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Cribl vs IBM Instana Observability comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 16, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.4
Cribl provides major cost savings by reducing data and SIEM expenses, often offsetting the cost of its licensing.
Sentiment score
5.1
IBM Instana Observability enhances efficiency and reduces costs by streamlining issue detection and improving application performance monitoring.
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.
Senior Security Engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
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.
Director, Performance Engineering at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
In terms of reduction, we were able to save almost ~40% of our total cost.
Sr. Lead Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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.
UNIX/LINUX, ENTERPRISE SERVER AND STORAGE ADMINISTRATOR at Fidelity Bank Plc
It made a notable difference from when we were almost blind to being able to respond to calls immediately.
Software engineer at EJADA
If we have a monitoring tool, we can save our transactions and see the performance of the application using MTTR and MTTD.
Technical Manager, Consulting at PT. Mitra Integrasi Informatika
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.9
Cribl's customer service is praised for responsiveness, knowledge, and supportive assistance, though some suggest improvements in needs understanding.
Sentiment score
6.4
IBM Instana's customer service receives mixed reviews, with varied experiences in responsiveness and support quality, especially in Korea.
They had extensive expertise with the product and were able to facilitate everything we needed.
Security Consultant at Riversafe Ltd
Usually, within an hour, we get a response, and we are able to work with them back and forth until we resolve the issues.
Engineering Fellow at Pegasystems
If they could enhance their internal logging, we won't require Cribl support to engage.
SIEM Engineer at National Australia Bank (NAB)
They are very slow to respond and integrate new features.
DevOps engineer at Yara International
IBM support for Instana is responsive and helpful.
UNIX/LINUX, ENTERPRISE SERVER AND STORAGE ADMINISTRATOR at Fidelity Bank Plc
My experience with IBM Instana Observability's customer support has been very helpful and responsive.
Technical Manager, Consulting at PT. Mitra Integrasi Informatika
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Cribl efficiently scales with data growth, supporting seamless deployment and expansion, suitable for diverse and growing business environments.
Sentiment score
8.3
IBM Instana is scalable and efficient for large enterprises, aiding performance management in dynamic environments like microservices and Kubernetes.
The infrastructure behind Cribl Search is also scalable as it uses a CPU and just spawns horizontally more instances as it demands and requires.
Engineering Fellow at Pegasystems
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.
Senior Software Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
It's an enterprise version, and we have a good amount of users using this solution.
SIEM Engineer at National Australia Bank (NAB)
More innovations are coming in every day, so it is scalable and more applications are becoming container-based.
UNIX/LINUX, ENTERPRISE SERVER AND STORAGE ADMINISTRATOR at Fidelity Bank Plc
IBM Instana Observability demonstrates scalability, especially in dynamic, distributed environments such as microservices and Kubernetes.
Technical Manager, Consulting at PT. Mitra Integrasi Informatika
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.7
Cribl offers reliable performance and responsive support, handling up to 12 TB data with minimal issues or downtime.
Sentiment score
8.6
IBM Instana Observability is rated 8/10 for strong stability and reliability, demonstrating user confidence in its performance.
Migrating from those SC4S servers to Cribl worker nodes has truly been a game-changer.
Sr. Lead Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I would rate the stability as ten out of ten.
SIEM Engineer at National Australia Bank (NAB)
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.
Senior Security Delivery Analyst at Accenture
 

Room For Improvement

Cribl requires improved compatibility, logging, documentation, resource optimization, Microsoft support, data storage, and AI integration for better user experience.
Users seek IBM Instana improvements in log management, AI monitoring, interface speed, support, and installation for better observability.
A more stringent role-based access control feature would enhance security and allow granular control over what users can see and access.
Manager for Monitoring and Logging at Velera
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.
SIEM Engineer at National Australia Bank (NAB)
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.
Security Consultant at Riversafe Ltd
I had many false positives with IBM Instana Observability. Then I fixed the filters and it became more accurate on the errors reported.
Software engineer at EJADA
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.
DevOps engineer at Yara International
It is not open-source, and I have to be a partner to get more access to the products.
UNIX/LINUX, ENTERPRISE SERVER AND STORAGE ADMINISTRATOR at Fidelity Bank Plc
 

Setup Cost

Cribl offers competitive pricing and flexible licensing, appealing to enterprises seeking cost-effective, scalable data processing solutions.
IBM Instana offers affordable, competitive host-based pricing covering comprehensive functionality compared to Dynatrace and DataDog.
Over time, the licensing cost has increased.
SIEM Engineer at National Australia Bank (NAB)
Cribl is very inexpensive, with enterprise pricing around 30 cents per GB, which is really decent.
Security Consultant at Riversafe Ltd
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.
Senior Security Engineer at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
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.
Technical Manager, Consulting at PT. Mitra Integrasi Informatika
It is not that costly, especially since we only use two instances.
Software engineer at EJADA
I think the pricing is good and I do not think it is high.
DevOps at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Cribl offers real-time data transformation, ease of use, and flexibility, enhancing data processing and cost management for organizations.
IBM Instana Observability offers real-time metrics, seamless integration, and customizable dashboards to enhance performance and streamline operations effectively.
The data reduction and preprocessing capabilities make Cribl really unique.
Security Consultant at Riversafe Ltd
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.
Security Engineer at Tecplix
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.
Senior Security Engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
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.
DevOps engineer at Yara International
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.
UNIX/LINUX, ENTERPRISE SERVER AND STORAGE ADMINISTRATOR at Fidelity Bank Plc
IBM Instana Observability has positively impacted our organization by decreasing our 500 errors.
Software engineer at EJADA
 

Categories and Ranking

Cribl
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (5th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (8th), Observability Pipeline Software (1st)
IBM Instana Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
35th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
AI Observability (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Cribl is 1.1%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Instana Observability is 0.8%, up from 0.3% 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 (%)
Cribl1.1%
IBM Instana Observability0.8%
Other98.1%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Aman Verma - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has helped reduce daily log volume significantly and streamline data routing across multiple destinations
Regarding complexity, as I mentioned before, Cribl is very simple to use. When I started 2.5 years ago, it was very easy to learn. I learned Cribl within a week, and even though I was a fresher at the time, it was easy to understand and not complex enough that someone would need to spend money on labs. It's not that complex to learn. Regarding cost efficiency, it's very good because nowadays the SIEM tools we use are too expensive on license, and SIEM tools base their license on how many logs get ingested. The unwanted logs, particularly firewall logs, represent a significant portion of unnecessary ingestion. Cribl saves our license by filtering out half of the firewall logs that are unwanted. Our main purpose for using Cribl is to save our license and save money. Currently, everyone is moving toward AI agents. We currently use regex, and AI agents could help us create those regex patterns to drop events or add raw data to events. Currently, we sit down, review the logs, and create regex patterns manually, which can be time-consuming. An AI agent could reduce this time. I read some articles indicating that Cribl Cloud has started using AI and considering MCPs and model context, but I'm not certain how far along they are. If Cribl asked me what they could improve, that would be my suggestion. The support is very good, and I had a few issues with Cribl where I raised support cases and received good responses, which is better than the quick response I didn't get from other SIEM tools and vendor tools I use. Compared to other SIEM tools, Cribl is cheaper than Splunk and DataDogs. However, it's still a bit expensive from my point of view, though I won't call it expensive. Overall, I think 99% of companies use Cribl before their SIEM tools, and compared to SIEM tools, Cribl is cheaper. Companies can use any SIEM tool such as Google, Splunk, or Cisco, and Cribl is cheaper than those SIEM tools. They might have a slight chance to reduce costs further, but I'm not the correct person to evaluate that since I'm more focused on the operational side. Regarding training, it was quite easy to grasp. It took me almost a week to understand the basic functionalities and what Cribl does. Getting more expertise took additional time, but basic functionalities and understanding what Cribl does took around four to five days. One point I want to mention is that Cribl could improve their labs or training materials in their Cribl Cloud or whatever portal they have.
Abednego Petrus - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Manager, Consulting at PT. Mitra Integrasi Informatika
End-to-end monitoring has improved performance insights and supports faster issue resolution
I think maybe our customers need IBM Instana Observability for monitoring the IBM platform, such as from AS/400 IBM. I think for the error rate on the application side, using IBM Instana Observability helps our customers to know the root cause that triggers a failed request or transaction. For others looking into using IBM Instana Observability, I would recommend that they consider adding a recommendation feature to IBM Instana Observability. My additional thought about IBM Instana Observability is that my concern for the future is only that IBM Instana Observability can add a feature for correlation and recommendations. The interview was very good and there's nothing I would change for the future. I would rate this review an 8.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cribl?
Cribl has been excellent when it comes to pricing, setup cost, and licensing. The team navigates us through their models seamlessly and we adopt Cribl Cloud easily. Within a month's time, we're abl...
What needs improvement with Cribl?
Cribl handles a high volume of diverse data types very well, such as logs and metrics. However, the endpoint plug-in tool can use some refinement, as it tends to hit system resources and can someti...
What is your primary use case for Cribl?
Cribl is used to manage routing of different log systems and vulnerability type log scanning and retention, which is then re-routed to log retention servers. Firewall logs are sent directly from fi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Instana Observability?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for IBM Instana Observability was fair. It is not that costly, especially since we only use two instances.
What needs improvement with IBM Instana Observability?
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. ...
What is your primary use case for IBM Instana Observability?
My main use case for IBM Instana Observability is to gain more insights about my infrastructure, servers, traffic flow, CPU and memory utilization, and metrics. I use IBM Instana Observability to m...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Cribl vs. IBM Instana Observability and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,310 professionals have used our research since 2012.