Honeycomb Enterprise vs IBM Instana Observability comparison

Honeycomb.io and IBM are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Honeycomb.io is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.0, while IBM is ranked #35 with an average rating of 8.0. Honeycomb.io holds a 1.3% mindshare in APM, compared to IBM’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Honeycomb.io users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Honeycomb Enterprise

Read 3 Honeycomb Enterprise reviews

2,582 Views
2,272 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Instana Observability

Read 8 IBM Instana Observability reviews

1,135 Views
1,090 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Honeycomb Enterprise

IBM Instana Observability

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 16, 2025

Honeycomb Enterprise and IBM Instana Observability compete in the observability space, excelling in monitoring and analytics. IBM Instana appears to have the upper hand due to its advanced features, despite Honeycomb's competitive pricing and support.

Features: Honeycomb Enterprise provides a robust event-driven architecture, sophisticated querying capabilities, and complex analysis for real-time debugging. IBM Instana offers automated discovery, dynamic monitoring, and AI-powered root cause analysis, differentiating through its automated comprehensive monitoring and performance optimization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Honeycomb Enterprise offers straightforward deployment and efficient customer assistance, simplifying cloud integrals. IBM Instana provides automated deployment and proactive support for complex infrastructures.

Pricing and ROI: Honeycomb Enterprise offers competitive pricing and rapid ROI with cost-effective insights. IBM Instana involves higher setup costs but brings advanced analytics and long-term performance benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Honeycomb Enterprise vs. IBM Instana Observability Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Honeycomb Enterprise vs. IBM Instana Observability

December 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

Honeycomb Enterprise

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

25th

Ranking in AI Observability

18th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

AI Code Assistants (11th)

IBM Instana Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

35th

Ranking in AI Observability

21st

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Honeycomb Enterprise is 1.3%, down from 1.6% 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
Product	Market Share (%)
Honeycomb Enterprise	1.3%
IBM Instana Observability	0.8%
Other	97.9%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

meetharoon

CEO at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Its pattern-matching and code transformation capabilities can be adapted for mass identification and remediation of vulnerable libraries

I asked very specific questions to Mr. Pell about consideration of code security scenarios in pattern design and rules, specifically that tuned with OWASP Top 10. I believe addition of code security focus can be a value-add, though the way Grit architecture is designed and how it works, it is and may not become an alternative choice of code security solutions. Rather, it must be treated as a powerful supplementary tool that augments the existing code security solutions (such as Snyk or Checkmarx) in a DevSecOps or Secure DevOps environment. Anyone interested in learning more on this front or have queries, can get in touch with me for a consulting.

Read full review

Abednego Petrus

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.

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

"The solution's initial setup process was straightforward since we were getting enough support from Honeycomb.io's team."

"The approach offers significant benefits in terms of efficiency, consistency, and proactive security management, particularly valuable for organizations with large, distributed development teams."

"The solution's most valuable features are the queries for the OpenTelemetry events and all the tracing."

"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 most valuable features of IBM Instana are its quick data collection and analytics after installing the agent."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is performance."

"The solution has a one-second resolution, giving you the status of your application within one second."

"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 positively impacted our organization because it has helped us solve many problems and sell some products."

"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."

"If we are using IBM Instana Observability, we can save money because first, the pricing is very affordable."

Cons

"We can make alerts based on static numbers, which may block us from building alerts that could be generic enough or could be serviced."

"The process of log scraping gets delayed on Honeycomb.io. At times, it gives false alerts to the application team."

"The way Grit architecture is designed and how it works, it is and may not become an alternative choice of code security solutions."

"The solution should include log management and improve reporting and integration with Cognos."

"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."

"The product's initial setup phase is not very easy."

"Customer support is good; sometimes it cannot go as deep as I expected, but overall it is good."

"IBM Instana Observability can be improved by providing access to the materials."

"IBM Instana Observability can be improved by simplifying the installation process, reducing the number of manual steps and dependencies, especially for hybrid, on-premise environments."

"One area that requires improvement is related to the automation part, specifically automated actions like sending SMS."

"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."

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

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Honeycomb.io?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Honeycomb.io?

Although Grit is a tool code code migration and management of technical debt for large chunks of work, we reviewed Grit from the use case of assisting in faster remediation of vulnerable libraries....

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Honeycomb.io?

We set up Honeycomb.io on all the services so that we can have all the set traces of the communication between all the services inside the company. This helps us understand where it could be failin...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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. ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 17% of the time

Grafana vs Honeycomb Enterprise

Compared 9% of the time

Splunk Observability Cloud vs Honeycomb Enterprise

Compared 8% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Honeycomb Enterprise

Compared 5% of the time

New Relic vs Honeycomb Enterprise

Compared 5% of the time

More Honeycomb Enterprise Competitors

Elastic Observability vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 16% of the time

Grafana vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 14% of the time

Dynatrace vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 14% of the time

Splunk Observability Cloud vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 10% of the time

Azure Monitor vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 9% of the time

More IBM Instana Observability Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

November 2025

Download Honeycomb Enterprise product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

November 2025

Download IBM Instana Observability product report

Also Known As

Grit

No data available

Overview

Honeycomb Enterprise is designed to optimize performance visibility, offering a robust platform for distributed system observability. It provides insights for complex data and aids in faster issue resolution, making it a valuable tool for IT professionals.

This tool is tailored for real-time data tracking and improving system performance efficiency. Enterprises benefit from its capacity to handle large-scale data, ensuring seamless operations and continuity. Honeycomb Enterprise helps teams to tackle data challenges head-on by delivering comprehensive analytics that enhance infrastructure reliability and performance metrics.

What Features Make Honeycomb Enterprise Stand Out?

High-Resolution Visibility: Enables detailed system monitoring to identify issues quickly.
Trace Analysis: Offers powerful tracing of distributed systems for in-depth insights.
Data Scalability: Manages extensive data sets effortlessly for better decision-making.
Real-Time Alerts: Provides instant alerts to preempt potential disruptions.
Collaboration Tools: Facilitates teamwork with integrated tools enhancing productivity.

What Benefits and ROI Can Users Expect?

Reduced Downtime: Faster detection and resolution of issues minimizes operational interruptions.
Cost Efficiency: Optimizes resources leading to lower operational costs.
Improved Decision Making: Enhanced data analytics lead to smarter business strategies.
Enhanced Productivity: Streamlined processes improve team efficiency and output quality.

In industries like finance, e-commerce, and technology, Honeycomb Enterprise implementations demonstrate its utility in managing complex data flows and optimizing system reliability. Businesses in these sectors leverage its capabilities to maintain high service standards and operational efficiency.

Honeycomb.io

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?

Automatic Discovery: Identifies application components and dependencies without manual configuration.
Real-Time Monitoring: Delivers live data for instant visibility across application metrics.
AI-Powered Root Cause Analysis: Quickly pinpoints issues to reduce downtime and enhance user experience.
Intelligent Alerts: Provides actionable insights, minimizing false alarms.
Seamless Integration: Easily integrates with popular DevOps tools.

What benefits should users look for when evaluating IBM Instana Observability?

Increased Productivity: Reduces manual monitoring efforts, enhancing team efficiency.
Enhanced Performance: Improves application responsiveness and user satisfaction.
Cost Efficiency: Optimizes resource allocation, leading to reduced operational costs.
Scalable Solutions: Adapts to growing business needs, ensuring long-term value.
Detailed Insights: Offers granularity in monitoring, aiding in swift decision-making.

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.

IBM

Sample Customers

Clover Health, Eaze, Intercom, Fender

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Honeycomb Enterprise vs. IBM Instana Observability

December 2025

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