Unified monitoring has improved infrastructure visibility but customer support needs work
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for IBM Instana Observability is to gain more insights about my infrastructure, servers, traffic flow, CPU and memory utilization, and metrics.
I use IBM Instana Observability to mainly understand the flow of traffic inside my Kubernetes clusters and to check the logs of my pods.
On a daily basis, I use IBM Instana Observability mostly for the monitoring of my infrastructure stack.
What is most valuable?
One of the best features IBM Instana Observability offers is its nice and clean UI, with everything being clean and sorted out.
What stands out to me specifically about the UI of IBM Instana Observability is the way everything is organized, clean, easy to read, and easy to understand with clear navigation to each component.
IBM Instana Observability has positively impacted my organization by making it easy to observe the entire infrastructure under one platform, which was the biggest advantage of onboarding onto IBM Instana Observability.
Once we had an incident where my Kubernetes pods were crashing frequently, and it was really easy to troubleshoot because of the easily available monitoring tool IBM Instana Observability. It was easy to navigate inside IBM Instana Observability and find the logs from the pods and debug the traffic flow.
IBM Instana Observability definitely saves a lot of time. Since it integrates many things into one dashboard, it is really easy to navigate and find the root causes of failures, making it easy to troubleshoot issues as well, and all of this saves a lot of time.
What needs improvement?
One main issue I found with IBM Instana Observability was the customer support, which was very poor when we needed some features to be enabled or integrated into IBM Instana Observability sensors. They used to take a long time to respond and implement the features we requested, and customer support was not really great. They were slow to integrate new features, whereas competitors were providing better features at a faster pace.
IBM Instana Observability is not really stable; I would say it is stable approximately 95 percent of the time.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using IBM Instana Observability for around two years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of IBM Instana Observability is pretty good.
How are customer service and support?
The customer support of IBM Instana Observability is really awful; that is one area where I found myself disliking IBM Instana Observability, as they are very slow to respond and integrate new features.
I would rate the customer support of IBM Instana Observability five out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, I was using self-managed Prometheus, but then it was an organizational decision to move to a managed service, so we went with IBM Instana Observability.
What about the implementation team?
I myself did not deploy IBM Instana Observability; the seniors and the leads in my team actually did that, so they would have more insight on that.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing IBM Instana Observability, I evaluated a few others such as DataDog and Groundcover.
What other advice do I have?
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.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Improved incident tracing has reduced errors while complex filters still slow down alert setup
What is our primary use case?
I use IBM Instana Observability to trace our services, especially the incidents part and events. One particular feature I appreciate is the filtering of calls so that I can view analytics, including how many calls we received, how many failed, and how many succeeded.
What is most valuable?
IBM Instana Observability sends alerts through Slack, and I check Slack for messages. When I review the messages, I find the link to a particular trace. When I view a particular trace, I can see where I had a failed connection, had an error, and so on.
The integration with alerting systems such as email and Slack is the best feature of IBM Instana Observability in my opinion. The alerting integrations in IBM Instana Observability are mostly reliable, though it depends on the filter I put. The problem is that the filter is somewhat complex to integrate.
IBM Instana Observability has positively impacted our organization by decreasing our 500 errors. Our errors in general have decreased, our response time has decreased, and so on.
What needs improvement?
The interface of IBM Instana Observability is really slow, especially when there is a lot of data and when there are a lot of traces. The interface almost hangs up.
The alerting integrations in IBM Instana Observability are mostly reliable, though it depends on the filter I put. The problem is that the filter is somewhat complex to integrate.
I had many false positives with IBM Instana Observability. Then I fixed the filters and it became more accurate on the errors reported. Also, errors gradually decreased from around 10 to 500 errors per 100 calls to one or two.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using IBM Instana Observability since I joined Ejada, for about two years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
IBM Instana Observability is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
IBM Instana Observability scales well.
How are customer service and support?
I did not encounter customer support for IBM Instana Observability.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I did not previously use a different solution before IBM Instana Observability.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment with IBM Instana Observability, but we do not have really solid metrics. I can only say that we saved time, especially in the response time department. It made a notable difference from when we were almost blind to being able to respond to calls immediately.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for IBM Instana Observability was fair. It is not that costly, especially since we only use two instances.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing IBM Instana Observability, we did not evaluate other options.
What other advice do I have?
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.
Elevated APM and Observability with Instana's Automation
What do you like best about the product?
I use IBM Instana primarily for its exceptional application performance monitoring and observability capabilities. I love how it automatically discovers services, maps dependencies, and tracks performance with minimal manual input, which saves me time and effort. One feature that truly stands out is its combination of automation, real-time observability, and intelligent analytics, delivering full observability into complex, modern environments seamlessly. This combination simplifies operations, accelerates root cause analysis, and clarifies even the most complex distributed systems. IBM Instana's automation eliminates the need for manual configuration, ensuring all services are instrumented immediately, which not only saves time but also ensures comprehensive monitoring. This real-time observability provides immediate insight into performance issues, making incident response faster and decision-making more confident. The ease of initial setup with IBM Instana is remarkable; deploying the agent required minimal configuration, and most services were detected in minutes. The onboarding process was effortless, supported by clear guidance and intuitive dashboards. Lastly, the platform’s integration capabilities are impressive, effortlessly pairing with CI/CD tools, logging platforms, ticketing systems, and cloud platforms, offering a versatile and unified monitoring solution.
What do you dislike about the product?
Some areas of IBM Instana could be improved, such as providing more flexibility in customizing dashboards and alert rules for complex use cases. The interface, while clean, can feel overwhelming for new users due to the amount of data being displayed. Pricing can also be on the higher side for smaller teams. Additionally, deeper integrations with certain niche tools would even make it more versatile.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use IBM Instana to gain real-time visibility and automate service discovery, solving visibility, troubleshooting, and alerting challenges. It enhances efficiency, accelerates root cause analysis, and maintains high performance with less manual effort.
Review for IBM instana
What do you like best about the product?
Dashboards are very nice and statices are also good and interactive
What do you dislike about the product?
There are lot feature in that need more tour guide for the user to learn the tool quickly
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Can bale to visualize the data to get quick insights
Real-Time Monitoring with Easy Setup
What do you like best about the product?
I appreciate IBM Instana for its real-time application monitoring capabilities, which allow me to gain invaluable visibility into my applications, microservices, APIs, and infrastructure. The distributed tracing feature is particularly effective, providing detailed insights into the interactions and performance across my systems, enabling me to quickly identify and address issues. I also value its infrastructure monitoring, which helps me maintain the health of my operating environment with minimal effort. The initial setup of IBM Instana was straightforward and easy as it requires minimal manual configuration, making the transition seamless and efficient, especially considering my team transitioned from Datadog to IBM Instana. Overall, these powerful capabilities and user-friendly setup significantly enhance the monitoring and management of our systems, which is why I would rate it a 9 out of 10 on the likelihood of recommending it to a friend or colleague.
What do you dislike about the product?
I prefer to have customizable dashboards in IBM Instana. The layout control is limited, which restricts my ability to tailor the monitoring view to my specific needs.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use IBM Instana for real-time visibility into applications, microservices, and APIs. It simplifies infra monitoring and offers efficient distributed tracing, making it easy to set up with minimal manual configuration.
Powerful Tool with Pricing Concerns
What do you like best about the product?
I find IBM Instana to be an incredibly developer-friendly observability tool. It's impressive how it automatically discovers service dependencies, policies, containers, and hosts in real time without the need for manual instrumentation or restarting services. This auto-discovery feature is a massive time-saver, particularly when compared to other tools like Prometheus, Grafana, or Datadog, which still require configuration. IBM Instana seamlessly identifies everything, which greatly simplifies the monitoring of my CI/CD workflows. The initial setup is notably easy with automatic agent installation and Kubernetes setup requiring almost no customization. Overall, it's a genuine ally for real-time monitoring, making my work far more efficient.
What do you dislike about the product?
The major issue I have with IBM Instana is its pricing, which is quite high. As we scale, the costs become even more prohibitive, especially considering it's priced per host or per agent. This can make it very expensive for managing large Kubernetes clusters with real workloads and a microservices architecture. Additionally, I find the user interface not particularly friendly for first-time users, which could be improved.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use IBM Instana for real-time monitoring and troubleshooting of modern applications, providing full-stack visibility and automated root cause analysis. It optimizes performance, reduces downtime, and is a developer-friendly observability tool saving time compared to other tools like Prometheus and Datadog.
Real-Time Monitoring Revolutionizes Microservice Management
What do you like best about the product?
I love how fast and automatic everything feels with IBM Instana. The real-time monitoring is honestly the standout for me. When something goes wrong, I do not have to wait for dashboards to refresh or keep hitting reload; the data updates almost instantly, and that alone has saved me a lot of time. I also really like the distributed tracing. It just works without me having to configure a bunch of stuff. Being able to follow a request across all our services in one clean view makes debugging so much easier. Another thing I appreciate is the automatic discovery. The moment something new gets deployed, IBM Instana picks it up, maps the dependencies, and starts showing metrics without me touching anything. The level of automation is a big deal when you are dealing a lot with moving parts. So yeah, the combination of real-time visibility, smart tracing, and the fact that it basically sets itself up is what stands out the most for me. These features mainly save me time and reduce guesswork. Real-time monitoring lets me spot problems the moment they happen. Distributed tracing shows exactly where a request slows down, so debugging is faster. And automatic discovery removes all the manual setups - IBM Instana just maps everything on its own. Together, they make it much easier to understand what's going on in the system without digging through a bunch of logs or dashboard.
What do you dislike about the product?
One thing that I find could be improved with IBM Instana is the UI speed. While powerful, it sometimes feels a bit heavy, especially when loading large service maps. The alerting is generally effective, but it can be somewhat noisy if things spike for just a few seconds. Furthermore, the pricing can accumulate quickly as the environment grows. Overall, while IBM Instana works well, a lighter interface, smarter alert tuning, and a slightly simpler pricing structure would enhance its value.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use IBM Instana to quickly diagnose microservice issues with real-time monitoring and automatic discovery, reducing guesswork in debugging and saving time on manual setup.
Effortless Real-Time Monitoring with Powerful Insights
What do you like best about the product?
"Real-time monitoring with fast root-cause detection."
"Automatic service discovery and deep visibility."
"Easy troubleshooting through smart insights."
"Powerful observability with minimal setup effort."
"Accurate performance insights across services."
What do you dislike about the product?
"Dashboards can feel cluttered for new users."
"Pricing can be high for smaller teams or startups."
"Initial configuration requires careful tuning."
"Alert noise can occur without proper setup."
"UI performance slows down with large datasets."
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Instana has been instrumental in quickly identifying performance issues, which has helped us reduce downtime and enhance the reliability of our services. Its real-time visibility into microservices has made troubleshooting both faster and more precise. The platform automates service discovery and root-cause analysis, allowing us to save a considerable amount of engineering time. By unifying logs, metrics, and traces, Instana has improved observability throughout our environment. Additionally, it enables us to monitor application health proactively, helping to prevent incidents before they affect our users.
Fast, Reliable Monitoring with IBM Instana
What do you like best about the product?
I appreciate IBM Instana because it is ideal for teams operating in dynamic, complex environments where conventional monitoring solutions struggle. Its speed, automation, and intelligent insights ensure that systems remain reliable and customers stay satisfied. I love that it provides real-time monitoring, automatically finds services, spots problems quickly, and scales easily across complex systems. This capability helps teams to work more efficiently, avoid downtime, and enhance the customer experience. I find it particularly useful because it makes monitoring easy by giving fast, automated insights to keep services operating smoothly. It is also highly recommended for its fast and reliable monitoring capabilities, which have earned it a 9 out of 10 in my recommendation.
What do you dislike about the product?
I found that pricing could be improved, suggesting that the cost structure may not be optimal for all users. The setup ease also has room for improvement, particularly for large organizations, which might require more extensive initial configurations. Additionally, the dashboard flexibility needs enhancement to better cater to varied user requirements.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use IBM Instana for real-time monitoring, which automates insights, spots problems fast, ensures system reliability, and enhances customer satisfaction. It scales across complex systems, helping us work quicker and avoid downtime.
Effortless Setup, Reliable Monitoring with AI Insights
What do you like best about the product?
I find IBM Instana's AI-based staging feature to be a standout element, allowing for easy installation on any platform, which is a very good feature. The simplicity of the setup is remarkable, with minimal effort required beyond providing credentials, and it quickly becomes operational. This ease of setup is complemented by its effective monitoring capabilities, as you can log in from various systems and view the monitoring dashboard effortlessly. It requires no additional configuration on virtual machines, which is particularly valuable. Overall, the installation process's ease and its quick readiness for use work exceptionally well for me.
What do you dislike about the product?
I find that IBM Instana's AI agent sometimes gives false alarms. This can be disruptive and lead to unnecessary inspections or actions based on inaccurate alerts. Improvement in the accuracy of these alerts would be beneficial.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
IBM Instana solves downtime issues by effectively monitoring our software applications and infrastructure. It offers AI-based staging, easy installation, and setup, making it operational across any platform, enhancing our monitoring efforts.
