# Elastic APM vs Kamon

| Attribute | Elastic APM | Kamon |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 49.7 (60% (medium)) | 54.2 (21% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 29 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 6 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 1,272 | - |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"on_prem":true,"air_gapped":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true}` |
| description.long | Application performance monitoring solution built on OpenTelemetry that automatically instruments applications, visualizes service dependencies, and identifies performance issues through distributed tracing and root cause analysis. | Application performance monitoring platform providing metrics and distributed tracing for backend services. Supports open-source Kamon Telemetry instrumentation and integrates with Prometheus, Jaeger, and other observability tools. |
| features.capabilities | `{"hosting":"both","languages":"Java, .NET, Python, Node.js, PHP, iOS, Android","service_map":true,"otel_support":"native","slo_tracking":true,"code_profiling":true,"error_analytics":true,"anomaly_detection":true,"distributed_tracing":true,"auto_instrumentation":true}` | `{"rum":false,"hosting":"cloud","languages":"Scala, Akka, Play Framework, Cats Effect, Akka HTTP, Lagom","service_map":true,"slo_tracking":false,"db_monitoring":true,"code_profiling":false,"error_analytics":false,"anomaly_detection":false,"distributed_tracing":true,"auto_instrumentation":true}` |
| integrations.count | 28 | 10 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"Anthropic"},{"name":"Jina AI"},{"name":"Amazon Bedrock"},{"name":"Aryn"},{"name":"LlamaIndex"},{"name":"Red Hat"},{"name":"Microsoft Azure AI"},{"name":"Hugging Face"},{"name":"Mistral"},{"name":"Cohere"},{"name":"Google Vertex AI"},{"name":"NVIDIA"},{"name":"Alibaba Cloud"},{"name":"IBM watsonx"},{"name":"Unstructured.io"},{"name":"LangChain"},{"name":"Apache Spark"},{"name":"Apache Hive"},{"name":"Slack"},{"name":"Jira"},{"name":"ServiceNow"},{"name":"PagerDuty"},{"name":"Microsoft Teams"},{"name":"IBM Resilient"},{"name":"xMatters"},{"name":"Tableau"},{"name":"Elasticsearch-Hadoop"}]` | `[{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Jaeger"},{"name":"Datadog"},{"name":"Slack"},{"name":"PagerDuty"},{"name":"Akka"},{"name":"Play Framework"},{"name":"Cats Effect"},{"name":"Lagom Framework"},{"name":"Akka HTTP"}]` |
| language.primary | Go | - |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"hqCountry":"HR","primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Open Source","features":["Elasticsearch search engine and vector database","Kibana visualization and analytics interface","Data ingestion with OTel, Logstash, and Beats","Basic authentication and RBAC","TLS encryption","APM, logging, and metrics","Community support and documentation"],"description":"Free, self-managed Elasticsearch Stack including core APM, logging, and security features","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Platinum","features":["SSO, LDAP/Active Directory, field/document-level security","Automated anomaly detection for logs and metrics","ELSER semantic search models","Cross-cluster replication for high availability","Service maps from APM data","Tail-based trace sampling","Service Level Objectives (SLOs)","APM root cause correlation","Premium support (24/7/365)"],"description":"Advanced security, machine learning anomaly detection, and high availability features","contactSales":true},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","features":["Searchable snapshots for long-term low-cost storage","Attack Discovery automated alert triage","Universal Profiling for code-level performance data","Cross-cluster search with advanced security","Elastic Agent Builder for RAG and search development","Jina AI models for semantic search and reranking","Inference Service Management for third-party LLMs","Hybrid search capabilities","Elastic Workflows for incident response automation","AI Assistant for Observability guidance","Endpoint detection and response actions"],"description":"Full-stack capabilities including searchable snapshots, AI-assisted investigation, universal profiling, and advanced orchestration","contactSales":true}],"summary":"Free open source self-managed. Platinum and Enterprise tiers available via contact sales. 14-day free trial for Elastic Cloud.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.elastic.co/pricing/self-managed","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T13:46:29.895Z","freeTrialDays":14}` | `{"type":"subscription","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Starter","summary":"Free - 5K metrics, 10M spans/mo, 3 team members, 1-day retention","features":["High-fidelity metrics with up to 1% error margin","End-to-end distributed tracing","Service map with dependencies and realtime status","Built-in integrations for HTTP, Database, and Akka services","Track CPU, memory, and file system usage for unlimited hosts","Search traces by any tag","Analyze and compare metrics with smart filters and insights","Receive in-app and email alert notifications","Sandboxes for staging and development data"],"minSeats":3,"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Great for getting started with observability in small projects","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"trace_spans":"10M/mo","data_retention":"1 day","unique_metrics":"5K"}},{"free":false,"name":"Teams","summary":"$89/mo - 10K metrics, 100M spans/mo, 20 team members","features":["High-fidelity metrics with up to 1% error margin","End-to-end distributed tracing","Service map with dependencies and realtime status","Built-in integrations for HTTP, Database, and Akka services","Track CPU, memory, and file system usage for unlimited hosts","Search traces by any tag","Analyze and compare metrics with smart filters and insights","Receive in-app and email alert notifications","Receive alert notifications via Slack and Pager Duty","Sandboxes for staging and development data","Onboarding workshops with the Kamon Telemetry developers","Custom instrumentation for in-house and unsupported libraries"],"minSeats":20,"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":89,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For teams getting serious about observability in production","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"trace_spans":"100M/mo","unique_metrics":"10K","spans_retention":"14 days","metrics_retention":"60 days"}},{"free":false,"name":"Business","summary":"$299/mo - 30K metrics, 500M spans/mo, 50 team members","features":["High-fidelity metrics with up to 1% error margin","End-to-end distributed tracing","Service map with dependencies and realtime status","Built-in integrations for HTTP, Database, and Akka services","Track CPU, memory, and file system usage for unlimited hosts","Search traces by any tag","Analyze and compare metrics with smart filters and insights","Receive in-app and email alert notifications","Receive alert notifications via Slack and Pager Duty","Sandboxes for staging and development data","Onboarding workshops with the Kamon Telemetry developers","Custom instrumentation for in-house and unsupported libraries"],"minSeats":50,"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":299,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For growing organizations feeling the pains of scaling","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"trace_spans":"500M/mo","unique_metrics":"30K","spans_retention":"14 days","metrics_retention":"60 days"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"From $1499/mo - custom configuration","features":["Custom metrics capacity","Custom span limits","Custom data retention","Dedicated support","Volume discounts","Annual billing"],"commitment":"annual","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":1499,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Custom capacity and data retention with dedicated support","contactSales":true}],"addOns":[{"name":"Additional metrics capacity","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":90,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Additional spans","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":60,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}]}],"summary":"From $89/mo. Free tier includes 5K metrics and 10M spans/month. Fixed subscription with transparent add-ons, no surprise overage charges.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://kamon.io/apm/pricing/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T18:18:06.357Z","startingPrice":{"amount":89,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | commercial | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | low | high |
| pricing.transparent | no | yes |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v9.5.2","date":"2026-08-20T16:43:27Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.5.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v9.5.1","date":"2026-08-11T17:57:36Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.5.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v9.4.5","date":"2026-08-11T17:57:57Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.4.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v8.19.20","date":"2026-08-11T18:23:19Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.19.20"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v9.5.0","date":"2026-08-04T11:47:38Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v9.4.4","date":"2026-07-21T12:56:55Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.4.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v9.3.8","date":"2026-07-21T12:56:44Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.3.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v8.19.19","date":"2026-07-21T13:28:16Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.19.19"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v9.4.3","date":"2026-06-30T15:47:38Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.4.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v8.19.18","date":"2026-06-30T16:56:00Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.19.18"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v9.3.7","date":"2026-06-30T16:47:08Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.3.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v9.3.6","date":"2026-06-23T14:09:52Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.3.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v8.19.17","date":"2026-06-23T13:59:11Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.19.17"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v9.4.2","date":"2026-05-28T14:59:37Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.4.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v9.3.5","date":"2026-05-28T14:59:37Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.3.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v8.19.16","date":"2026-05-28T14:59:39Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.19.16"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v9.4.1","date":"2026-05-12T18:02:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.4.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v9.4.0","date":"2026-05-05T15:20:48Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.4.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v9.3.4","date":"2026-04-30T15:24:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.3.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/elastic/apm-server/releases/tag/v8.19.15","date":"2026-04-30T15:24:36Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.19.15"}]` | - |
| reliability.status_page | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 6.9 | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Felastic%2Fapm-server%2Fapprovaltest&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | - |

## Capabilities (APM Tools)

| Capability | Elastic APM | Kamon |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **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 | OTel-native | - |
| **Core** |  |  |
| Language agents | Java, .NET, Python, Node.js, PHP, iOS, Android | Scala, Akka, Play Framework, Cats Effect, Akka HTTP, Lagom |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud + self-hosted | Cloud only |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T17:46:46.488Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*