IBM Instana Observability vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

IBM and Splunk are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. IBM is ranked #39 with an average rating of 8.0, while Splunk is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.7. IBM holds a 0.7% mindshare in APM, compared to Splunk’s 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

IBM Instana Observability

Read 3 IBM Instana Observability reviews

933 Views
933 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Splunk Observability Cloud

Read 69 Splunk Observability Cloud reviews

5,720 Views
3,432 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

IBM Instana Observability

Splunk Observability Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 10, 2025

Splunk Observability Cloud and IBM Instana Observability compete in the observability sector. IBM Instana seems to have an advantage due to its superior features, although some users prefer Splunk for pricing and support.

Features: Splunk Observability Cloud offers real-time data analytics, integration across multiple data sources, and comprehensive data coverage. IBM Instana focuses on automation, in-depth application performance monitoring, and detailed analysis suited for complex environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Instana provides a straightforward cloud-based deployment model that is simple and fast, delivering quick time-to-value. Splunk’s deployment might be more intricate due to its extensive integrations, requiring more time initially. IBM Instana’s emphasis on automation and efficient customer support provides an advantage over Splunk’s robust, yet potentially more complex setup process.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk Observability Cloud offers flexible pricing models requiring a substantial initial investment but promising long-term ROI with extensive data capabilities. IBM Instana, while potentially higher in initial cost, provides significant returns in environments demanding application performance and automation, which can justify the expense. Key differences lie in Splunk's initial investment for comprehensive coverage versus IBM Instana's premium cost for detailed analytics and automation.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Instana Observability vs. Splunk Observability Cloud Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Instana Observability vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

September 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

IBM Instana Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

39th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

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 (7th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of IBM Instana Observability is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 1.9%, up from 1.0% 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	1.9%
IBM Instana Observability	0.7%
Other	97.4%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Tomas Kim

Managing Director at BA Solutions

Not expensive and offers good performance

The most valuable feature of the solution is performance. A one-vendor solution serves as a good feature of the tool. In the IT industry, the IT support team has lots of vendors to contact. DB monitoring is done by one company, while WaaS monitoring is done by another and done by another company, which makes it really complicated for the IT team concerned about the security levels. The tool's main feature is that it is a one-vendor solution. The analysis done by the tool is a good feature. The tool is used as an open-source tool. The tool is growing, and new features are being added to the product.

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

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

"Splunk goes beyond collecting basic metrics like CPU or memory utilization; it comprehensively gathers data from various sources, including networks, applications, and virtualization, eliminating the need for siloed solutions and enhancing the capabilities of existing engineering software."

"What I appreciate most about Splunk Observability Cloud is the correlation feature, specifically the ease of correlating logs and issues to those traces to see where within the path of the business function is failing."

"The most valuable feature is log reporting."

"It is a good tool. It allows you to set alerts for application and infrastructure monitoring, and it allows you to create dashboards."

"The features I appreciate the most about Splunk Observability Cloud are the ServiceNow integration feature, which is very seamless, and that's probably my favorite since ServiceNow is big in the observability industry."

"The most valuable features include user time tracking and the ability to analyze application load times."

"The alerts are the most valuable feature."

"The solution's most valuable aspect is its ability to get information about all of the security measurements in my environment."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pros

Cons

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

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

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

"The UI enhancements could be a way to improve the solution in the future."

"The dashboards are used mainly to visualize information about the infrastructure, but it isn't easy to construct or use the dashboards. While we tried to resolve the issue by calling support, it would be easier if they had an AI co-pilot to identify the problem and help you solve it."

"In future updates, I would like to see more predefined monitoring query solutions, which could be more effective."

"The solution's stability is an area that has room for improvement. It needs to provide constant stability to its users."

"I would like to see an improvement and some innovation in the customer interface."

"Particularly what we're having is disconnection from the cloud console, where we will be working in it and receive a message saying that we've been disconnected and have to wait for it to come up."

"The monitoring of workloads when using SignalFx could be improved."

"I've been using the Splunk query language, and it can be a bit time-consuming to set up the queries I need."

More Splunk Observability Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's cost is normal as per the market. The tool is not expensive."

"The solution's pricing is reasonable compared to that of its competitors like Dynatrace."

"The pricing is based on several factors, including the scale of deployment."

"It is expensive."

"Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring is an expensive solution."

"Splunk Observability Cloud is expensive."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"I would rate the price of Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring as an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."

"Licensing cost is the biggest argument I get from those divesting from Splunk. There are those within our organization who say we are going to go to other tools since Splunk is too expensive."

"Splunk offers a 14-day free trial and after that, we have to pay but the cost is reasonable."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	44

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Instana Observability?

The tool's cost is normal as per the market. The tool is not expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Instana Observability?

The tool should offer more LDR AI models. The monitoring is just a status, but the next level of a monitoring solution is to prevent an accident or stop an accident status. The solution should be t...

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What is your primary use case for IBM Instana Observability?

Before IBM, I ordered our company's engineer to have a look at the tool and test it. I think it was two years ago, the transfer to IBM happened in our company. At the beginning, IBM Instana Observa...

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What do you like most about SignalFx?

The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Elastic Observability vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 25% of the time

Grafana vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 14% of the time

Azure Monitor vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 11% of the time

Dynatrace vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 10% of the time

IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager vs IBM Instana Observability

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM Instana Observability Competitors

Sentry vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 7% of the time

Observe vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Cribl vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

SigNoz vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

Dynatrace vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

More Splunk Observability Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

August 2025

Download IBM Instana Observability product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Observability Cloud

August 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

Buyer's Guide

IBM Instana Observability vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

September 2025

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