IBM Instana Observability vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

IBM Instana Observability vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 879,310 peers since 2012

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

5.1

IBM Instana Observability enhances efficiency and reduces costs by streamlining issue detection and improving application performance monitoring.

Sentiment score

6.8

Splunk Observability Cloud enhances ROI by boosting visibility, productivity, efficiency, and security, while reducing downtime and costs.

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Instana Observability report

Technical Manager, Consulting at PT. Mitra Integrasi Informatika

Using Splunk has saved my organization about 30% of our budget compared to using multiple different monitoring products.

For more quotes and insights, download the Splunk Observability Cloud report

Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Anyone working in front-end management should recognize the market price to see the true value of end-user monitoring.

EdwardShim

General Manager at MOCOMSYS

I have definitely seen a return on investment with Splunk Observability Cloud, particularly through how fast it has grown and how comfortable other teams are in relying on its outputs for monitoring and observability.

Taiwo Ige

IT Operations Engineer at ABC Supply Co. Inc.

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.4

IBM Instana's customer service receives mixed reviews, with varied experiences in responsiveness and support quality, especially in Korea.

Sentiment score

7.1

Splunk Observability Cloud's customer support is generally responsive, with mixed reviews on efficiency and availability for complex issues.

They are very slow to respond and integrate new features.

Saisurya P

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Instana Observability report

Technical Manager, Consulting at PT. Mitra Integrasi Informatika

On a scale of 1 to 10, the customer service and technical support deserve a 10.

reviewer2755917

Systems Administrator at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees

They have consistently helped us resolve any issues we've encountered.

Juan Baez

Software Engineer at UKG

They often require multiple questions, with five or six emails to get a response.

For more quotes and insights, download the Splunk Observability Cloud report

Splunk Observability Expert

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

8.3

IBM Instana is scalable and efficient for large enterprises, aiding performance management in dynamic environments like microservices and Kubernetes.

Sentiment score

7.3

Splunk Observability Cloud offers smooth scalability and flexibility for diverse needs but may face cost and metric limit challenges.

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Instana Observability report

Technical Manager, Consulting at PT. Mitra Integrasi Informatika

We've used the solution across more than 250 people, including engineers.

Splunk Observability Expert

As we are a growing company transitioning all our applications to the cloud, and with the increasing number of cloud-native applications, Splunk Observability Cloud will help us achieve digital resiliency and reduce our mean time to resolution.

Lalatendu Swain

Application Developer at UMB Financial

I would rate its scalability a nine out of ten.

For more quotes and insights, download the Splunk Observability Cloud report

Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.6

IBM Instana Observability is rated 8/10 for strong stability and reliability, demonstrating user confidence in its performance.

Sentiment score

7.7

Splunk Observability Cloud is stable and reliable with infrequent issues, resolved efficiently, praised for performance and support.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Instana Observability report

I would rate its stability a nine out of ten.

Muhammad M

Head of DevOps at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

We rarely have problems accessing the dashboard or the page.

For more quotes and insights, download the Splunk Observability Cloud report

Splunk Observability Expert

Unlike NetScout or regular agents for APM, RUM has many problems during the POC phase because customer environments vary widely.

EdwardShim

General Manager at MOCOMSYS

Room For Improvement

Users seek IBM Instana improvements in log management, AI monitoring, interface speed, support, and installation for better observability.

Splunk Observability Cloud needs enhanced integration, scalability, cost-efficiency, UI, third-party support, and better documentation and customer support.

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.

Saisurya P

DevOps engineer at Yara International

It is not open-source, and I have to be a partner to get more access to the products.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Instana Observability report

UNIX/LINUX, ENTERPRISE SERVER AND STORAGE ADMINISTRATOR at Fidelity Bank Plc

The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders.

Taiwo Ige

IT Operations Engineer at ABC Supply Co. Inc.

The next release of Splunk Observability Cloud should include a feature that makes it so that when looking at charts and dashboards, and also looking at one environment regardless of the product feature that you're in, APM, infrastructure, RUM, the environment that is chosen in the first location when you sign into Splunk Observability Cloud needs to stay persistent all the way through.

Sarah Van Zee

Systems Monitoring Engineer II at a government with 10,001+ employees

There is room for improvement in the alerting system, which is complicated and has less documentation available.

Muhammad M

Head of DevOps at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Splunk Observability Cloud report

Setup Cost

IBM Instana offers affordable, competitive host-based pricing covering comprehensive functionality compared to Dynatrace and DataDog.

Splunk Observability Cloud is seen as expensive but offers flexible, transparent pricing with potential negotiation for cost-efficiency.

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Instana Observability report

Software engineer at EJADA

I think the pricing is good and I do not think it is high.

Mihajlo Borisavljevic

DevOps at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Splunk is a bit expensive since it charges based on the indexing rate of data.

For more quotes and insights, download the Splunk Observability Cloud report

Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

It is expensive, especially when there are other vendors that offer something similar for much cheaper.

Ernesto Gutierrez

Solutions Architect at Ikusi

It appears to be expensive compared to competitors.

Muhammad M

Head of DevOps at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Valuable Features

IBM Instana Observability offers real-time metrics, seamless integration, and customizable dashboards to enhance performance and streamline operations effectively.

Splunk Observability Cloud offers seamless integration, real-time monitoring, and customization for enhanced visibility, threat detection, and performance optimization.

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.

Saisurya P

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Instana Observability report

Software engineer at EJADA

Splunk provides advanced notifications of roadblocks in the application, which helps us to improve and avoid impacts during high-volume days.

Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

For troubleshooting, we can detect problems in seconds, which is particularly helpful for digital teams.

For more quotes and insights, download the Splunk Observability Cloud report

Splunk Observability Expert

It offers unified visibility for logs, metrics, and traces.

Mary Vasantha Golleru

Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Categories and Ranking

IBM Instana Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

35th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

AI Observability (21st)

Splunk Observability Cloud

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (6th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th), Container Management (6th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of IBM Instana Observability is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 2.1%, up from 1.4% 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 (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud	2.1%
IBM Instana Observability	0.8%
Other	97.1%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

End-to-end monitoring has improved performance insights and supports faster issue resolution

Technical Manager, Consulting at PT. Mitra Integrasi Informatika

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

Taiwo Ige

IT Operations Engineer at ABC Supply Co. Inc.

Alerting improves incident response across teams and enables faster awareness before customer impact

Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved in terms of integrations with more technical add-ons, such as Zoom. Although they have one with Zoom, it's not available in the cloud, so having that feature would be beneficial. Essentially, Splunk should continue expanding to create easier ways to ingest logs from different products. The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders. However, there are aspects that could be improved, such as linking dashboards to one another. While IT leaders may not drill down, it's crucial to create levels of dashboards for technical users to find root causes, making it effective for stakeholders.

Read full review

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

879,310 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	46

Questions from the Community

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...

What do you like most about SignalFx?

The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.

What needs improvement with SignalFx?

Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and pr...

What is your primary use case for SignalFx?

The solution involves observability in general, such as Application Performance Monitoring, and generally addresses digital applications, web applications, sites, and mobile applications. I worked ...

Elastic Observability vs IBM Instana Observability

Comparisons

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

Azure Monitor vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 9% of the time

OpenTelemetry vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM Instana Observability Competitors

Sentry vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Observe vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

Cribl vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

Honeycomb Enterprise vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

SigNoz vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

More Splunk Observability Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

November 2025

Download IBM Instana Observability product report

Splunk Observability Cloud

December 2025

Download Splunk Observability Cloud product report

Also Known As

No data available

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring

Overview

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

Splunk Observability Cloud offers sophisticated log searching, data integration, and customizable dashboards. With rapid deployment and ease of use, this cloud service enhances monitoring capabilities across IT infrastructures for comprehensive end-to-end visibility.

Focused on enhancing performance management and security, Splunk Observability Cloud supports environments through its data visualization and analysis tools. Users appreciate its robust application performance monitoring and troubleshooting insights. However, improvements in integrations, interface customization, scalability, and automation are needed. Users find value in its capabilities for infrastructure and network monitoring, as well as log analytics, albeit cost considerations and better documentation are desired. Enhancements in real-time monitoring and network protection are also noted as areas for development.

What are the key features?

Log Searching: Efficiently search and analyze logs from various sources.
Data Integration: Seamlessly integrate with multiple environments.
Dashboard Customization: Tailor dashboards to specific monitoring needs.
Monitoring Capabilities: Provides comprehensive insights into application performance.
Security Features: Analyze and address security threats across systems.
Visualization Tools: Enhance data analysis and system performance optimization.

Why consider this for ROI?

Comprehensive Visibility: Gain complete insights into IT infrastructure.
Performance Optimization: Improve overall system performance and efficiency.
Rapid Deployment: Quick setup to meet organization demands swiftly.
Enhanced Security: Strengthen security measures through detailed analytics.

In industries, Splunk Observability Cloud is implemented for security management by analyzing logs from detection systems, offering real-time alerts and troubleshooting for cloud-native applications. It is leveraged for machine data analysis, improving infrastructure visibility and supporting network and application performance management efforts.

Splunk

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara