We performed a comparison between Datadog and Instana Dynamic APM based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Datadog provides a range of valuable features such as customizable dashboards and reporting, efficient error reporting and log centralization, comprehensive logs and analysis, and seamless integration with development teams. It also offers excellent performance and infrastructure monitoring capabilities, and a SaaS model for easy access. Instana Dynamic APM is valued for its ability to generate real-time data, ensuring up-to-date insights into application behavior and user experience. Instana Dynamic APM also offers App Connect middleware, which visualizes flow and integration nodes, enhancing monitoring services and applications.
For Datadog, areas for improvement include user-friendly features, seamless integration, intuitive interfaces, simplified setup, and enhanced security measures. Instana Dynamic APM, potential improvements include increased integration with plugins or an open API, inclusion of synthetic monitoring and AI-based anomaly detection, and enhanced API monitoring and end-user experience monitoring.
Ease of Deployment: Based on user experiences, setting up Datadog is generally considered to be a relatively simple and straightforward process, taking anywhere from one hour to three days. Some users reported receiving assistance during the setup. On the other hand, the initial setup for Instana Dynamic APM is fast and uncomplicated, typically taking around 20 minutes. Once set up, no further maintenance is needed.
Service and Support: The availability and promptness of customer service for Datadog have received positive feedback. That said, there have been occasional instances of slow or unresponsive support in the Asia-Pacific region. The reviews for Instana Dynamic APM's customer service are varied, with some customers reporting positive experiences and others noting longer resolution times for issues.
Pricing: Users find the setup cost for Datadog's product to be costly and unclear, with some warnings about certain features becoming pricey rapidly. The pricing for Instana Dynamic APM is generally seen as fair and competitive, albeit slightly higher than other vendors. The licensing costs for Instana are deemed very reasonable, although there may be additional expenses for data transfer.
Comparison Results: Datadog is the preferred choice when comparing it to Instana Dynamic APM. Users appreciate Datadog's ease of use and setup, extensive dashboards and reporting capabilities, error reporting and log centralization features, and user-friendliness for development teams. They also value its wide range of integrations and flexibility in presenting data. Datadog stands out as a more comprehensive and flexible solution, offering a wider range of features and integrations.
"We can handle debugging and find out why things are breaking in our applications."
"I have found error reporting and log centralization the most valuable features. Overall, Datadog provides a full package solution."
"Datadog has helped us a ton by allowing us to set up a multitude of easily configurable alarms across our tech stack and infrastructure."
"The solution's SaaS model is easy to manage and works well in single- or multi-cloud environments."
"The observability pipelines are the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The integration and configuration are incredibly simple. The SaaS offering is remarkably easy to set up, especially if you're coming from a Graphite environment or anything that uses a StatsD."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"It is easy to implement and scale applications with standardized visibility, monitoring and alerting"
"The primary selling point of this product is its unparalleled transparency into the infrastructure."
"Its GUI is really good and it easy to understand for non-technical users."
"It is a stable solution."
"If a key monitored value has crossed a threshold, it sends out an alert. And the solution is able to intelligently find out if something is beyond the range that it normally resides in."
"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."
"It's great for monitoring services and applications."
"Instana is very fast to implement and deploy because the dashboards are automated and don't need configuration."
"The on-premise version is very difficult to upgrade."
"We need a lot of modules since we collect all data logs from all operating systems."
"Datadog could always lower the price!"
"They should continue expanding and integrating with more third-party apps."
"They need to implement template variables into the message response body."
"The installation is easy for me. However, if you are new to this solution it might not be so easy."
"Delta traces on the Golang profiler are extremely expensive concerning memory utilization."
"I would like testing for data in the future."
"The integration could be improved with more plugins or open API."
"They could improve the product’s dashboards and provide more dashboard options."
"The App Connect middleware does not integrate with or show corresponding sub nodes."
"We'd always like to see additional functionalities."
"The configuration of Instana Dynamic APM needs improvement because it requires quite a bit of work."
"The solution's monitoring is pretty weak and should be improved."
"Its SLI and SLA features need improvement in setting up alerts."
"While it is already quite good, there is room for improvement in terms of providing better functionality"
Datadog is ranked 1st in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 137 reviews while Instana Dynamic APM is ranked 20th in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 12 reviews. Datadog is rated 8.6, while Instana Dynamic APM is rated 7.4. The top reviewer of Datadog writes "Very good RUM, synthetics, and infrastructure host maps". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Instana Dynamic APM writes "A really good GUI that is easy for non-technical users to understand". Datadog is most compared with Dynatrace, Azure Monitor, New Relic, AWS X-Ray and AppDynamics, whereas Instana Dynamic APM is most compared with Dynatrace, AppDynamics, New Relic, IBM Application Performance Management and Azure Monitor. See our Datadog vs. Instana Dynamic APM report.
See our list of best Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability vendors.
We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
