We performed a comparison between AWS X-Ray and Instana Dynamic APM based on real PeerSpot user reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Instana Dynamic APM provides real-time data generation with one-second granularity, quick implementation, and comprehensive monitoring of application behavior and user experience. It also has a user-friendly interface, excellent dashboards, and dynamic detection capabilities, making it the preferred solution. While AWS X-Ray is functional, it could benefit from improvements in areas like log filtering, KPIs, and user interface. Instana Dynamic APM has a simpler initial setup process and reasonable pricing, with some reviewers claiming it surpasses competing products.
"AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process."
"AWS X-RAY identifies bottlenecks in terms of stability and performance and how long certain data lives in terms of response time and duration."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The solution has made it easier for us to trace the problems that we have with our requests and to monitor the timing of each step in each request we do in our endpoints."
"The most important one is compliance. We're able to achieve our regulatory levels. We're able to achieve the security level that we need for the federal government."
"The most promising feature of AWS X-Ray is that you can debug the issues through the proper logs. You can also get an analysis out of the logs for some use cases, though I have yet to try all the features of AWS X-Ray."
"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 primary selling point of this product is its unparalleled transparency into the infrastructure."
"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."
"It's great for monitoring services and applications."
"Visually, it's very good. It provides everything needed for dynamic detection, which is very useful."
"It is a stable solution."
"The most valuable feature of Instana Dynamic APM is auto-instrumentation."
"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."
"They can improve how traces are sent to other providers."
"I do not have any notes in terms of improvements."
"If you have a small team, it's probably overkill."
"What needs to be better in AWS X-Ray is the log filtering. Predefined filters could be helpful because the power of analytics comes from how you can filter the data. I also want to see more KPIs from AWS X-Ray."
"Like most Amazon products, the user interface, configuration, and tuning aren't the easiest. That's the biggest reason why people tend to go to products like TerraForm and Terragrunt. We use TerraForm and Terragrunt. So, for setting things up and interacting with X-Ray, it's definitely the user interface that can be better."
"The user interface is sometimes kind of confusing to understand. It's not very user-friendly."
"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 solution's monitoring is pretty weak and should be improved."
"The App Connect middleware does not integrate with or show corresponding sub nodes."
"They could improve the product’s dashboards and provide more dashboard options."
"The configuration of Instana Dynamic APM needs improvement because it requires quite a bit of work."
"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."
"New Relic has a better UI in terms of how it presents the data."
"We'd always like to see additional functionalities."
AWS X-Ray is ranked 13th in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 6 reviews while Instana Dynamic APM is ranked 20th in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 12 reviews. AWS X-Ray is rated 8.0, while Instana Dynamic APM is rated 7.4. The top reviewer of AWS X-Ray writes "Saves time, is relatively cheap, and helps find errors". 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". AWS X-Ray is most compared with Datadog, Azure Monitor, New Relic, Sentry and Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver), whereas Instana Dynamic APM is most compared with Dynatrace, AppDynamics, New Relic, IBM Application Performance Management and Elastic Observability. See our AWS X-Ray 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.
