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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 (16th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)
Instana Dynamic APM
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
23rd
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 October 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 1.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Instana Dynamic APM is 1.0%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Amazon CloudWatch1.7%
Instana Dynamic APM1.0%
Other97.3%
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

"Setting up this product was easy. I found data analytics as its most valuable feature."
"Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap and easy-to-use solution."
"It's useful to analyze past data and compare it with recent activities."
"The product helps us collect and store various metrics to set test alarms."
"We use Amazon CloudWatch for logging."
"The scalability of Amazon CloudWatch rates as high scalability, scoring a perfect ten."
"Monitoring time and ensuring ease in it is the most valuable feature."
"Amazon CloudWatch offers cost-saving advantages by being an inbuilt solution that requires no separate setup or maintenance for monitoring tasks."
"It's great for monitoring services and applications."
"The primary selling point of this product is its unparalleled transparency into the infrastructure."
"It is a stable solution."
"We can easily perform root cause analysis using the tool."
"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."
"Instana is very fast to implement and deploy because the dashboards are automated and don't need configuration."
"With Instana, the interface and the UI are very simple to use."
 

Cons

"The solution's pricing is a bit higher."
"When connecting to Google Cloud, there is no visibility or traceability from Google Cloud into CloudWatch."
"The drill-down aspect on the dashboard of the solution needs improvement. We get a very good high-level overview, but when we drill down, it becomes a little less clear. We have given this feedback to AWS as well and hope they will improve this in the future."
"The product's configuration has some challenges. The solution needs to be more user-friendly."
"There could be further enhancements through CloudWatch's partnerships."
"The graphical interface has room for improvement. CloudWatch only gives you a breakdown of what's wrong. However, it would be nice if it could automatically remedy the problems it identifies. You should be able to configure it so that when a specific condition arises, it will take a predefined action."
"Incorporating a straightforward method or a plug-and-play solution for integrating these databases with our systems, facilitating smooth data transfer, and enabling the creation of dashboards for monitoring and analysis would be beneficial."
"There is some delay in logging that they need to improve on."
"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."
"Its SLI and SLA features need improvement in setting up alerts."
"We'd always like to see additional functionalities."
"While it is already quite good, there is room for improvement in terms of providing better functionality"
"Sometimes, the issue arises from user changes, such as adjusting firewall settings without proper consideration, leading to compatibility issues within the network monitoring."
"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."
"Maybe log monitoring could be better."
"The auto-remediation features must be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is 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 is okay for me."
"I consider it as a medium-priced solution."
"The pricing is average."
"Amazon CloudWatch has very cheap pricing, and it hardly costs my company $25-$30 a month for fifty systems, so it's pretty affordable."
"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable for detailed basic monitoring."
"Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap solution."
"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."
"The pricing is $1,200 per year which is a bit high compared to other vendors."
"Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies compared to other vendors."
"The solution is less expensive than one of its competitors."
"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"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."
"It's reasonably priced and manageable, especially for individuals who grasp the significance of application monitoring."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
4%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise24
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
 

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
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudWatch vs. Instana Dynamic APM and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.