We performed a comparison between Datadog and Instana Dynamic APM based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Datadog provides a range of valuable features such as customizable dashboards and reporting, efficient error reporting and log centralization, comprehensive logs and analysis, and seamless integration with development teams. It also offers excellent performance and infrastructure monitoring capabilities, and a SaaS model for easy access. Instana Dynamic APM is valued for its ability to generate real-time data, ensuring up-to-date insights into application behavior and user experience. Instana Dynamic APM also offers App Connect middleware, which visualizes flow and integration nodes, enhancing monitoring services and applications.
For Datadog, areas for improvement include user-friendly features, seamless integration, intuitive interfaces, simplified setup, and enhanced security measures. Instana Dynamic APM, potential improvements include increased integration with plugins or an open API, inclusion of synthetic monitoring and AI-based anomaly detection, and enhanced API monitoring and end-user experience monitoring.
Ease of Deployment: Based on user experiences, setting up Datadog is generally considered to be a relatively simple and straightforward process, taking anywhere from one hour to three days. Some users reported receiving assistance during the setup. On the other hand, the initial setup for Instana Dynamic APM is fast and uncomplicated, typically taking around 20 minutes. Once set up, no further maintenance is needed.
Service and Support: The availability and promptness of customer service for Datadog have received positive feedback. That said, there have been occasional instances of slow or unresponsive support in the Asia-Pacific region. The reviews for Instana Dynamic APM's customer service are varied, with some customers reporting positive experiences and others noting longer resolution times for issues.
Pricing: Users find the setup cost for Datadog's product to be costly and unclear, with some warnings about certain features becoming pricey rapidly. The pricing for Instana Dynamic APM is generally seen as fair and competitive, albeit slightly higher than other vendors. The licensing costs for Instana are deemed very reasonable, although there may be additional expenses for data transfer.
Comparison Results: Datadog is the preferred choice when comparing it to Instana Dynamic APM. Users appreciate Datadog's ease of use and setup, extensive dashboards and reporting capabilities, error reporting and log centralization features, and user-friendliness for development teams. They also value its wide range of integrations and flexibility in presenting data. Datadog stands out as a more comprehensive and flexible solution, offering a wider range of features and integrations.
"Datadog has proven to be easy to set up and legible for both development and operational teams."
"The interface and the integrations make it so easy to connect to the cloud or to the on-premise environment."
"They have a very good foundation in capturing metrics, logs, and traces. It's a very nice tool for that and it allows you to apply these monitoring tools in almost any technology."
"We have been able to set very specific CPU and memory alerts, at the very base level, then we started to pull real business value, like 99th percentile response rates for our API calls."
"The tool's deployment is easy."
"The solution has improved the organization by providing good insights into app performance and offering good dashboards."
"APM and tracing are super useful."
"The product has offered increased visibility via logging APM, metrics, RUM, etc."
"The overall capabilities are the most valuable."
"With Instana, the interface and the UI are very simple to use."
"It is a stable solution."
"The primary selling point of this product is its unparalleled transparency into the infrastructure."
"The most valuable feature of Instana Dynamic APM is auto-instrumentation."
"Visually, it's very good. It provides everything needed for dynamic detection, which is very useful."
"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."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is the ability to monitor the performance of containers for request and response analysis."
"I've only been using Datadog for a few months, and at first, it was frankly overwhelming in terms of both the UI and the available capabilities."
"We have recently had a number of issues with stability and delays on logging, monitoring, metric evaluation, and alerts."
"Once agents are connected to the Datadog portal, we should be able to upgrade them quickly."
"If there were a more cost-effective manner of deploying the tool, we'd be more likely to adopt it more widely."
"Datadog does not have the feature where you can monitor external websites or check the SSL secure for websites."
"The product could be improved by providing remote control to agents, enabling them to execute automation and collections without requiring another automation tool or integration."
"Stability of the product has been a concern for us outside of the primary monitoring agents."
"Datadog could be improved if it could detect other software in a container or server."
"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."
"The App Connect middleware does not integrate with or show corresponding sub nodes."
"The integration could be improved with more plugins or open API."
"The solution's monitoring is pretty weak and should be improved."
"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."
"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."
Datadog is ranked 1st in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 137 reviews while Instana Dynamic APM is ranked 23rd in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 12 reviews. Datadog is rated 8.6, while Instana Dynamic APM is rated 7.4. The top reviewer of Datadog writes "Very good RUM, synthetics, and infrastructure host maps". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Instana Dynamic APM writes "A really good GUI that is easy for non-technical users to understand". Datadog is most compared with Dynatrace, Azure Monitor, New Relic, AWS X-Ray and Elastic Observability, whereas Instana Dynamic APM is most compared with Dynatrace, AppDynamics, New Relic, Elastic Observability and Azure Monitor. See our Datadog vs. Instana Dynamic APM report.
See our list of best Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability vendors.
We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.