Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Broadcom DX Application Performance Management vs Instana Dynamic APM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

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
31st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
162
Ranking in other categories
Container Monitoring (8th)
Instana Dynamic APM
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
20th
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 July 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 Instana Dynamic APM is 1.0%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

aush.111 - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides efficiency in migration and DAW but requires a high level of administrator knowledge for configuration
This solution still relies on inbuilt configuration. For example, I'm pretty much impressed with Dynatrace POC, where we deploy the agent with a simple click, click, click, and then that's it. And we did not build any alerts or anything. We just started getting the alerts, warnings, and everything on its own system, understood what the benchmark is and what is the threshold, and it started giving you the warnings and the caution alerts, the danger alerts. So we expect something like that should be there in Broadcom at the level. But, instead, it expects us to configure. So that is what is missing there. Even if the server CPU usage is 95%t, it doesn't harm you. It doesn't send you any alerts. We think the system is normal. So it's not normal. So this is what they should think and send you AI/ML-related alarms on their own. In future releases, I would like to see more AI and ML capabilities, which are kind of missing. Another area of improvement is its infrastructure monitoring perspective. For example, they are still using UIM, which is a good tool. But for APM, they have come to DXP. However, in terms of UIM, the unified infrastructure management, there is no DXP version or AIML version of it. So they should try to find an updated version of it so that it is not competing with the rest of the solution.
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

"We receive good transactions from it with good graphs, as well, documenting the activities of total visitors on the site. We can pull the reports and provide them to the client, as required."
"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."
"An application is quite complicated in the environment of a software reliability engineer, because our applications are like a black box. Thanks to CA APM we are able to transform this black box to a gray box by using the transaction trace functionality services. For me it's the most valuable service of the solution."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of Broadcom DX Application Performance Management is its very light model with monitoring of servers and network items."
"Measurement of response time"
"It covers from mainframe, all the way to dotcom, for example. CA currently covers Amazon, Microsoft Azure, Office 365 monitoring."
"We are able to easily and quickly find some of the problems with the applications and coding, and some of the performance problems."
"It is a stable solution."
"Visually, it's very good. It provides everything needed for dynamic detection, which is very useful."
"Instana is very fast to implement and deploy because the dashboards are automated and don't need configuration."
"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 platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis."
"The primary selling point of this product is its unparalleled transparency into the infrastructure."
"We can easily perform root cause analysis using the tool."
"The most valuable feature of Instana Dynamic APM is auto-instrumentation."
 

Cons

"Support could be much better."
"Very often, we use tools such as Kibana or Jaspersoft for dashboards and reporting on CA APM data because CA APM’s old interfaces do not reflect well in modern displays, compared to those new tools."
"The upgrade was complex. The documentation could have been a little bit better, but other than that, it was okay.​"
"Needs custom dashboards."
"Broadcom DX Application Performance Management could improve its supportability to the current technologies and the end-to-end correlation feature should be done automatically without custom configurations. Additionally, there should not be any configuration changes to the client-side when deploying the solution."
"Stability could actually be helped because it is a wrapper or an agent on our system. If we are having a bad day in production or if other resources are being utilized, then we will get get gaps in our monitoring system."
"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."
"A CA APM agent takes a lot of memory. That is one disadvantage. If you configure CA APM correctly it will still consume around 15 to 20 percent of memory."
"I think that Instana should improve the university and the certification process, so the users can find experts in Instana with their certification module process."
"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."
"While it is already quite good, there is room for improvement in terms of providing better functionality"
"They could improve the product’s dashboards and provide more dashboard options."
"Sometimes, the issue arises from user changes, such as adjusting firewall settings without proper consideration, leading to compatibility issues within the network monitoring."
"We'd always like to see additional functionalities."
"The auto-remediation features must be improved."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is definitely expensive for what we get, but there isn't an alternate option at the moment."
"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."
"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."
"On pricing, CA is very competitive. I think that's going to help in the long run."
"Setup costs are quite competitive relative to other solutions, and simpler."
"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."
"Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies compared to other vendors."
"The pricing is $1,200 per year which is a bit high compared to other vendors."
"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 solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.
861,481 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Performing Arts
10%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 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.
 

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
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 Broadcom DX Application Performance Management vs. Instana Dynamic APM and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,481 professionals have used our research since 2012.