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Instana Dynamic APM vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 19, 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
21st
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
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
57
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 August 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Instana Dynamic APM is 1.0%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 2.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Jawwad Hassan - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Lakshmi Padaga - PeerSpot reviewer
Collaborates performance metrics with log data to pinpoint the exact cause of issues and offers error detection
Splunk APM is a robust tool with many capabilities. There are always areas for potential improvement to enhance its functionality and user experience. For Splunk APM, there could be simplified navigation, like streamlining the user interface to make navigation more intuitive for our users, especially those new to APM, which can enhance usability. We can provide more customization options for dashboards and visualizations to help users tailor the platform to their specific needs. There could be more integration capabilities with a wider range of third-party tools and platforms would also be beneficial. By focusing on these areas, Splunk APM can enhance its value proposition, improve user satisfaction, and better meet the evolving needs of organizations monitoring their application performance.

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."
"We can easily perform root cause analysis using the tool."
"With Instana, the interface and the UI are very simple to use."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis."
"Instana is very fast to implement and deploy because the dashboards are automated and don't need configuration."
"Visually, it's very good. It provides everything needed for dynamic detection, which is very useful."
"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."
"It is a stable solution."
"The most valuable thing that we have seen within our group is the ability to ingest all this raw data and have it organized in a certain way so that different groups can get effective alerting from this massive amount of raw data that is out there."
"The features I have found most valuable are log searching and log analytics, both of which are quick features."
"The feature I find most valuable, is the data integration."
"Splunk's dashboards are great."
"Dashboards help the application support teams to have a quick look at how their systems are running. It helps other teams as well."
"The product's deployment phase is good and very easy because it is done with OpenTelemetry for most of the parts."
"The solution's basic visibility is one of its most valuable features. So, it is a solution that is easy to use...The solution's initial setup process was straightforward."
"The data collection from our VMs, containers, databases, and backend components is valuable."
 

Cons

"Many managers, as well as our customers, used to ask for reports, such as "top X number of queries that are slow," or "top pages that have the highest number of issues." This is something that can be improved by Instana. Currently, they don't have that kind of reporting available out-of-the-box."
"The App Connect middleware does not integrate with or show corresponding sub nodes."
"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."
"We'd always like to see additional functionalities."
"The solution's monitoring is pretty weak and should be improved."
"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."
"There's no standard use case available where you can see the utilization of the number of use cases I have."
"I've been using the Splunk query language, and it can be a bit time-consuming to set up the queries I need."
"The solution's stability is an area that has room for improvement. It needs to provide constant stability to its users."
"I'd like a dashboard that allows me to connect elements through drag-and-drop functionality."
"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."
"In future updates, I would like to see more predefined monitoring query solutions, which could be more effective."
"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 process terms. These categories of dashboards would be very helpful for customers."
"There is not a lot of support for the tool's on-premises version, especially since everything is on the cloud."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is $1,200 per year which is a bit high compared to other vendors."
"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."
"Instana Dynamic APM is more affordable for small and medium-sized companies compared to other vendors."
"It's reasonably priced and manageable, especially for individuals who grasp the significance of application monitoring."
"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's pricing is comparable to other products."
"Splunk can be expensive, as its licensing is based on the daily data ingestion volume."
"Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring is an expensive solution."
"The price of Splunk APM is less than some of its competitors."
"Splunk Observability Cloud is expensive."
"I am not in that circle, but we are currently licensing based on our queries. That is working out for us. Previously, it was by volume of data, and now, we can store as much data as we want."
"Splunk offers a 14-day free trial and after that, we have to pay but the cost is reasonable."
"The solution's pricing is costly."
"Splunk APM is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.