IBM Instana Observability vs Zabbix comparison

IBM Instana Observability

Read 106 Zabbix reviews

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2,820 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Instana Observability and Zabbix based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Instana Observability vs. Zabbix Report (Updated: June 2025).

IBM Instana Observability vs. Zabbix

June 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 856,873 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:

Categories and Ranking

IBM Instana Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

45th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zabbix

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

9th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

106

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (1st), Server Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of IBM Instana Observability is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 3.8%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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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B Ahmed

Manager, Information Technology Zara & Inditex at Cenomi

Enables seamless global client monitoring with reliable remote connectivity

I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients. Many tools that I require for system maintenance are included. I can easily monitor all of my clients throughout the world I did not give much thought to it, however, improvements could be made to Zabbix.…

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

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

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

"It has good graphs of what is going on within the operating system."

"The resource usage, CPU utilization, disk usage, network monitoring, network performance, and alerting features are invaluable."

"The flexible licensing model is one of the solution's most valuable aspects. It really allows for great flexibility for companies."

"It's one of the best products available."

"It provides high scalability, alerting, notification, templating, and end-to-end security."

"The initial setup was not complex."

"The solution is stable."

"The solution is quite mature and very stable."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

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

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

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

"There are areas of improvement. The database grows really fast. So, when you install Zabbix, you have to deal with some issues, like the database. We become pretty big very fast."

"Implementation is always tailored to the customer and the kind of information we need from the client to carry it out can make them very uncomfortable. Sometimes the clients are not ready to share it."

"If you want to use all of the features then you have to pay a licensing fee."

"It would be helpful if they translated the documentation to Cyrillic languages."

"The only issue I can note is that it's Linux-based, and Linux documentation is not the best."

"Zabbix isn't a great tool for cloud-specific monitoring - its connection to public clouds needs to be improved. Other areas for improvement would be the lack of dashboards and integrations."

"There is a bit of a learning curve during installation."

"The GUI could be more intuitive. Also, we'd like streaming telemetry. Zabbix might have this feature, but I haven't seen it yet. It took us a long time to get started because the documentation isn't very descriptive. We had to go through various sources like YouTube and forums to get this solution working."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"It is reasonable."

"Zabbix and Grafana are both open source products, we only needed to go to their website and download the application and we began to use them. The solutions are free."

"I was using the free, Community Edition."

"There is a license required for this solution and we pay annually for our license."

"We pay the subscription for support by year."

"This solution is completely open-source, so it is quite affordable."

"Zabbix is an open-source tool, and it's free to use."

"Zabbix is free but if you use it in production then you have to pay for it."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

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.

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856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user174738

IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

May 31, 2015

Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor

I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Hospitality Company

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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.

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...

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...

What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

We didn't use the commercial version. We used the free version.

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

I think it's the best solution for monitoring. I don't know any better.

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Product Reports

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

June 2025

Download IBM Instana Observability product report

Download Zabbix product report

May 2025

Overview

IBM Instana Observability is a versatile tool tailored for real-time monitoring and management of applications, especially in complex cloud environments. It excels in automated root cause analysis, improving system reliability, and dynamic graphing for visualizing system interconnections. With features like real-time alerting, it enhances operational efficiency and aids in prompt issue resolution, making it invaluable for maintaining robust IT operations.

IBM

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba