

Cribl and IBM Instana Observability are competing in the observability and monitoring space. IBM Instana Observability appears to have the upper hand due to its superior features and extensive infrastructure despite Cribl's advantages in pricing and support.
Features: Cribl facilitates versatile data routing and provides extensive integration capabilities, ideal for data-centric setups. IBM Instana Observability stands out with advanced analytics, automated root cause identification, and comprehensive monitoring capabilities offering valuable insights.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cribl is known for its easy deployment process and robust support, making it suitable for organizations of different sizes. IBM Instana Observability, though potentially requiring more complex implementation, supports users through a deep integration model and proactive customer support for a smooth transition.
Pricing and ROI: Cribl's offerings are viewed as cost-effective, providing competitive pricing and strong ROI. IBM Instana Observability, while potentially more costly, justifies its price with a broad feature set and the ability to generate higher long-term value, appealing to businesses seeking robust functionality.
What we've seen is really an overall reduction of just shy of 40% in our ingest into our SIM platform versus prior to having Cribl.
The second thing is that data aggregation, sampling, and reduction that we're able to do of the data, lowering our overall data volume, both traversing the network as well as what's being stored inside of our final solutions.
In terms of reduction, we were able to save almost ~40% of our total cost.
It provides a single pane of glass from which I can see what is happening with all the servers in my infrastructure, which saves time.
It made a notable difference from when we were almost blind to being able to respond to calls immediately.
If we have a monitoring tool, we can save our transactions and see the performance of the application using MTTR and MTTD.
They had extensive expertise with the product and were able to facilitate everything we needed.
Usually, within an hour, we get a response, and we are able to work with them back and forth until we resolve the issues.
If they could enhance their internal logging, we won't require Cribl support to engage.
They are very slow to respond and integrate new features.
IBM support for Instana is responsive and helpful.
My experience with IBM Instana Observability's customer support has been very helpful and responsive.
The infrastructure behind Cribl Search is also scalable as it uses a CPU and just spawns horizontally more instances as it demands and requires.
Compared to other SIEM tools I use, any slight change on the operating system end impacts a lot on our SIEM tools and other things, but Cribl performs well in that regard.
It's an enterprise version, and we have a good amount of users using this solution.
More innovations are coming in every day, so it is scalable and more applications are becoming container-based.
IBM Instana Observability demonstrates scalability, especially in dynamic, distributed environments such as microservices and Kubernetes.
Migrating from those SC4S servers to Cribl worker nodes has truly been a game-changer.
I would rate the stability as ten out of ten.
If the pipeline is down and we receive an alert that it's not sending information to the log collection platform for more than one or two hours, if we receive an alert, it would be great.
A more stringent role-based access control feature would enhance security and allow granular control over what users can see and access.
If we can have more internal logs and more debug logs to validate the error, that would be beneficial because instead of reaching out to Cribl support, we can troubleshoot and find the root cause ourselves.
In terms of large datasets—whether they originated from network inputs, virtual machines, or cloud instances—ingesting the data into the destination was relatively easy.
I had many false positives with IBM Instana Observability. Then I fixed the filters and it became more accurate on the errors reported.
One main issue I found with IBM Instana Observability was the customer support, which was very poor when we needed some features to be enabled or integrated into IBM Instana Observability sensors.
It is not open-source, and I have to be a partner to get more access to the products.
Over time, the licensing cost has increased.
Cribl is very inexpensive, with enterprise pricing around 30 cents per GB, which is really decent.
They have a universal license that allows us to consume the portions of Cribl that we want to use or flex into other portions of Cribl.
I find the cost of IBM Instana Observability to be very affordable compared to competitors because the pricing mechanism is based on the host that we monitor, unlike other competitors such as DataDog and Dynatrace, whose pricing is based on other factors.
It is not that costly, especially since we only use two instances.
I think the pricing is good and I do not think it is high.
The data reduction and preprocessing capabilities make Cribl really unique.
Cribl has a feature called JSON Unroll or Unroll function that allows you to differentiate the events; each event will come ingested as a single log instead of piling it up with multiple events.
The Cribl UI is very simple and easy to use, particularly when working with data from various sources; it makes it very easy to create pipelines, add complex logic to those pipelines, and then gives you a preview of what your data looks like before applying that pipeline and what you get after.
IBM Instana Observability has positively impacted my organization by making it easy to observe the entire infrastructure under one platform, which was the biggest advantage of onboarding onto IBM Instana Observability.
IBM Instana Observability has impacted my organization positively in that it has helped me find out what the issue is in real-time because of its one-second granularity and its ability to identify issues as quickly as possible.
IBM Instana Observability has positively impacted our organization by decreasing our 500 errors.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Cribl | 1.1% |
| IBM Instana Observability | 0.8% |
| Other | 98.1% |


| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 9 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 5 |
| Large Enterprise | 17 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 4 |
| Large Enterprise | 5 |
Cribl offers advanced data transformation and routing with features such as data reduction, plugin configurations, and log collection within a user-friendly framework supporting various deployments, significantly reducing data volumes and costs.
Cribl is designed to streamline data management, offering real-time data transformation and efficient log management. It supports seamless SIEM migration, enabling organizations to optimize costs associated with platforms like Splunk through data trimming. The capability to handle multiple data destinations and compression eases log control. With flexibility across on-prem, cloud, or hybrid environments, Cribl provides an adaptable interface that facilitates quick data model replication. While it significantly reduces data volumes, enhancing overall efficiency, there are areas for improvement, including compatibility with legacy systems and integration with enterprise products. Organizations can enhance their operational capabilities through certification opportunities and explore added functionalities tailored towards specific industry needs.
What are Cribl's most important features?Cribl sees extensive use in industries prioritizing efficient data management and cost optimization. Organizations leverage its capabilities to connect between different data sources, including cloud environments, improving both data handling and storage efficiency. Its customization options appeal to firms needing specific industry compliance and operational enhancements.
IBM Instana Observability offers real-time application monitoring and management, designed for automation and intelligence on modern cloud-based environments.
IBM Instana Observability provides deep visibility into application performance, empowering businesses with automated root cause analysis and intelligent alerts to optimize cloud-native applications. It captures and visualizes comprehensive health metrics to enhance operational efficiency across distributed systems, making it an invaluable tool for IT and DevOps teams seeking to improve application reliability and performance.
What are the key features of IBM Instana Observability?IBM Instana Observability is widely adopted across industries like finance, healthcare, and retail, addressing specific challenges in each sector. In finance, it helps manage high-volume transactions with minimal latency. Healthcare benefits from its compliance support and reliable data monitoring. Retail industries utilize it for maintaining seamless customer interactions and operational uptime, ensuring business continuity and customer satisfaction.
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