# Apache SkyWalking vs Instana

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Instana

| Attribute | Apache SkyWalking | Instana |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 52.9 (55% (medium)) | 60 (41% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 21 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 106 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 24,968 | - |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"An open-source observability platform combining distributed tracing, metrics, logs, and profiling in one interface. Provides automatic instrumentation across 10+ languages, interactive service topology visualization, database monitoring, and an AI assistant for answering observability questions in natural language. It is indexed under APM Tools.","source":"https://skywalking.apache.org/","question":"What is Apache SkyWalking?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Apache SkyWalking is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the Apache-2.0 licence. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://skywalking.apache.org/","question":"Is Apache SkyWalking free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Apache SkyWalking supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://skywalking.apache.org/","question":"What platforms does Apache SkyWalking support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Apache SkyWalking can be deployed cloud / SaaS and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://skywalking.apache.org/","question":"Can Apache SkyWalking be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 14 integrations for Apache SkyWalking, including Apache APISIX, Grafana, OpenTelemetry Collector, Amazon Bedrock, OpenAI, WeChat Mini Program, Alipay Mini Program and Kafka, plus 6 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://skywalking.apache.org/","question":"What does Apache SkyWalking integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Apache SkyWalking is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking","question":"Is Apache SkyWalking open source?","confidence":0.95}]` | `[{"answer":"A monitoring and observability platform that automatically discovers and monitors applications and infrastructure, providing real-time full-stack visibility with AI-powered incident investigation and performance optimization. It is indexed under APM Tools.","source":"https://www.ibm.com/products/instana/pricing","question":"What is Instana?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Instana does not publish its prices. Pricing is quoted on request, across 2 plans (Essentials and Standard), so the figure depends on your seat count and requirements. We record this as a pricing-transparency signal rather than guessing a number. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://www.ibm.com/products/instana/pricing","question":"How much does Instana cost?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed browser-based access to Instana. That is the extent of what we could verify from public sources, so it may well offer desktop or mobile clients we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.ibm.com/products/instana/pricing","question":"What platforms does Instana support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Instana can be deployed cloud / SaaS, hybrid and on-premise, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://www.ibm.com/products/instana/pricing","question":"Can Instana be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 28 integrations for Instana, including ServiceNow, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud, Kubernetes and VMware Tanzu, plus 20 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.ibm.com/products/instana/pricing","question":"What does Instana integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2 and GDPR for Instana. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Instana not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://www.ibm.com/products/instana/pricing","question":"What security certifications does Instana have?","confidence":0.6}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | An open-source system for monitoring and analyzing distributed applications with comprehensive tracing, service topology visualization, and multi-signal observability for microservices and AI workloads. | A monitoring and observability platform that automatically discovers and monitors applications and infrastructure, providing real-time full-stack visibility with AI-powered incident investigation and performance optimization. |
| features.capabilities | `{"rum":true,"hosting":"both","languages":"10+ language agents supported","service_map":true,"otel_support":"ingest","db_monitoring":true,"code_profiling":true,"error_analytics":true,"anomaly_detection":true,"distributed_tracing":true,"auto_instrumentation":true}` | `{"rum":true,"hosting":"both","languages":"300+ technologies supported","service_map":true,"otel_support":"ingest","db_monitoring":true,"code_profiling":true,"error_analytics":true,"anomaly_detection":true,"distributed_tracing":true,"auto_instrumentation":true}` |
| integrations.count | 18 | 300 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Apache APISIX"},{"name":"Grafana"},{"name":"OpenTelemetry Collector"},{"name":"Amazon Bedrock"},{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"WeChat Mini Program"},{"name":"Alipay Mini Program"},{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"MySQL"},{"name":"PostgreSQL"},{"name":"Redis"},{"name":"Envoy"},{"name":"DeepSeek"},{"name":"Claude Sonnet"},{"name":"Zipkin","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"OpenTelemetry","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Prometheus","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Zabbix","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Fluentd","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Flink","native":true},{"name":"Kong","native":true},{"name":"Apache RocketMQ","native":true},{"name":"Apache ActiveMQ","native":true},{"name":"Pulsar","native":true},{"name":"ClickHouse","native":true},{"name":"MongoDB","native":true},{"name":"Nginx","native":true},{"name":"Kubernetes","native":true},{"name":"Cilium","native":true},{"name":"BookKeeper","native":true},{"name":"ChatGPT","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Telegraf","native":true,"category":"metrics"},{"name":"Apache Pulsar","native":true,"category":"message_queue"}]` | `[{"name":"ServiceNow"},{"name":"AWS"},{"name":"Azure"},{"name":"Google Cloud"},{"name":"Oracle Cloud"},{"name":"IBM Cloud"},{"name":"Kubernetes"},{"name":"VMware Tanzu"},{"name":"Cloud Foundry"},{"name":"VSphere"},{"name":"PostgreSQL"},{"name":"MySQL"},{"name":"MongoDB"},{"name":"Redis"},{"name":"Cassandra"},{"name":"Oracle Database"},{"name":"IBM Db2"},{"name":"Microsoft SQL Server"},{"name":"SAP HANA"},{"name":"Apache Spark"},{"name":"Hadoop YARN"},{"name":"Apache HBase"},{"name":"ClickHouse"},{"name":"OpenSearch"},{"name":"GraphQL"},{"name":"AWS EC2"},{"name":"AWS RDS"},{"name":"AWS S3"},{"name":"Google Compute Engine"},{"name":"Redis Enterprise"},{"name":"JBoss Data Grid"},{"name":"Ceph"},{"name":"OpenTelemetry","native":true,"category":"observability"},{"name":"Microsoft Azure","native":true,"category":"cloud"},{"name":"Amazon EKS","native":true,"category":"kubernetes"},{"name":"AWS ECS","native":true,"category":"orchestration"},{"name":"VMware vSphere","native":true,"category":"virtualization"},{"name":"Lettuce","native":true,"category":"database"},{"name":"Sybase SQL Anywhere","native":true,"category":"database"},{"name":"etcd","native":true,"category":"database"},{"name":"Memcached","native":true,"category":"database"},{"name":"Neo4j","native":true,"category":"database"},{"name":"Aerospike","native":true,"category":"database"},{"name":"FaunaDB","native":true,"category":"database"},{"name":"Azure CosmosDB","native":true,"category":"database"},{"name":"RabbitMQ","native":true,"category":"messaging"},{"name":"Linux","native":true,"category":"os"},{"name":"Windows","native":true,"category":"os"},{"name":"CoreOS","native":true,"category":"os"},{"name":"Ansible","native":true,"category":"deployment"},{"name":"Chef","native":true,"category":"deployment"},{"name":"Eclipse OpenJ9","native":true,"category":"runtime"}]` |
| language.primary | Java | - |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | - |
| market.availability | - | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true,"linux":true}` | `{"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://skywalking.apache.org/","retrievedAt":"2026-10-14T22:35:59.641Z"}` | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Try Instana for Free","summary":"Free 14-day trial","features":["Application monitoring","Infrastructure monitoring","Log monitoring","Digital experience monitoring","Microservice visibility","AI-powered insights","300+ technology support"],"components":[{"kind":"one_time","amount":0,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"14-day trial offering full access to monitor applications, infrastructure, logs, and digital experiences","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"PayPerUse","summary":"From $0.03/MVS hour","features":["Infrastructure monitoring (Essentials)","Full observability option","No commitment","Cancel anytime"],"components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"MVS hour"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.03,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Usage-based pricing for infrastructure-only or full observability without time commitment","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"SaaS","summary":"From $21.20/MVS/month","features":["Unlimited users","Unlimited hosts and scale","Service discovery and mapping","Distributed end-to-end tracing","Serverless monitoring","Container and Kubernetes monitoring","Mobile application monitoring","Synthetic monitoring","Business process monitoring","Infrastructure dynamic mapping","AI-powered root cause analysis","Incident summarization"],"components":[{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"MVS","amount":21.2,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Subscription-based platform with unlimited users and no limits on hosts or scale","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Self-Hosted","summary":"From $385.20/MVS/year","features":["Service discovery and mapping","Distributed end-to-end tracing","Serverless monitoring","Container and runtime monitoring","Kubernetes monitoring","Mobile application monitoring","Synthetic monitoring","Business process monitoring","Infrastructure monitoring","Cloud discovery","Hybrid and on-premise resource discovery","AI-powered root cause analysis","Incident summarization"],"commitment":"annual","components":[{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"MVS","amount":385.2,"period":"year","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Self-managed deployment with full control over data, infrastructure, and upgrade cadence","contactSales":false}],"addOns":[{"name":"Managed PoPs"},{"name":"Data ingestion"},{"name":"Logs in context"}],"summary":"From $0.03/MVS hour (pay-per-use) or $21.20/MVS/month (SaaS). 14-day free trial available.","currency":"USD","freeTier":false,"sourceUrl":"https://www.ibm.com/products/instana/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-09-21T11:35:15.750Z","freeTrialDays":14,"startingPrice":{"unit":"MVS","amount":21.2,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | no |
| pricing.model | open_source | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | free | mid |
| pricing.starting_price | - | `{"amount":21.2,"currency":"USD"}` |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| release.cadence_days | 93 | - |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v11.0.0","date":"2026-08-28T02:40:59Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.0.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v10.4.0","date":"2026-04-01T12:51:05Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.4.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v10.3.0","date":"2025-11-10T11:40:02Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v10.2.0","date":"2025-03-24T11:52:09Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v10.1.0","date":"2024-09-29T13:30:12Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.1.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v10.0.1","date":"2024-05-30T03:42:06Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.0.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v10.0.0","date":"2024-05-13T01:02:53Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.0.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.7.0","date":"2023-12-01T18:19:39Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.7.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.6.0","date":"2023-09-03T14:33:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.6.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.5.0","date":"2023-06-18T16:20:59Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.4.0","date":"2023-03-09T04:01:37Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.4.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.3.0","date":"2022-12-04T03:44:41Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.2.0","date":"2022-09-01T12:54:27Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.1.0","date":"2022-06-10T03:01:22Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.1.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.0.0","date":"2022-04-09T12:13:55Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.0.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v8.9.1","date":"2021-12-11T13:57:42Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.9.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v8.9.0","date":"2021-12-05T07:33:26Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.9.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v8.8.1","date":"2021-10-02T16:39:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.8.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v8.8.0","date":"2021-09-27T09:58:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.8.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v8.7.0","date":"2021-08-02T12:25:39Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.7.0"}]` | - |
| security.disclosure_policy | - | yes |
| security.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 7 | - |
| security.soc2 | - | yes |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=maven&package_name=org.apache.skywalking%3Azipkin-receiver-plugin&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | - |

## Capabilities (APM Tools)

| Capability | Apache SkyWalking | Instana |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Instrumentation** |  |  |
| Auto-instrumentation | ✓ | ✓ |
| Distributed tracing | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Insight** |  |  |
| Service map | ✓ | ✓ |
| Code / continuous profiling | ✓ | ✓ |
| Database monitoring | ✓ | ✓ |
| Error analytics | ✓ | ✓ |
| Real-user monitoring | ✓ | ✓ |
| SLO / error-budget tracking | - | - |
| **Intelligence** |  |  |
| Anomaly / root-cause AI | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Standards** |  |  |
| OpenTelemetry support | OTLP ingest | OTLP ingest |
| **Core** |  |  |
| Language agents | 10+ language agents supported | 300+ technologies supported |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud + self-hosted | Cloud + self-hosted |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T20:59:05.904Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*