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Instana Dynamic APM vs Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

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

Instana Dynamic APM
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
49th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Splunk ITSI (IT Service Int...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
IT Alerting and Incident Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Instana Dynamic APM is 1.0%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)0.8%
Instana Dynamic APM1.0%
Other98.2%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Jawwad Hassan - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
DS
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Service health has been monitored and visual insights support proactive telecom operations
The installation process is the first aspect I dislike about Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence). If you do not configure it correctly, you will encounter issues in the search head. Because we use a distributed environment where each component has its own specific roles, installation is critical and requires careful attention. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) is built with many applications. It is a compressed file, and when you extract the Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) app, you receive approximately 19 apps. Some applications, add-ons, and packages must be installed on specific components. If you do not configure an application correctly, it will not work. Sometimes we encounter issues during installation because of this complexity. I believe the installation process should be more uniform, meaning it could be deployed across all components to avoid post-installation issues. Sometimes after installation, you receive errors, and users cannot access Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence). We have experienced this type of issue due to installation errors. I believe there is currently room for improvement regarding scalability. When we create Glass Tables containing many searches, the Glass Tables sometimes fail due to memory constraints, and we receive error pages. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) should have a lightweight version to address these concerns. I would rate current scalability as medium.

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 Instana Dynamic APM is auto-instrumentation."
"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."
"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."
"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 a stable solution."
"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."
"With Instana, the interface and the UI are very simple to use."
"It's great for monitoring services and applications."
"Splunk's intuitive interface and scalability make it accessible to non-technical users, and its capacity to monitor every millisecond of data across multiple applications is truly impressive."
"Splunk ITSI is fast and provides a lot of out-of-the-box integration."
"One particularly useful feature of Splunk ITSI is the ability to create custom services."
"The solution's scalability is fine."
"We have a lot of teams using Splunk and they would be blind without it."
"We are quite pleased with its capabilities."
"I find the episode review, glass tables, and correlation search features very useful."
"The most valuable aspect lies in its utilization of predictive analytics to anticipate and prevent incidents within a window of twenty to thirty minutes."
 

Cons

"The App Connect middleware does not integrate with or show corresponding sub nodes."
"The integration could be improved with more plugins or open API."
"We should be able to go back to scenarios during or before the issue. There should be something like a history playback. Such a feature or functionality would be good."
"Its SLI and SLA features need improvement in setting up alerts."
"PHP was less stable. The coverage of Python versions was maybe less than it could be, but we didn't have any stability issues with Python, as such."
"While it is already quite good, there is room for improvement in terms of providing better functionality"
"Maybe log monitoring could be better."
"I think that Instana should improve the university and the certification process, so the users can find experts in Instana with their certification module process."
"The dashboard queries should be improved. More queries should be suggested in order to produce better dashboards."
"ITSI could benefit from a security model that would allow operations team members to get involved in model building, KPI implementation, and model maintenance, while maintaining appropriate segregation of duties."
"Splunk ITSI lacks out-of-the-box solutions for enterprise users."
"One area where Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) has room for improvement is the high cost associated with it."
"Splunk ITSI's UI needs to be more interactive and user-friendly."
"When we check the service analyzer, and we have custom inputs, there are issues."
"We also faced challenges relating to UI development — being able to get the UI the way we wanted it to look performance-wise. Some of the customization levels of the UI just weren't there."
"If they can somehow integrate it with AI in the near future, it will definitely be a game changer."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies compared to other vendors."
"The pricing is $1,200 per year which is a bit high compared to other vendors."
"It's reasonably priced and manageable, especially for individuals who grasp the significance of application monitoring."
"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is less expensive than one of its competitors."
"Pricing was pretty good, and it is possible to just add on the features we want."
"Splunk ITSI is a pay-per-use service that is priced fairly based on the amount of data we use."
"Splunk is pretty expensive, but it gives you a decent insight into the data. It is easy to learn, and ITSI has a great interface. You can run those queries and pass the data. I"
"Splunk ITSI is expensive."
"The cost of the modules is a bit high for non-global companies, making it difficult for them to afford Splunk ITSI."
"I would prefer that the price be reduced, as it would be easier to implement it and to sell it."
"It depends on how big an organization is. If we have a lot of resources, the licensing needs to be upgraded. If we have a small environment, the licensing cost is definitely going to be less."
"The licensing is based on data usage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise45
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What is your primary use case for Instana Dynamic APM?
We use the solution to monitor the platform. If an issue arises, like a user experiencing errors, we can identify general errors and investigate specific secure areas to ensure the application runs...
What advice do you have for others considering Instana Dynamic APM?
It worked for us because we have many people using our solution. When we deploy a new feature, we do it live. We use Instana Dynamic APM to verify the status before and after implementing the plugi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?
From a pricing perspective, it is not that bad because we get it from a distributor and do not purchase it directly from Splunk. We get it from a distributor who gives the pricing to a partner and ...
What needs improvement with Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?
In terms of improvements for Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence), I would suggest adding more out-of-the-box plugins and adapters, especially as there is a high demand for observability and dashb...
What is your primary use case for Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)?
I use Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) as a manager of the managers, a tool sitting on top of all the other observability tools. It gets the alerts feed from all the sources such as Splunk Ent...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
TransUnion, Cox Automotive, Carnival Cruises, Leidos, Econocom, National Ignition Factory, Entrust Datacard, Molina Healthcare, United States Census Bureau
Find out what your peers are saying about Instana Dynamic APM vs. Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.