# Instana vs Kamon

| Attribute | Instana | Kamon |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 58.9 (40% (low)) | 59.7 (21% (low)) |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true}` | `{"cloud":true}` |
| description.long | 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. | 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 | `{"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}` | `{"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 | 300 | 10 |
| integrations.list | `[{"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":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Jaeger"},{"name":"Datadog"},{"name":"Slack"},{"name":"PagerDuty"},{"name":"Akka"},{"name":"Play Framework"},{"name":"Cats Effect"},{"name":"Lagom Framework"},{"name":"Akka HTTP"}]` |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"hqCountry":"HR","primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"web":true}` | `{"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"subscription","plans":[{"free":false,"name":"Essentials","features":["Infrastructure monitoring","Automatic infrastructure dynamic map","Cloud, hybrid and on-premise discovery","Kubernetes and orchestration monitoring"],"description":"Infrastructure monitoring and discovery","contactSales":true},{"free":false,"name":"Standard","features":["Distributed end-to-end tracing","Website and mobile observability","Code-level visibility","Synthetic monitoring","Business process monitoring","AI/LLM observability","Agentic AI root cause analysis","Incident summarization"],"description":"Full-stack observability including applications","contactSales":true}],"addOns":[{"name":"Managed PoPs","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"execution"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.0003,"currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Logs in context","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"gb"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.35,"currency":"USD"}]}],"currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.ibm.com/products/instana/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T13:42:22.590Z","freeTrialDays":14,"billingPeriods":["year"]}` | `{"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 | quote | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | low | high |
| pricing.transparent | no | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | yes |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |

## Capabilities (APM Tools)

| Capability | Instana | 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 | OTLP ingest | - |
| **Core** |  |  |
| Language agents | 300+ technologies supported | Scala, Akka, Play Framework, Cats Effect, Akka HTTP, Lagom |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud + self-hosted | Cloud only |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T14:59:50.363Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*