

Akamai mPulse and IBM Instana Observability compete in application performance monitoring. IBM Instana seems to have an edge due to comprehensive features, whereas Akamai mPulse benefits from its pricing advantage.
Features: mPulse focuses on real-time processing for immediate insights into user experiences, providing a competitive advantage in user experience monitoring. Additionally, it offers robust data visualization tools and flexible alert configurations to suit business needs. IBM Instana provides detailed application monitoring with automatic root-cause analysis, enabling proactive problem-solving. It's known for deep data insights and machine learning-powered anomaly detection, which enhance its monitoring capabilities.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Akamai mPulse offers seamless integration but requires more manual setup, posing a slight challenge for automation-focused businesses. In contrast, IBM Instana provides a quick, automated setup, reducing deployment time significantly. It is also noted for its responsive customer service, enabling faster issue resolution compared to mPulse.
Pricing and ROI: Akamai mPulse generally provides more attractive pricing models, emphasizing upfront cost savings, which facilitate quicker returns on investment. IBM Instana, while having higher initial costs, justifies the investment through long-term value contributions with its advanced monitoring capabilities and feature-rich platform, promoting higher reliability over time.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| IBM Instana Observability | 0.9% |
| Akamai mPulse | 0.6% |
| Other | 98.5% |


| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 1 |
| Large Enterprise | 6 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 6 |
| Large Enterprise | 5 |
Akamai mPulse is a real user monitoring (RUM) solution that gives performance engineers, administrators, and developers the ability to effortlessly visualize website functionality issues and identify ways to improve processes that conventional testing protocols do not find. mPulse gives users usable scenarios to better understand how processes such as user interactions, visual progress, and third-party resources may be disrupting the overall user experience and application delivery.
mPulse enables users to take a deep dive into the specific performance issues and complete comprehensive error analyses, to thoroughly understand the effect on critical user interactions such as conversions, page views, and more.
mPulse gathers and delivers data on an organization's website’s performance and metrics on user web browsing experiences. The mPulse feature “Boomerang” is a JavaScript Library that monitors the website page load time. Boomerang has a unique plugin architecture and works with all websites. The Boomerang feature is embedded on each page of an organization's website.
mPulse works seamlessly with Akamai solution Ion, so the RUM data can be instantly gathered once the Luna Control Center has been activated. Ion instantly attaches Boomerang to the organization’s web properties; there is no need to change the website code.
Akamai mPulse Benefits
IBM Instana Observability offers real-time application monitoring and management, designed for automation and intelligence on modern cloud-based environments.
IBM Instana Observability provides deep visibility into application performance, empowering businesses with automated root cause analysis and intelligent alerts to optimize cloud-native applications. It captures and visualizes comprehensive health metrics to enhance operational efficiency across distributed systems, making it an invaluable tool for IT and DevOps teams seeking to improve application reliability and performance.
What are the key features of IBM Instana Observability?IBM Instana Observability is widely adopted across industries like finance, healthcare, and retail, addressing specific challenges in each sector. In finance, it helps manage high-volume transactions with minimal latency. Healthcare benefits from its compliance support and reliable data monitoring. Retail industries utilize it for maintaining seamless customer interactions and operational uptime, ensuring business continuity and customer satisfaction.
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