Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Instana Dynamic APM vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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
30th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
14
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
75
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (6th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th), Container Management (6th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Instana Dynamic APM is 1.0%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 2.2%, 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
ProductMarket Share (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud2.2%
Instana Dynamic APM1.0%
Other96.8%
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…
Dhananjay Dileep - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Unified monitoring has improved end-to-end visibility and reduced detection time across apps
When we have too many detectors in place for one particular app, such as when I have created 50+ detectors through my account, the entire page becomes a bit loaded when creating the 51st detector, feeling heavy and taking time to load. Additionally, it throws random errors; for example, when we try to save one detector, it might throw some random error which is not even related, with something else being wrong, not that particular error, but the underlying root cause might be different. Sometimes the error is just "some problem occurred," and we are not able to point out what the real cause is. This mainly happens when we have too many detectors or too many alerts in place rather than a standard number. One more thing is in the alert rules; if we have a main general alert, and instead of creating a new detector, we are adding a new rule under one detector, when the number of rules also increases, such as when we have 10 or 15 rules under one generic detector, that again creates the same kind of problem, taking some time to save that particular newly added rule, and it might not save at times, just keeps on spinning. Those are the two drawbacks which I spotted recently; other than that, everything looks perfect.

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."
"With Instana, the interface and the UI are very simple to use."
"If a key monitored value has crossed a threshold, it sends out an alert. And the solution is able to intelligently find out if something is beyond the range that it normally resides in."
"We can easily perform root cause analysis using the tool."
"The overall capabilities are the most valuable."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis."
"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 primary selling point of this product is its unparalleled transparency into the infrastructure."
"The features of Splunk Observability Cloud that I prefer the most are its all-encompassing licensing model, which is comparatively better than others in the market."
"Initially, before Splunk, we had a long time to resolve issues. Now, with Splunk Observability Cloud, we will be able to solve them quickly and know exactly where the issue is."
"The most valuable features are troubleshooting and optimizing application performance."
"The feature of Splunk Observability Cloud that I prefer most is the easy deployment on the cloud."
"Splunk APM provides a holistic view of the application. Unlike other APMs, Splunk's service map is quite effective."
"Splunk Observability Cloud has enhanced our operational performance and our company's resilience, ultimately contributing to improved customer satisfaction."
"I like the fact that Splunk APM makes it easy to connect to the application database and run queries against the data."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We didn't find it to be too complex."
 

Cons

"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."
"The integration could be improved with more plugins or open API."
"While it is already quite good, there is room for improvement in terms of providing better functionality"
"Its SLI and SLA features need improvement in setting up alerts."
"We'd always like to see additional functionalities."
"The configuration of Instana Dynamic APM needs improvement because it requires quite a bit of work."
"They could improve the product’s dashboards and provide more dashboard options."
"The solution's monitoring is pretty weak and should be improved."
"A wide variety of logging makes log onboarding difficult."
"If it is a new deployment and you have a medium client with about 2,000 users or computers or servers, it will take about six months just to install and configure."
"To improve Splunk Observability Cloud, we need more applications to be included in the observability so that more applications can have agents to monitor them and bring that information to the cloud."
"The RUM part of Splunk Observability Cloud can be improved significantly."
"The only strain point we've encountered with Splunk Observability Cloud is that the search times can be lengthy for some things. We have a large environment, so that's expected."
"It would be useful if they provided some help pages. If you don't know too much about the tool, there should be more documentation readily available. It would be useful if they had a help button embedded in the solution so you could ask questions and get answers."
"Splunk APM's performance could be improved - at the moment, it's very slow and takes forever to give me what I want."
"A lot of customers had a hard time effectively searching within the data in Splunk. There is a learning curve from searches to indexes and using all the macros that we have created. It is a little difficult for somebody who has not used it quite a bit and does not have a lot of practice with it, but the AI features that we have been hearing about through Splunk will make it a lot easier for us to use human language to search this data. That is big. That is pretty powerful, and that will help a lot with our customers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies compared to other vendors."
"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."
"The solution is less expensive than one of its competitors."
"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."
"It's reasonably priced and manageable, especially for individuals who grasp the significance of application monitoring."
"The pricing is $1,200 per year which is a bit high compared to other vendors."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"Splunk's infrastructure monitoring costs can be high because our billing is based on data volume measured in terabytes, rather than the number of devices being monitored."
"Splunk APM is expensive."
"The solution's pricing is costly."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is based on several factors, including the scale of deployment."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
6%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Retailer
8%
 

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 Business20
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise47
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Instana Dynamic APM?
The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Instana Dynamic APM?
I rate the pricing a seven out of ten. There are no additional costs associated with the product.
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 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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring
 

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
Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara
Find out what your peers are saying about Instana Dynamic APM vs. Splunk Observability Cloud and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.