AWS X-Ray vs Honeycomb Enterprise comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Honeycomb.io are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #16 with an average rating of 7.2, while Honeycomb.io is ranked #25 with an average rating of 9.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 3.2% mindshare in APM, compared to Honeycomb.io’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Honeycomb.io users who would recommend it.

AWS X-Ray

Read 10 AWS X-Ray reviews

5,439 Views
5,385 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Honeycomb Enterprise

Read 2 Honeycomb Enterprise reviews

2,572 Views
2,443 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

AWS X-Ray

Honeycomb Enterprise

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

AWS X-Ray and Honeycomb Enterprise both operate in the application monitoring and tracing domain. AWS X-Ray has an advantage in pricing and customer support, while Honeycomb Enterprise is superior in features.

Features: AWS X-Ray is integrated seamlessly with AWS services, offers comprehensive tracing capabilities, and provides detailed analysis of application dependencies. Honeycomb Enterprise includes powerful querying features, real-time observability, and advanced analytics for in-depth insights to optimize application performance.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AWS X-Ray enables straightforward deployment using AWS’s infrastructure, with customer service embedded in AWS support. Honeycomb Enterprise, demanding more initial setup, is recognized for its dedicated support and flexibility for various environments.

Pricing and ROI: AWS X-Ray offers a cost-effective, pay-as-you-go pricing model as part of AWS. Honeycomb Enterprise, though more expensive, achieves significant ROI via enhanced performance diagnostics and its rich features.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS X-Ray vs. Honeycomb Enterprise Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS X-Ray vs. Honeycomb Enterprise

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 863,679 peers since 2012

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

AWS X-Ray

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

16th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Honeycomb Enterprise

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

25th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

AI Code Assistants (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of AWS X-Ray is 3.2%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Honeycomb Enterprise is 1.6%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Muhmad Tabrez A Deewanji

Lead Software Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Improving performance through efficient trace metrics and data insights

As an application developer and architect, I appreciate AWS X-Ray ( /products/aws-x-ray-reviews ) for checking latency and identifying bottlenecks. I use it for performance tuning, conducting performance testing on applications, getting real-time traces, and gaining data insights. It helps in improving throughput and tuning infrastructure. The trace metrics and data collected provide valuable insights.

Read full review

Diego Gomes De Lima

Senior Software Engineer at SumUp

Easy to use and the dashboard is very intuitive

We faced some OpenTelemetry metrics lost between the communication from the service and the Honeycomb.io. I can't say if this is a Honeycomb.io issue or if there are some limitations in OpenTelemetry. Alerts are very helpful in Honeycomb.io, but we don't usually merge because we can compare queries with queries for making alerts. We can make alerts based on static numbers, which may block us from building alerts that could be generic enough or could be serviced.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AWS X-Ray shows us exactly when there are delays, helping us understand the depth of issues and what is happening point-to-point."

"The solution has made it easier for us to trace the problems that we have with our requests and to monitor the timing of each step in each request we do in our endpoints."

"The most beneficial feature is that it shows a dashboard for performance intervals, which reveals latencies."

"The error analysis capabilities of X-Ray are really good."

"The most important one is compliance. We're able to achieve our regulatory levels. We're able to achieve the security level that we need for the federal government."

"AWS X-RAY identifies bottlenecks in terms of stability and performance and how long certain data lives in terms of response time and duration."

"AWS X-Ray shows us exactly when there are delays, helping us understand the depth of issues and what is happening point-to-point."

"AWS X-Ray's endpoints and user monitoring are considered the most valuable features."

More AWS X-Ray pros

"The solution's most valuable features are the queries for the OpenTelemetry events and all the tracing."

"The solution's initial setup process was straightforward since we were getting enough support from Honeycomb.io's team."

Cons

"Like most Amazon products, the user interface, configuration, and tuning aren't the easiest. That's the biggest reason why people tend to go to products like TerraForm and Terragrunt. We use TerraForm and Terragrunt. So, for setting things up and interacting with X-Ray, it's definitely the user interface that can be better."

"I do not have any notes in terms of improvements."

"The user interface is sometimes kind of confusing to understand. It's not very user-friendly."

"They can improve how traces are sent to other providers."

"What needs to be better in AWS X-Ray is the log filtering. Predefined filters could be helpful because the power of analytics comes from how you can filter the data. I also want to see more KPIs from AWS X-Ray."

"A significant downside is that it is very expensive."

"It should have X-Ray SDKs for different languages like Node.js, Python, or Java."

"If you have a small team, it's probably overkill."

More AWS X-Ray cons

"We can make alerts based on static numbers, which may block us from building alerts that could be generic enough or could be serviced."

"The process of log scraping gets delayed on Honeycomb.io. At times, it gives false alerts to the application team."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As you develop a relationship with Amazon, your pricing gets lower. You get credits for the amount of the system you use, and then if you're the government, you can get government pricing. For commercial users, there's a hump when you go from small to medium to big enterprise. Small businesses can live pretty easily off the free tier in a lot of cases, but when you go from a medium to a big enterprise, it becomes more expensive on a per-user basis. I'd like to see that curve going in a different way where pricing can be driven down while people are trying to adopt the technology."

"The pricing for AWS X-Ray is a six out of ten."

"The solution is a bit expensive."

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

863,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS X-Ray?

AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS X-Ray?

While I have not compared it with GCP or Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ), AWS generally offers cost-effective services. Some services, like Athena ( /products/odyssey-software-athena-eo...

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS X-Ray?

AWS X-Ray should improve its implementation process to make it easier for developers. The current manual instrumentation is challenging compared to the almost automatic instrumentation of other pro...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Honeycomb.io?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Honeycomb.io?

The solution is mainly used for stack observability. It observes service behavior or any kind of failure that may be happening. The tool is also related to research. My company is working more on t...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Honeycomb.io?

We set up Honeycomb.io on all the services so that we can have all the set traces of the communication between all the services inside the company. This helps us understand where it could be failin...

See all answers

Comparisons

Datadog vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 22% of the time

Sentry vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 18% of the time

Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 10% of the time

New Relic vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 9% of the time

Splunk Observability Cloud vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 2% of the time

More AWS X-Ray Competitors

Sentry vs Honeycomb Enterprise

Compared 24% of the time

Grafana vs Honeycomb Enterprise

Compared 18% of the time

Datadog vs Honeycomb Enterprise

Compared 12% of the time

Zabbix vs Honeycomb Enterprise

Compared 6% of the time

Chronosphere vs Honeycomb Enterprise

Compared 3% of the time

More Honeycomb Enterprise Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS X-Ray

July 2025

Download AWS X-Ray product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

July 2025

Download Honeycomb Enterprise product report

Also Known As

No data available

Grit

Overview

AWS X-Ray is a powerful debugging and performance analysis tool offered by Amazon Web Services. It allows developers to trace requests made to their applications and identify bottlenecks and issues.

With X-Ray, developers can visualize the entire request flow and pinpoint the exact location where errors occur. It provides detailed insights into the performance of individual components and helps optimize the overall application performance.

X-Ray integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, making it easy to trace requests across different services and identify dependencies. It also offers a comprehensive set of APIs and SDKs, enabling developers to instrument their applications and capture valuable data for analysis. With its user-friendly interface and powerful features, AWS X-Ray is a valuable tool for developers looking to improve the performance and reliability of their applications.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Honeycomb Enterprise is designed to optimize performance visibility, offering a robust platform for distributed system observability. It provides insights for complex data and aids in faster issue resolution, making it a valuable tool for IT professionals.

This tool is tailored for real-time data tracking and improving system performance efficiency. Enterprises benefit from its capacity to handle large-scale data, ensuring seamless operations and continuity. Honeycomb Enterprise helps teams to tackle data challenges head-on by delivering comprehensive analytics that enhance infrastructure reliability and performance metrics.

What Features Make Honeycomb Enterprise Stand Out?

High-Resolution Visibility: Enables detailed system monitoring to identify issues quickly.
Trace Analysis: Offers powerful tracing of distributed systems for in-depth insights.
Data Scalability: Manages extensive data sets effortlessly for better decision-making.
Real-Time Alerts: Provides instant alerts to preempt potential disruptions.
Collaboration Tools: Facilitates teamwork with integrated tools enhancing productivity.

What Benefits and ROI Can Users Expect?

Reduced Downtime: Faster detection and resolution of issues minimizes operational interruptions.
Cost Efficiency: Optimizes resources leading to lower operational costs.
Improved Decision Making: Enhanced data analytics lead to smarter business strategies.
Enhanced Productivity: Streamlined processes improve team efficiency and output quality.

In industries like finance, e-commerce, and technology, Honeycomb Enterprise implementations demonstrate its utility in managing complex data flows and optimizing system reliability. Businesses in these sectors leverage its capabilities to maintain high service standards and operational efficiency.

Honeycomb.io

Sample Customers

COMCAST, ConnectWise, skyscanner, AirAsia, cookpad, cimpress, VTEX, zowdow

Clover Health, Eaze, Intercom, Fender

Buyer's Guide

AWS X-Ray vs. Honeycomb Enterprise

July 2025

Free Report: AWS X-Ray vs. Honeycomb Enterprise

Find out what your peers are saying about AWS X-Ray vs. Honeycomb Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

863,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our AWS X-Ray vs. Honeycomb Enterprise report.

See our list of best Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability vendors.

We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.