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Broadcom DX Application Performance Management vs IBM Instana Observability comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 10, 2025

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

Broadcom DX Application Per...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
24th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
162
Ranking in other categories
Container Monitoring (7th)
IBM Instana Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
41st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
3
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 Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Instana Observability is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

MarioGomez - PeerSpot reviewer
Improve application performance management by deploying easy-to-use dashboards but face challenges with support access
The main areas for improvement include making dashboards and interfaces easier to understand. Our version might be a bit old, and we may need to upgrade it. It is also difficult to access the right person in support, and sometimes incidents need to be escalated, taking several contacts to resolve.
Tomas Kim - PeerSpot reviewer
Not expensive and offers good performance
The most valuable feature of the solution is performance. A one-vendor solution serves as a good feature of the tool. In the IT industry, the IT support team has lots of vendors to contact. DB monitoring is done by one company, while WaaS monitoring is done by another and done by another company, which makes it really complicated for the IT team concerned about the security levels. The tool's main feature is that it is a one-vendor solution. The analysis done by the tool is a good feature. The tool is used as an open-source tool. The tool is growing, and new features are being added to the product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Users no longer need to depend upon the console for a compatible Java version. Now, users can directly learn the version, perform all their actions, and see all of those performance-related issues."
"In terms of stability, it has been stable so far."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Stability is one of the strongest attributes of CA APM. It is very stable on all platforms."
"Scalable, stable, and easy to deploy APM tool which effectively monitors code-level visibility."
"With the new feature CA Team Center is much easier to view the information of my user experience, with this unified vision, it was even practical for lay users to use the tool"
"The deployment was easy."
"The APM tool allows us to monitor performance of that application, where are the pain points, where are the slowdowns, to focus on where we can fix those."
"The most valuable features of IBM Instana are its quick data collection and analytics after installing the agent."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is performance."
"The solution has a one-second resolution, giving you the status of your application within one second."
 

Cons

"They need to add support for new frameworks, or at least provide a broader guide/perspectives to add them to monitoring specific agents to retrieve metrics with thresholds as a reference to guide the customer as to where they must go to achieve this."
"The solution still needs the administrator of APM to know a lot more to configure and control everything. So it's a headache for the administrator to do the daily jobs."
"It should be easier to install or set everything up. ​"
"What comes to mind when you speak of a room for improvement in Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is the infrastructure agent, but my company doesn't use it, so I can't say if it's really a problem or not, but it could be the container support or cloud support that could be improved in the solution. An additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is for it to have one agent for cloud and one agent for legacy, with all features included."
"There are several areas that could be improved in Broadcom DX Application Performance Management. One of the main areas is user experience monitoring, which is currently not available. Additionally, they need to develop a solution that is compatible with OpenShift 4, as their current solution only works when an agent is installed within the image, which is not possible in OpenShift 4 as it removes the agent."
"As applications move to the cloud, we need more cloud-based solutions from CA APM. This is currently unavailable."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The main areas for improvement include making dashboards and interfaces easier to understand."
"One area that requires improvement is related to the automation part, specifically automated actions like sending SMS."
"The product's initial setup phase is not very easy."
"The solution should include log management and improve reporting and integration with Cognos."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Broadcom is a better and cheaper option from the financial perspective. It also depends on the DLP plug."
"The license for Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is annual. The licensing model could improve because there is not any limit to deploying the agent, there should be some limits on it."
"Depends on the size of the product you need."
"It is definitely expensive for what we get, but there isn't an alternate option at the moment."
"The licensing costs are expensive."
"Althougth it is a bit expensive, it is really worth it"
"The pricing structure should be based on memory or CPU usage rather than the number of agents, as it makes the solution more expensive for us."
"I'm unable to give information on Broadcom DX Application Performance Management licensing costs, but all Application Performance Management products have expensive pricing. This means that it's not only Broadcom that's expensive, and it would be an advantage if the cost would be a little bit cheaper."
"The tool's cost is normal as per the market. The tool is not expensive."
"The solution's pricing is reasonable compared to that of its competitors like Dynatrace."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Performing Arts
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Hospitality Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Broadcom DX Application Performance Management?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...there is a very easy way to deal with it by adding more servers to the application.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Broadcom DX Application Performance Management?
The initial pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions. The challenge arises during annual renewals, as the price increase can be significant, around twenty percent or more, ...
What needs improvement with Broadcom DX Application Performance Management?
The first area for improvement is the discovery feature, which should be enhanced to collect comprehensive information from applications and services. This includes using agents or scripts to gathe...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Instana Observability?
The tool's cost is normal as per the market. The tool is not expensive.
What needs improvement with IBM Instana Observability?
The tool should offer more LDR AI models. The monitoring is just a status, but the next level of a monitoring solution is to prevent an accident or stop an accident status. The solution should be t...
What is your primary use case for IBM Instana Observability?
Before IBM, I ordered our company's engineer to have a look at the tool and test it. I think it was two years ago, the transfer to IBM happened in our company. At the beginning, IBM Instana Observa...
 

Also Known As

DX APM, CA APM, CA NetQoS Performance Center, Wily Introscope, CA Wily APM, CA App Experience Analytics, CA AXA
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lexmark, Intermountain Healthcare, National Australia Bank, BBVA Compass Bank, Innovapost, Dansk Supermarked Group, U.S. Cellular, Orange, Cetip
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom DX Application Performance Management vs. IBM Instana Observability and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,140 professionals have used our research since 2012.