Dynatrace vs Instana Dynamic APM comparison

Dynatrace and Instana are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Dynatrace is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6, while Instana is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.8. Dynatrace holds a 10.2% mindshare in APM, compared to Instana’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Dynatrace users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 84% of Instana users who would recommend it.

Dynatrace

Read 348 Dynatrace reviews

32,460 Views
24,345 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Instana Dynamic APM

Read 14 Instana Dynamic APM reviews

2,223 Views
2,201 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

Dynatrace

Instana Dynamic APM

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

Dynatrace and Instana Dynamic APM both compete in the application performance monitoring market. Dynatrace has the edge with its comprehensive monitoring features, while Instana benefits from quicker deployment times.

What features are offered by Dynatrace in comparison to Instana Dynamic APM?

Dynatrace offers AI-driven insights, automated problem detection, and extensive cloud-native integration capabilities. Instana provides real-time visibility, rapid setup, and seamless data collection. Instana's user-friendly interface gives it a competitive edge in ease of use despite Dynatrace's more robust feature set.

What areas of improvement can be found in Dynatrace in comparison to Instana Dynamic APM?

Dynatrace could improve pricing transparency, reduce complexity, and streamline integration processes. Instana needs better integration with legacy systems, enhanced reporting capabilities, and improvements in its data analysis tools. Dynatrace's complexity and Instana's integration limitations mark them both for enhancement.

How is the ease of deployment and customer service of Dynatrace in comparison to Instana Dynamic APM?

Dynatrace has a steeper learning curve but provides strong customer support with detailed onboarding assistance. Instana is praised for its simplicity and speed of deployment, along with responsive customer service. Instana excels in deployment ease, while both offer commendable customer support.

What setup costs and ROI can be seen with Dynatrace in comparison to Instana Dynamic APM?

Dynatrace's setup costs are perceived as higher, yet users see significant long-term ROI from its advanced features. Instana is considered more affordable initially, with quicker realization of value due to its easier rollout. Dynatrace may bring greater long-term benefits, but Instana's cost-effectiveness and rapid ROI are notable advantages.

To learn more, read our detailed Dynatrace vs. Instana Dynamic APM Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dynatrace vs. Instana Dynamic APM

July 2025

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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

Dynatrace

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

2nd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

348

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (10th), Mobile APM (2nd), Container Monitoring (1st), AIOps (3rd)

Instana Dynamic APM

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

20th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

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 Dynatrace is 10.2%, down from 13.0% 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

Anand_Kumar

Enterprise Architect at DXC Technology

Provides a comprehensive view by integrating with other monitoring systems

There may be an issue since there are many tools like Splunk involved in network monitoring. From an IP perspective, Dynatrace is performing well. If they want to develop in network monitoring, they can, as it's part of their product line. It's not rocketry, so they can accomplish it. If I, as an SI, look at it from an enterprise perspective, considering the cost from the client, I prefer not to go with multiple systems, as they don't provide a complete 360-degree view. They need to improve on claims about being an enterprise system. The definition of enterprise is loosely used, however, from a holistic security perspective, including infrastructure, network, ports, software, applications, transactions, and databases, there are areas lacking, especially in network monitoring tools.

Read full review

Muhammad Jawwad Hassan

IT Consultant at Arcana Info

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…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use it to monitor over a 1000 servers in AWS."

"It has helped us by reducing the number of incidents that we have had in the past."

"PurePaths. The ability to see the transaction flow of the web request. It's valuable because our developers, when we have an issue, they can drill down to see exactly where in the application, the call in the application; where the high response time is, or where something is wrong."

"The AppMon solution helped the operations guys to pinpoint one problem area and call the specific group, instead of everyone. The mean time to repair and the resource utilization time, they are totally reduced."

"The OneAgent technology does a brilliant job of simplifying what was earlier one of the pain points in enterprise monitoring."

"This solution has helped us to improve application performance and reduce issue-impact with faster resolutions."

"Dynatrace helped us to get a better understanding of how our services are communicating with each other, as well as better problem detection before something really breaks"

"Understanding how the user was being targeted by the application as well as knowing their behavior using those applications."

More Dynatrace pros

"Sometimes it's able to provide a proper RCA on its own. It's able to correlate different events that occurred and that becomes like an RCA in itself."

"With auto-discovery, we didn't need to consider much. We just installed the agent on the host and it was able to detect everything from the host level up to the service level, for whatever stack was installed, and that includes containers and dockers."

"We can easily perform root cause analysis using the tool."

"Its GUI is really good and it easy to understand for non-technical users."

"The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis."

"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."

"It is user-friendly, but we encounter issues processing input and understanding the graphics, such as seeing a flatline without knowing the cause. When these problems occur, I have to contact my support team to address and fix them. Also, monitoring processing is good."

"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."

More Instana Dynamic APM pros

Cons

"There are a couple gaps in the network reporting that we would like to see cleared up a bit."

"There are a lot of features that could be added that would make this a very useful solution, but it is getting there."

"Ability to better identify SDQ script errors would be helpful."

"We do not have any web monitoring with Dynatrace."

"Dashboards and monitoring capabilities can be improved for monitoring applications in Azure. In Azure, it would be cool to be able to monitor network consumption as well as flow communication."

"Dynatrace stands out, but it is a bit complex to understand and implement on servers."

"There is another challenge, which is in case of the Managed solution. In our old solution we could simply export the data as session data, and that would be imported and seen. Now, if we are using the Managed solution, then giving someone access to that solution is a challenge. We can handle it, but it's different than taking screenshots and saving that information the way we used to. The copy/paste features that were there in old application - because it was a fat app - were nice, compared to browser-based app, because you cannot really use those features anymore."

"We're developing more and more microservices and, each time, for an AppMon license, you have to deploy it, you have to configure it, you to get charged for it. It's very time-consuming."

More Dynatrace cons

"The auto-remediation features must be improved."

"Maybe log monitoring could be better."

"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."

"The integration could be improved with more plugins or open API."

"The solution's monitoring is pretty weak and should be improved."

"They could improve the product’s dashboards and provide more dashboard options."

"While it is already quite good, there is room for improvement in terms of providing better functionality"

"We'd always like to see additional functionalities."

More Instana Dynamic APM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The limitations I see are more to do - and maybe it's because of the nature of the job I have - but they have to do with pricing. It's a little bit pricey. It's a very good tool. It's worth the price, to a certain degree. But it's hard to justify when it's that costly."

"The product is really fast to implement and gives customers instant value. This is important, because it reduces costs on the implementation."

"The pricing is a little high, but still cheaper than competitors because Dynatrace at least has pay-as-you-go. Others do not. However, the pricing is confusing. I wish it was more simplified when trying to price out moving to a yearly contract."

"The product is definitely worth taking a look at. Be aware that it is probably more pricey than other options on the market, but there are a lot of capabilities. Dynatrace has an eye toward the future and the computing and monitoring needs that we are gonna need for the cloud. "

"I would like to see them improve on their licensing and the cost. It's been a challenge for us because the way they have it broken out right now, you have to buy it by units. It's hard for us to know where to put those units because our company is broken up into all these different business units, so it's been challenging in that sense. I just would like to see them improve that model a little bit."

"The solution is not cheap."

"Pricing is still too expensive."

"Dynatrace is still kind of an expensive solution compared to others. But I recognize that they are ahead of the competition when we do a feature by feature comparison."

More Dynatrace pricing and cost advice

"It's reasonably priced and manageable, especially for individuals who grasp the significance of application monitoring."

"The pricing is $1,200 per year which is a bit high compared to other vendors."

"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."

"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."

"Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies compared to other vendors."

"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."

"The solution is less expensive than one of its competitors."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Educational Organization

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

30%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?

The key is to have a holistic view over the complete infrastructure, the ones you have listed are great for APM if you need to monitor applications end to end. I have tested them all and have not f...

See all answers

What cloud monitoring software did you choose and why?

While the environment does matter in the selection of an APM tool, I prefer to use Dynatrace to manage the entire stack. Both production and Dev/Test. I find it to be quite superior to anything els...

See all answers

Any advice about APM solutions?

There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

Datadog vs Dynatrace

Compared 12% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Dynatrace

Compared 6% of the time

Azure Monitor vs Dynatrace

Compared 6% of the time

New Relic vs Dynatrace

Compared 5% of the time

Grafana vs Dynatrace

Compared 3% of the time

More Dynatrace Competitors

Splunk AppDynamics vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 17% of the time

Datadog vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 10% of the time

IBM Application Performance Management vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 8% of the time

Broadcom DX Application Performance Management vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 5% of the time

New Relic vs Instana Dynamic APM

Compared 5% of the time

More Instana Dynamic APM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dynatrace

April 2025

Download Dynatrace product report

Buyer's Guide

Instana Dynamic APM

July 2025

Download Instana Dynamic APM product report

Overview

Dynatrace is an AI-powered software intelligence monitoring platform that accelerates digital transformation and simplifies cloud complexities. Dynatrace is an entirely automated full-stack solution that provides data and answers about the performance of your applications and deep insight into every transaction throughout every application, including the end-user experience. By modernizing and automating enterprise cloud operations, users can deliver an optimal digital experience with higher quality software to customers faster.

Dynatrace offers an all-in-one automated artificial intelligence solution that brings together application performance, cloud and infrastructure, and digital experience monitoring. Dynatrace accelerates performance-driven results through operations, development, and business teams with a shared metrics platform. In addition, users are provided a full-stack monitoring experience with three patented technologies:

Smartscape - visualization mechanism that maps the totality of everything working in your environment and detects any casual dependencies between your applications, processes, websites, services, hosts, cloud infrastructure, and networks.
OneAgent - a technology that analyzes, gathers ,and unifies all business performance metrics throughout every layer of your technology stack.
PurePath Technology - code-level context and timings are captured from the mainframe to the cloud for all end-to-end transactions.

What does Dynatrace offer?

Dynatrace redefines how organizations monitor their digital ecosystems. The solution offers:

Cloud Automation: With AI engine Davis®, users can see the exact reason for problems and facilitate quick auto-remediation and intelligent cloud orchestration.
Application Security: With automated application vulnerability management, users can deliver applications faster and more securely.
Infrastructure Monitoring: Convenient broad visibility across your environments is provided with streamlined, automated infrastructure monitoring.
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM): Optimize your applications, provide better support, and improve user experience with a combination of Real User Monitoring (RUM), Session Replay, and synthetic monitoring throughout your environment.
Applications and Microservices: For complex cloud environments, Dynatrace can automatically provide visibility and root-cause answers. It can also monitor microservices.
Digital Business Analytics: Get AI-powered, real-time answers to analytical business queries with KPIs and metrics that are already flowing through applications.

Reviews from Real Users

Dynatrace is the only solution that provides answers to organizations based on deep insight into each user, transaction, and organization's environment.

Barry P., a managing performance engineer at Medica Health Plans, writes, "With Dynatrace, we have synthetic checks and real-user monitoring of all of our websites, places where members and providers can interact with us over the web. We monitor the response times of those with Dynatrace, and it's all integrated into one place."

A consultant at a tech service company notes, "A feature that's one of the highlights of Dynatrace is the AI. The second most valuable feature is OneAgent. Between infrastructures, applications, operating systems, you can deploy with just a single agent and can practically install and forget about it."

Dynatrace

Instana’s Enterprise Observability Platform, powered by automated Application Performance Monitoring, discovers and maps all services, infrastructure, and their inter-dependencies automatically. Instana ingests all observability metrics, traces each request, profiles every process, and updates application dependency maps in real-time to deliver the context and actionable feedback needed by Dev+Ops to optimize application performance, enable innovation, and mitigate risk to help them add value and efficiency to the pipeline. Learn more at https://instana.com.

Instana

Sample Customers

Audi, Best Buy, LinkedIn, CISCO, Intuit, KRONOS, Scottrade, Wells Fargo, ULTA Beauty, Lenovo, Swarovsk, Nike, Whirlpool, American Express

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

Buyer's Guide

Dynatrace vs. Instana Dynamic APM

July 2025

Free Report: Dynatrace vs. Instana Dynamic APM

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