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Amazon CloudWatch vs Instana Dynamic APM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Amazon CloudWatch
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (12th), Cloud Monitoring Software (10th)
Instana Dynamic APM
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
21st
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 August 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 1.7%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Instana Dynamic APM is 1.0%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Rahul Kundu - PeerSpot reviewer
Proactively address issues with seamless monitoring while enhancing custom metrics functionality
We use CloudWatch for monitoring and logging. It helps us monitor our applications' performance, particularly in ensuring that every API hit returns a response within four seconds, which is our SLA. We also monitor invocation errors in Lambda and use CloudWatch alerts to notify us of any issues…
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can set CPU thresholds using the solution."
"What my company likes best about Amazon CloudWatch is that it's on AWS. My team also likes it for its log feature. As the solution is on AWS, it also has good pricing and resource availability, plus it's what clients choose. My company also chose AWS for Forge ECS, and at the time, there was a need for the log features provided by Amazon CloudWatch, so it's the solution my team went with."
"You can automate actions or use AWS functionalities like auto-scaling, where you can configure the metrics to add more nodes if the threshold is exceeded."
"We can create events and alerts. We use the information to dive down into the infrastructure performance."
"The alarms are one thing I love about AWS CloudWatch. It has alerts that notify us when resource use is approaching the limit."
"The initial setup is easy."
"We use Amazon CloudWatch for logging."
"The most valuable part is the metrics part, which is really good."
"With Instana, the interface and the UI are very simple to use."
"Instana is very fast to implement and deploy because the dashboards are automated and don't need configuration."
"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."
"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 primary selling point of this product is its unparalleled transparency into the infrastructure."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis."
"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."
 

Cons

"Right now, in relation to monitoring services, there are too many services and too many metrics per service."
"The integration with third-party tools must be made easier."
"CloudWatch's scalability could be improved."
"Improvement of SSSD logs would be beneficial."
"The product’s documentation must be improved."
"It would be beneficial for CloudWatch to provide an API interface and some kind of custom configuration."
"It's not an advanced way of monitoring."
"I found several areas for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch. First is that it's tough to track issues and find out where it's going wrong. The process takes longer. For example, if I get an exception error, I read the logs, search, go to AWS Cloud, then to the groups to find the keyword to determine what's wrong. Another area for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch is that it's slow in terms of log streaming. It requires an entire twenty-four hours for scanning, rather than just one hour. This issue can be solved with Elasticsearch streaming with Kibana, but it requires a lot of development effort and integration with Kibana or Splunk, and this also means I need a separate developer and software technical stack to do the indexing and streaming to Kibana. It's a manual effort that you need to do properly, so log streaming should be improved in Amazon CloudWatch. The AWS support person should also have a better understanding of the logs in Amazon CloudWatch. What I'd like added to the solution is a more advanced search function, particularly one that can tell you more information or special information. Right now, the search function is difficult to use because it only gives you limited data. For example, I got an error message saying that the policy wasn't created. I only know the amount the customer paid for the policy, the mobile number, and the customer name, but if I use those details, the information won't show up on the logs. I need to enter more details, so that's the type of fuzzy matching Amazon CloudWatch won't provide. If this type of search functionality is provided, it will be very helpful for businesses and companies that provide professional services to customers, like ours."
"We'd always like to see additional functionalities."
"Maybe log monitoring could be better."
"They could improve the product’s dashboards and provide more dashboard options."
"New Relic has a better UI in terms of how it presents the data."
"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."
"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."
"The solution's monitoring is pretty weak and should be improved."
"The configuration of Instana Dynamic APM needs improvement because it requires quite a bit of work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is not expensive."
"What's were using is the free service of Amazon CloudWatch, so they're not charging us. As for hidden fees, we're not aware of them because we're using what our clients provided us."
"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable for detailed basic monitoring."
"The product's cost is relatively inexpensive."
"We have monthly licensing costs. The licenses are probably in the vicinity of about $300 - $350/month."
"Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap solution."
"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable. When the rate of data collection is done the price will increase. The price is less than other solutions."
"The pricing can be considered reasonable, especially when already operating on a cloud platform."
"It's reasonably priced and manageable, especially for individuals who grasp the significance of application monitoring."
"The pricing is $1,200 per year which is a bit high compared to other vendors."
"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"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."
"Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies 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
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
5%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudWatch?
Overall, the pricing of Amazon CloudWatch is very expensive.
What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?
Apart from traceability of network resources, Amazon CloudWatch needs to be more interoperable with other tools because many companies are starting to use AI-based dashboards. When using third-part...
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.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus
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Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudWatch vs. Instana Dynamic APM and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.