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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
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
162
Ranking in other categories
Container Monitoring (6th)
IBM Instana Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
39th
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 October 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Instana Observability is 0.8%, up from 0.2% 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 (%)
Broadcom DX Application Performance Management0.7%
IBM Instana Observability0.8%
Other98.5%
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

"For the most part, we run constantly without any issue at this point because of APM.​"
"Scalable, stable, and easy to deploy APM tool which effectively monitors code-level visibility."
"Command center is a new feature that provides agent maintenance and support without involving the application team. It saves lots of time for APM team."
"Our development cycle has definitely improved as far as the turnaround time on fixes and improvements."
"We are using the on-premise and cloud versions of Broadcom DX Application Performance Management."
"The way these tools show the information is very useful. this is a tool that records information from Java and .NET applications, and obtain information about how many times an method has been call in a period of time (usually 30 sec), how many times respond in this span of time or is delayed or stall."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is its very light model with monitoring of servers and network items."
"The most valuable features of IBM Instana are its quick data collection and analytics after installing the agent."
"The solution has a one-second resolution, giving you the status of your application within one second."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is performance."
 

Cons

"You can sell licenses and install the full tool on service, you can show customers how to install, but how to use it and solve issues cannot be done without the experience."
"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."
"The integration with CA Spectrum is quite difficult to create, and it is also only one way, only being used to view alarms coming from CA APM."
"Our users lag how to identify the root cause with this solution. If they could come up with a more user-friendly version, that would be a good thing, since other vendors currently have better features and more user-friendly products than CA APM."
"The technical support is very poor."
"Improve the targeting interface is to make it more user-friendly and current."
"Java Console uses too much memory."
"One of the challenges is agent releases. So as we employ agents, they are done relatively manually. A little bit of automating of agent release would be helpful."
"One area that requires improvement is related to the automation part, specifically automated actions like sending SMS."
"The solution should include log management and improve reporting and integration with Cognos."
"The product's initial setup phase is not very easy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Depends on the size of the product you need."
"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."
"Dynatrace is the most expensive of these tools followed by AppDynamics which is "medium-expensive." CA APM is a bit lower in price than either Dynatrace or AppDynanics... In my opinion, if you can afford it, go for AppDynamics instead of CA APM."
"There is some research needed to determine licensing costs, based on the number of DataPower instances for the Nastel agent, for example."
"On pricing, CA is very competitive. I think that's going to help in the long run."
"Negotiate a lot, but do not forget to buy the product because it is 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."
"Setup costs are quite competitive relative to other solutions, and simpler."
"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
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise124
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: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.