AWS X-Ray vs Instana Dynamic APM comparison

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) Logo
7,074 views|6,293 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
Instana Logo
4,014 views|3,178 comparisons
81% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jun 29, 2023

We performed a comparison between AWS X-Ray and Instana Dynamic APM based on real PeerSpot user reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: AWS X-Ray takes one to two days to set up depending on the level of segmentation desired, while Instana Dynamic APM has a quick and easy setup process that only takes around 20 minutes. Docker installation is required for Instana Dynamic APM.
  • Features: AWS X-Ray is strong in identifying errors and providing compliance and security insights, while Instana Dynamic APM has real-time data generation, detailed monitoring, user-friendly GUI, middleware for flow visualization, great dashboards, and dynamic detection capabilities with the best SLI and SLA features.
  • Pricing: AWS X-Ray pricing is based on usage and is more affordable as companies scale up, while Instana Dynamic APM's pricing is generally reasonable, but one reviewer found it a bit high compared to other vendors. Licensing costs for both were consistently described as reasonable.
  • Service and Support: While AWS X-Ray received limited feedback and one user rated it an eight out of ten, Instana Dynamic APM has mixed reviews with some users experiencing slow and unreliable support from IBM. However, there were also positive experiences shared. 
  • ROI: AWS X-Ray's ROI is uncertain, with mixed experiences from different users. On the other hand, Instana Dynamic APM has been a proven profitable investment for companies.

Comparison Results: Instana Dynamic APM provides real-time data generation with one-second granularity, quick implementation, and comprehensive monitoring of application behavior and user experience. It also has a user-friendly interface, excellent dashboards, and dynamic detection capabilities, making it the preferred solution. While AWS X-Ray is functional, it could benefit from improvements in areas like log filtering, KPIs, and user interface. Instana Dynamic APM has a simpler initial setup process and reasonable pricing, with some reviewers claiming it surpasses competing products.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS X-Ray vs. Instana Dynamic APM Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"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 is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process.""AWS X-RAY identifies bottlenecks in terms of stability and performance and how long certain data lives in terms of response time and duration.""The most promising feature of AWS X-Ray is that you can debug the issues through the proper logs. You can also get an analysis out of the logs for some use cases, though I have yet to try all the features of AWS X-Ray.""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.""It is a very scalable solution."

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"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.""The overall capabilities are the most valuable.""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.""Sometimes it's able to provide a proper RCA on its own. It's able to correlate different events that occurred and that becomes like an RCA in itself.""The primary selling point of this product is its unparalleled transparency into the infrastructure.""It's great for monitoring services and applications."

More Instana Dynamic APM Pros →

Cons
"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.""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.""If you have a small team, it's probably overkill.""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.""They can improve how traces are sent to other providers."

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"The solution's monitoring is pretty weak and should be improved.""The integration could be improved with more plugins or open API.""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.""While it is already quite good, there is room for improvement in terms of providing better functionality""Its SLI and SLA features need improvement in setting up alerts.""The App Connect middleware does not integrate with or show corresponding sub nodes.""The configuration of Instana Dynamic APM needs improvement because it requires quite a bit of work."

More Instana Dynamic APM Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The pricing for AWS X-Ray is a six out of ten."
  • "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 solution is a bit expensive."
  • More AWS X-Ray Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "It's reasonably priced and manageable, especially for individuals who grasp the significance of application monitoring."
  • "The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
  • "Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies compared to other vendors."
  • More Instana Dynamic APM Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process.
    Top Answer:They can improve how traces are sent to other providers.
    Top Answer:The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis.
    Top Answer:Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies compared to AppDynamics and Dynatrace.
    Top Answer:They could improve the product’s dashboards and provide more dashboard options. Additionally, the server and database monitoring needs enhancement compared to other vendors.
    Ranking
    Views
    7,074
    Comparisons
    6,293
    Reviews
    5
    Average Words per Review
    547
    Rating
    8.2
    Views
    4,014
    Comparisons
    3,178
    Reviews
    6
    Average Words per Review
    328
    Rating
    8.0
    Comparisons
    Learn More
    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.

    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.

    Sample Customers
    COMCAST, ConnectWise, skyscanner, AirAsia, cookpad, cimpress, VTEX, zowdow
    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
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm25%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Government7%
    Company Size
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise69%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise42%
    Large Enterprise33%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise69%
    Buyer's Guide
    AWS X-Ray vs. Instana Dynamic APM
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about AWS X-Ray vs. Instana Dynamic APM and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    AWS X-Ray is ranked 13th in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 6 reviews while Instana Dynamic APM is ranked 20th in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 12 reviews. AWS X-Ray is rated 8.0, while Instana Dynamic APM is rated 7.4. The top reviewer of AWS X-Ray writes "Saves time, is relatively cheap, and helps find errors". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Instana Dynamic APM writes "A really good GUI that is easy for non-technical users to understand". AWS X-Ray is most compared with Datadog, Azure Monitor, New Relic, Sentry and Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver), whereas Instana Dynamic APM is most compared with Dynatrace, AppDynamics, New Relic, IBM Application Performance Management and Elastic Observability. See our AWS X-Ray vs. Instana Dynamic APM 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.