IBM Instana Observability is not a top-of-the-line tool and definitely has flaws, but it also has a good side as well. I would suggest others looking into using IBM Instana Observability to fully understand it first and see if it fits their use case. If their use case is very simple and beginner level, there is no need to go with a sophisticated tool such as IBM Instana Observability; but if they have a pretty large infrastructure, they can definitely go with IBM Instana Observability. My company has no business relationship with IBM Instana Observability other than being a customer; it is purely that. I would definitely suggest that the customer experience of IBM Instana Observability be improved significantly, and as far as the features go, please be quick to adopt new features into the tool, since competitors are really aggressive in implementing new features and rolling them out to users. I rate IBM Instana Observability a seven out of ten.
My advice to others looking into using IBM Instana Observability is to set up your alerts correctly to avoid false positives. I would rate this product 7 out of 10.
The tool is used mainly in the hospitality industry, insurance, banks, and some manufacturing customers. The biggest value of the product for our customers is that, technically, we embedded some other API solutions, which means some other customers can edit the tool. The tool's customization-friendly nature is good for the customers. In terms of monitoring and analysis, the tool's hybrid nature is good. The tool can monitor infrastructure, which is available as an optional module. Most of the monitoring solution is to check the service status. After the service status fails, the tool is used to check why it failed. The tool has infrastructure monitoring options with which we can get information about the infrastructure. In general, the tool monitors hybrid infrastructure. I don't have experience with the tool's AI capabilities. Most people think about AI, but AI must be learned over machine learning. I have to then create LDR, which involves AI modeling. Currently, we do not have a monitoring collection of data modeling, and now it is just the beginning of AI. In any other industry, the tool is fine. My recommendation about the tool is associated with shopping websites, where there is heavy traffic and heavy applications or services, and for such an industry, it would be very nice to install IBM Instana Observability. The tool has good performance. The web application's trouble or problems are not exactly because of web application programs, and sometimes, it is because of the infrastructure or database. I can see the one dashboard, so what is happening or what the problem is, can be an area that I can see directly. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
IBM Instana's automated root-cause analysis has impacted our incident response times by integrating with other IBM products. A lot of banks are using the tool. Customers immediately see a return on investment with IBM Instana Observability. The solution supports our cloud-native application monitoring strategies. The application can be anywhere because it supports a hybrid cloud. I would recommend the solution to any enterprise business that is really interested in application performance. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Elastic, Grafana Labs and others in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability. Updated: November 2025.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability help improve the efficiency of applications by providing visibility and insights into system performance.
Application Performance Monitoring and Observability involve tracking and analyzing the performance of applications and infrastructure. APM focuses on detecting and diagnosing performance issues, while Observability emphasizes gaining insight into the internal state of systems. By combining these approaches, IT teams can ensure...
IBM Instana Observability is not a top-of-the-line tool and definitely has flaws, but it also has a good side as well. I would suggest others looking into using IBM Instana Observability to fully understand it first and see if it fits their use case. If their use case is very simple and beginner level, there is no need to go with a sophisticated tool such as IBM Instana Observability; but if they have a pretty large infrastructure, they can definitely go with IBM Instana Observability. My company has no business relationship with IBM Instana Observability other than being a customer; it is purely that. I would definitely suggest that the customer experience of IBM Instana Observability be improved significantly, and as far as the features go, please be quick to adopt new features into the tool, since competitors are really aggressive in implementing new features and rolling them out to users. I rate IBM Instana Observability a seven out of ten.
My advice to others looking into using IBM Instana Observability is to set up your alerts correctly to avoid false positives. I would rate this product 7 out of 10.
The tool is used mainly in the hospitality industry, insurance, banks, and some manufacturing customers. The biggest value of the product for our customers is that, technically, we embedded some other API solutions, which means some other customers can edit the tool. The tool's customization-friendly nature is good for the customers. In terms of monitoring and analysis, the tool's hybrid nature is good. The tool can monitor infrastructure, which is available as an optional module. Most of the monitoring solution is to check the service status. After the service status fails, the tool is used to check why it failed. The tool has infrastructure monitoring options with which we can get information about the infrastructure. In general, the tool monitors hybrid infrastructure. I don't have experience with the tool's AI capabilities. Most people think about AI, but AI must be learned over machine learning. I have to then create LDR, which involves AI modeling. Currently, we do not have a monitoring collection of data modeling, and now it is just the beginning of AI. In any other industry, the tool is fine. My recommendation about the tool is associated with shopping websites, where there is heavy traffic and heavy applications or services, and for such an industry, it would be very nice to install IBM Instana Observability. The tool has good performance. The web application's trouble or problems are not exactly because of web application programs, and sometimes, it is because of the infrastructure or database. I can see the one dashboard, so what is happening or what the problem is, can be an area that I can see directly. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
IBM Instana's automated root-cause analysis has impacted our incident response times by integrating with other IBM products. A lot of banks are using the tool. Customers immediately see a return on investment with IBM Instana Observability. The solution supports our cloud-native application monitoring strategies. The application can be anywhere because it supports a hybrid cloud. I would recommend the solution to any enterprise business that is really interested in application performance. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.