Auvik vs. IBM Instana

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Auvik
Score 9.9 out of 10
N/A
Auvik Network Management is a vendor-agnostic cloud-based network monitoring and management solution providing automated network discovery. Auvik requires no service hardware or disruptive maintenance cycles and provides onboarding and training for new and existing users. Auvik delivers visibility and automation to reduce friction for IT teams and allow them to give end users the freedom to work wherever and however they…N/A
IBM Instana
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Instana, an IBM company since the December 2020 acquisition, provides APM services for SOA, microservices, containerized applications and Kubernetes, and cloud native applications, as well as discovery and monitoring for IT assets.
$18
per month per Managed Virtual Server (MVS)
Pricing
AuvikIBM Instana
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Essentials
$18
per month per Managed Virtual Server (MVS)
Standard
$75
per month per Managed Virtual Server (MVS)
Self-Hosted
$93.80
per month per Managed Virtual Server (MVS)
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AuvikIBM Instana
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing is calculated per number of switches, routers, firewalls, and controllers. Everything else is monitored for free.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AuvikIBM Instana
Features
AuvikIBM Instana
Network Performance Monitoring
Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Auvik
7.9
Ratings
4% below category average
IBM Instana
-
Ratings
Automated network device discovery9.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Network monitoring8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Baseline threshold calculation7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Alerts8.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Network capacity planning7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Packet capture analysis7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Network mapping8.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable reports5.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Wireless infrastructure monitoring7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Hardware health monitoring8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AuvikIBM Instana
Small Businesses
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PingPlotter
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Score 9.3 out of 10
Sumo Logic
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Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 9.3 out of 10
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Score 9.2 out of 10
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User Ratings
AuvikIBM Instana
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.3
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.7
(0 ratings)
4.5
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
AuvikIBM Instana
Likelihood to Recommend
Auvik is fantastic for managing multi-site, multi-company networks - very well suited for MSP or consultative technology companies. Navigation is simple and easy between clients and their sites. Auvik is less well suited for managing single sites or single companies - it is really meant to be used at a larger scale.
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With enterprise IT assets in a multitude of ecosystems, cloud infrastructures and sometimes still left stuck in a legacy on prem architecture, IBM Instana makes it easy to get the right data to drive development and / or DevSecOps processes with tangible input from the target environment itself.
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Pros
  • Maps out devices to switch ports.
  • Monitors, alerts, and reports on network device and port utilization.
  • Quickly created complete network diagrams.
  • Works well in a co-manage environment enabling teams full but restricted access to specific sites. Integrates well with site specific access in ConnectWise Automate.
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  • Collecting Kubernetes and Infra level logs and presenting in easy to understand visuals.
  • Tracing the end-to-end journey of an event and also categorizing by technology and Endpoints
  • Built-in and custom alerts help to monitor almost all of scenarios without much additional configuration.
  • Ability to create Applications to logical group important flows
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Cons
  • The map is not easy to quickly zoom in and out of or pan around. Usually requires a lot of filter toggling. Keyboard shortcuts for this would be nice.
  • Better global settings that can be pushed to multiple client organizations
  • Security groups/RBAC for user permissions across multiple clients
  • Ability to change the URL
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  • I believe that the "live" option in monitoring does not truly update the status in real-time, thus I must manually update to feel comfortable.
  • The call analysis tool might be improved, third-party resources are restricted, and the pricing is slightly more than competitors in comparable categories.
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Likelihood to Renew
Because it's an amazing product.
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Instana has been able to fulfill our all requirement and provide out of box solution for multiple component like AWS RDS Monitoring and real time alerting setup on basis of that. it is also easy to integrate with other open-source alerting and monitoring tools which makes it easier to incorporate into our solutions
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Usability
The program can be a bit unwieldy at times, however the majority of information is displayed in a readable and friendly way. The maps and popup information box from the bottom can be harder to use on a smaller screen but on a 1080p+ display tends to work fine.
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IBM Instana totally alters our monitoring approach since it increases the stability of the system and simplifies the process of problem solving. And since it helps to lower the degree of alert exhaustion that we experience, it is a total game changer for us.
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Reliability and Availability
We have never had a major outage or impact that was noticeable.
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Pages can be slow to load on larger sites but tends to be fine for most clients.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Fast response and knowledgeable. If the technician does not know, they will look for the information and get back to you.
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IBM instana support team is good but when we ask them for support, they keep asking same thing again and again and mostly there is no solution
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Alternatives Considered
Auvik's license structure is simple and affordable. Auvik's license is based on total network devices in your network. They charge only for total number of Switches, Routers, firewalls and Wireless controllers in your network. All other devices license would be free of charge
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As a DevOps engineer, I've explored various Application Performance Monitoring (APM) tools, including New Relic for real-time insights, AppDynamics for code-level visibility, Dynatrace for AI-driven monitoring, Datadog for comprehensive observability, Splunk for log management, Stackify Retrace for error tracking, and Raygun for crash reporting. Each tool offers distinct features, and the choice depends on specific use cases, technology stacks, and organizational needs. Thorough evaluations, considering factors like ease of use, integration capabilities, and scalability, help in selecting the most suitable APM solution for effective application monitoring in a DevOps environment.
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Scalability
Auvik has worked on sites with 15+ offices connected with VPN's and we have not encountered any issues with the monitoring. On larger sites the map can be a bit cumbersome to read however it can be cleaned up easily with device filters.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • We are at an initial stage of device onboarding and Auvik already provides quick network documentation without having to worry about updating; this is done dynamically.
  • Helpful for MSP in that it uses role-based access control to present customer-focused device management, and simplifying administration for monitoring and alerting, dashboards and reports, and billing.
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  • Let's me monitor and pinpoint issues across multiple critical systems and applications that work in tandem, reducing drastically, the time in identifying root cause and solving the issues.
  • Let's me deep dive into issues found with a lot of detailed information about particular requests , and find proper solutions by my own research or even with Gen AI assistant using Watson.x or you could prompt your AI solution of choice as well.
  • All systems fail at some point, so IBM Instana gives stakeholders ease that large complex and critical systems that affect the very livelihood of people is being observed with pinpoint precision and that issues are addressed promptly and with compass pointing north towards the problem's root cause and solutions.
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ScreenShots

Auvik Screenshots

Screenshot of a display of the big network picture used to narrow down possible devices to investigate. Auvik pulls data from sources like CDP, LLDP, and forwarding tables to meticulously model the Layer 1 network diagram. Layers 2 and 3 are built from ARP tables, IP assignments, and VLAN associations to show what’s on the network, where it is, and how it’s connected.Screenshot of Auvik’s automated inventory, which uses network protocols to detect and capture full details for every device on the network including make and model, serial number, IP address, and the physical switchport the device is connected to. If the device is known but not its location, Auvik can find the device and every other device it’s connected to.Screenshot of lifecycle data, pulled from supported devices to show whether they’re on current or expired support contracts, whether there are more up-to-date software versions available, if devices are eligible to receive critical security updates, and if devices are still available for purchase.Screenshot of Auvik's over 50 pre-configured alerts tuned to industry best practices and ranging from informational to emergency. Its pre-configured alerts can be tweaked, added to, and the frequency of how often notifications are sent can be changed.Screenshot of Auvik TrafficInsights, which leverages machine learning and traffic classification to show which applications—like Dropbox, Netflix, or Slack—or protocols are using up the bulk of the network’s bandwidth.Screenshot of Auvik's centralized syslog for all network devices where they can be viewed directly from the device dashboard for more context, to more quickly troubleshoot network issues.