vs Sumo Logic Observability

Compared 45% of the time

Amazon OpenSearch Service vs Sumo Logic Observability

Compared 29% of the time

Cribl vs Sumo Logic Observability

Compared 25% of the time

More Sumo Logic Observability Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Instana Dynamic APM

January 2025

Download Instana Dynamic APM product report

Buyer's Guide

Sumo Logic Observability

December 2024

Download Sumo Logic Observability product report

Learn More

Instana

Sumo Logic

Overview

Instana’s Enterprise Observability Platform, powered by automated Application Performance Monitoring, discovers and maps all services, infrastructure, and their inter-dependencies automatically. Instana ingests all observability metrics, traces each request, profiles every process, and updates application dependency maps in real-time to deliver the context and actionable feedback needed by Dev+Ops to optimize application performance, enable innovation, and mitigate risk to help them add value and efficiency to the pipeline. Learn more at https://instana.com.

Sumo Logic Observability is widely used for log aggregation, analysis, and SIEM capabilities. It assists in monitoring data, creating dashboards, and managing log storage.

Sumo Logic Observability helps teams with logging in production, debugging with trace IDs, and performing queries across large datasets. Developers leverage centralized logs for error detection and tracking metrics like successful transactions and data volume. Security teams integrate it with SOAR systems for automation and enhanced security investigations.

What are the key features?

Well-crafted dashboards: Provides visually appealing and easy-to-use dashboards.
Diverse apps: Supports multiple applications for various use cases.
Centralized management: Enables streamlined log management from a unified platform.
Near-real-time alerting: Facilitates quick incident resolution with timely notifications.
Continuous querying: Allows for constant data analysis without interruptions.
Proprietary query language: Offers a robust and flexible language for complex queries.
Custom field creation: Simplifies addition of custom fields for better data categorization.
Robust data tracing: Ensures effective log tracing for efficient debugging and analysis.

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Improved error detection: Helps quickly identify and address errors in production.
Enhanced security: Integrates with SOAR for better security automation and investigation.
Efficient log management: Centralizes log storage and management, simplifying processes.
Timely incident resolution: Near-real-time alerts and continuous queries lead to faster issue resolution.
Customizable to user needs: Offers flexibility with custom fields and a proprietary query language.

Industries like finance, healthcare, and technology implement Sumo Logic Observability to monitor sensitive data, manage high transaction volumes, and ensure compliance with regulatory standards. Security and development teams benefit from its robust capabilities, enabling effective collaboration and streamlined operations.

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

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Buyer's Guide

Instana Dynamic APM vs. Sumo Logic Observability

January 2025

Free Report: Instana Dynamic APM vs. Sumo Logic Observability

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