vioscale
Comparison

Glowroot vs Instana

On the evidence we track, Instana leads this comparison with a composite score of 59/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Glowroot full profile →Instana full profile →
Machine formatsJSONMarkdownGraphQLor send Accept: application/json
Glowroot53
★Instana59
Score
Vioscale score
Glowroot53 / 100medium · 53%updating
Instana59 / 100low · 40%updating
Pricing
Free tier
Glowroot–
Instana✓
Model
Glowrootopen_source
Instanaquote
Price level
Glowrootfree
Instanalow
Transparent
Glowroot✓
Instana✗
Integrations
Count
Glowroot50
Instana300
Security
Disclosure policy
Glowroot–
Instana✓
Gdpr
Glowroot–
Instana✓
Scorecard
Glowroot4.2
Instana–
Soc2
Glowroot–
Instana✓
Vulnerabilities
Reliability
Status page
Glowroot✓
Instana–
Adoption
Dependent repos
Glowroot13
Instana–
Github stars
Glowroot1,355
Instana–
Activity
Commits last 30d
Glowroot27
Instana–
Release
Cadence days
Glowroot19
Instana–
History
Glowroot20 items
Instana–
License
Spdx
GlowrootApache-2.0
Instana–
Language
Primary
GlowrootJava
Instana–
Market
Availability
Glowroot–
InstanaAvailable worldwide

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for apm tools. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Instrumentation
Auto-instrumentation
Glowroot✓
Instana✓
Distributed tracing
Glowroot✓
Instana✓
Insight
Service map
Glowroot-
Instana✓
Code / continuous profiling
Glowroot✓
Instana✓
Database monitoring
Glowroot✓
Instana✓
Error analytics
Glowroot✓
Instana✓
Real-user monitoring
Glowroot-
Instana✓
SLO / error-budget tracking
Glowroot-
Instana-
Intelligence
Anomaly / root-cause AI
Glowroot-
Instana✓
Standards
OpenTelemetry support
GlowrootNone
InstanaOTLP ingest
Core
Language agents
GlowrootJava
Instana300+ technologies supported
Deployment
Hosting
GlowrootSelf-hosted only
InstanaCloud + self-hosted

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

Glowroot

Glowroot is a Java application performance monitoring (APM) tool that captures request traces, provides continuous profiling, response time analysis, and database monitoring with extensive library and framework instrumentation.

Independently observed

Instana

Leader

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.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

Glowroot

Open source
as of verify ↗

Instana

Leader
SubscriptionFree tier14-day trial
  • EssentialsContact sales
    • Infrastructure monitoring
    • Automatic infrastructure dynamic map
    • Cloud, hybrid and on-premise discovery
    • Kubernetes and orchestration monitoring
  • StandardContact sales
    • Distributed end-to-end tracing
    • Website and mobile observability
    • Code-level visibility
    • Synthetic monitoring
    • Business process monitoring
    • +3 more
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
Glowroot✓
Instana✓
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Glowroot✗
Instana✓
Self-hosted
Glowroot✓
Instana✗
On-premise
Glowroot✗
Instana✓
Hybrid
Glowroot✗
Instana✓

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

In common (3)
  • Cassandra
  • MongoDB
  • Redis

Glowroot

39 total - 36 not shared
  • Apache Camel
  • EJB
  • Elasticsearch
  • Grails
  • Hibernate
  • Apache HttpClient
  • Apache HttpAsyncClient
  • AsyncHttpClient
  • OkHttp
  • JavaMail
  • JAX-RS
  • JAX-WS
  • JDBC
  • JMS
  • JSF
  • JSP
  • Kafka
  • JUL
  • Log4j
  • Logback
  • Netty
  • Play Framework
  • Quartz Scheduler
  • Servlets
  • +12 more
Independently observed

Instana

Leader
32 total - 29 not shared
  • ServiceNow
  • AWS
  • Azure
  • Google Cloud
  • Oracle Cloud
  • IBM Cloud
  • Kubernetes
  • VMware Tanzu
  • Cloud Foundry
  • VSphere
  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • Oracle Database
  • IBM Db2
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • SAP HANA
  • Apache Spark
  • Hadoop YARN
  • Apache HBase
  • ClickHouse
  • OpenSearch
  • GraphQL
  • AWS EC2
  • AWS RDS
  • +5 more
Independently observed

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.