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Data Hub vs IBM Instana Observability comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Data Hub
Ranking in AI Observability
12th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
2.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (7th)
IBM Instana Observability
Ranking in AI Observability
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (25th)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2784462 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Centralized metadata has empowered governed data discovery and clarified ownership for all teams
The impact is very positive, and there are many benefits for us using Data Hub because it was easier to make data governance, create centralized metadata management, improve data discoverability, and manage data in general. The areas for improvement, in my opinion, are the initial setup and configuration that can be complex without prior experience, especially in large-scale environments. User experience for non-technical users could be further simplified, particularly around advanced metadata concepts. The out-of-the-box governance workflow, for example, approvals and certification, could be more prescriptive for customers at early maturity stages. Data Hub can be improved in the initial setup and configuration that is somewhat complex, and also in operational monitoring that could benefit from more native dashboards and alerts. However, these are not blockers, but areas where additional guidance or product enhancement would further accelerate adoption.
FranciscoGálvez - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Manager at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Observability has improved collaboration and predicts failures across distributed services
From my perspective, IBM Instana Observability is quite technical. Compared to some competitors, it offers an abundance of information about system performance but lacks planning or capacity planning information. You do not receive reports with recommendations; instead, it provides only the technical layer. Other companies, like Compuware, give more functional information about your environment, while IBM Instana Observability provides only limited functional insights. This means you often must interpret the data independently. Unlike other tools that can offer recommendations to save resources or costs, IBM Instana Observability does not provide that functionality. On the bright side, it is much more affordable than some other options, but it isn't complete. If you want full functionality with IBM Instana Observability, you also need to acquire other products for additional insights in monitoring areas, such as networking monitoring tools or similar products. For instance, we often recommend Turbonomic, which provides complementary insights. One potential feature that could improve IBM Instana Observability is the ability to translate KPIs into monetary terms. It would be interesting to have a product that integrates IBM Instana Observability with Turbonomic, as Turbonomic can utilize data from IBM Instana Observability to inform you about unnecessary spending and suggest whether you can consolidate servers or optimize containers for quicker response times. Implementing some level of simulation or capacity planning would greatly enhance the current capabilities of IBM Instana Observability.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Data Hub proved to be a robust, scalable, enterprise-ready data catalog that is well-suited for AWS-based architecture and complex organizational environments."
"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, our errors in general have decreased, our response time has decreased, and so on."
"The impact of IBM Instana Observability on collaboration between development and operations teams is essential because it allows operations to identify incidents before they occur."
"IBM Instana Observability has positively impacted our organization because it has helped us solve many problems and sell some products."
"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."
"IBM Instana Observability has had a very positive impact on my organization because it shortens the time required to find the root cause when we have a problem."
"If we are using IBM Instana Observability, we can save money because first, the pricing is very affordable."
 

Cons

"The areas for improvement, in my opinion, are the initial setup and configuration that can be complex without prior experience, especially in large-scale environments."
"The solution should include log management and improve reporting and integration with Cognos."
"IBM Instana Observability can be improved by providing access to the materials."
"The pricing for IBM Instana Observability is something I would address in terms of needed improvements because it is expensive."
"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."
"Customer support is good; sometimes it cannot go as deep as I expected, but overall it is good."
"The interface of IBM Instana Observability is really slow, especially when there is a lot of data and when there are a lot of traces."
"From my perspective, IBM Instana Observability is quite technical; compared to some competitors, it offers an abundance of information about system performance but lacks planning or capacity planning information."
"One area that requires improvement is related to the automation part, specifically automated actions like sending SMS."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution's pricing is reasonable compared to that of its competitors like Dynatrace."
"The tool's cost is normal as per the market. The tool is not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Data Hub?
The impact is very positive, and there are many benefits for us using Data Hub because it was easier to make data governance, create centralized metadata management, improve data discoverability, a...
What is your primary use case for Data Hub?
We adopted Data Hub in the context of a large enterprise customer operating in a regulated industry with a strong focus on data governance, data discoverability, and ownership clarity across multip...
What advice do you have for others considering Data Hub?
Based on internal measurement and feedback from the data teams, there are many impacts. Time to locate and understand a data set was reduced by approximately 40-50 percent. Manual documentation eff...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Instana Observability?
I would evaluate the implementation process of IBM Instana Observability as not complex at all because you pay the license, and IBM takes care of everything. The only problem we occasionally face, ...
What needs improvement with IBM Instana Observability?
From my perspective, IBM Instana Observability is quite technical. Compared to some competitors, it offers an abundance of information about system performance but lacks planning or capacity planni...
What is your primary use case for IBM Instana Observability?
I usually recommend IBM Instana Observability for companies in the academic environment, as I have been working in a consultancy company for the last three years, where one of our customers built t...
 

Also Known As

Acryl Data
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Data Hub vs. IBM Instana Observability and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.