Report:
Magic Quadrant for Observability Platforms
How does Gartner define the Observability Platforms market in 2024?
Gartner defines observability platforms as products that ingest telemetry (operational data) from a variety of sources including, but not limited to, logs, metrics, events and traces. They are used to understand the health, performance and behavior of applications, services and infrastructure. Observability platforms enable an analysis of the telemetry, either via human operator or machine intelligence, to determine changes in system behavior that impact end-user experience such as outages or performance degradation. This allows for early, and even preemptive, problem remediation. Observability solutions are used by IT operations, site reliability engineers, cloud and platform teams, application developers, and product owners. Modern businesses rely heavily on critical digital applications and services, which are revenue-generating, client-facing and important to the efficient operation of the business. Observability platforms are used by organizations to understand and improve the availability, performance and resilience of these critical applications and services.
Key Facts for Magic Quadrant for Observability Platforms in 2024
- Publication Date: 12-Aug-2024
- Document ID: G00798774
- Coverage: Global
- Authors: Gregg Siegfried, Padraig Byrne
- Core Purpose: Observability platforms convert telemetry into insight and action using analytics, visualization, automation and increasingly, AI. Most include application performance monitoring capabilities, but APM is not enough. I&O leaders can use this research to explore these vendors and solutions.
Strategic Planning Assumptions
No strategic planning assumptions provided.
How was the Observability Platforms market evolved in 2024?
- The observability platforms market is expected to reach $11.1 billion by 2027, with an 8.3% CAGR between 2021 and 2027
- 17 vendors evaluated in this Magic Quadrant, with more than 40 vendors tracked in the market overall
- Market evolution from APM to observability platforms reflects widespread digitization of business and cloud adoption
- Expansion within existing clients as organizations monitor larger percentages of applications
- Growth in previously untapped industries, particularly small and midsize enterprises
- Competitive CSP-native solutions from public cloud service providers rivaling commercial products
- Consolidation of monitoring domains and practices continues across the market
- Increasing focus on support for cybersecurity use cases within observability platforms
- Growing demand for telemetry cost management and optimization capabilities
- AI and machine learning integration becoming table stakes for observability platforms
What product features are required to be included in this year's evaluation?
- Ingest, store and analyze operational telemetry feeds, including (but not limited to) metrics, event, log and trace data.
- Identify and analyze changes in application, service or infrastructure behavior in order to determine availability outages, performance degradation and/or impact on end-user experience.
- Enrich telemetry by providing contextualization in the form of both topological dependency mapping and the relationship with and between business services.
What are the common features of top products in the Observability Platforms space?
- Monitoring of digital experience of applications and services delivered via browser, mobile app and API.
- Integration with other operations, service management and software development technologies such as IT service management, configuration management database, event and incident response management, orchestration and automation, and DevOps tools.
- Telemetry collection from public cloud providers (such as Amazon CloudWatch, Microsoft Azure Monitor and Google Cloud Operations).
- Ability to perform interactive exploration and analysis of multiple telemetry types (such as traces, metrics and logs) to generate insights about user and application behavior.
- Providing insights through the use of advanced analytics and machine learning that are otherwise not possible or feasible to derive through manual interrogation and analysis of data.
- Automated discovery and mapping of related infrastructure, network and application components and services.
- Cost management that supports measuring and optimizing application workload cost, and/or measuring and optimizing observability platform utilization or spend.
- Business process and activity monitoring reflecting user journeys such as login to check-out, funnel analysis to track conversion rates, customer onboarding or loan application.
- Application security functionality, such as the identification of known vulnerabilities in monitored applications and the ability to block attempts to exploit them.
Scope Exclusions
- Self-hosted deployment options are outside the scope (SaaS delivery is required)
- Vertical/industry-specific solutions not broadly applicable
- Products not generally available as of March 14, 2024
- Solutions requiring professional services for direct customer sales
- Products lacking comprehensive English-language documentation and support
- Vendors not meeting revenue thresholds ($75M+ or $10M+ with 25% growth)
- Vendors with fewer than 50 production customers across two geographic regions
- Vendors not ranking in top organizations by Customer Interest Indicator (CII)
Inclusion Criteria
Vendors must, among other requirements:
- Generally available capabilities as of March 14, 2024
- Sell directly to paying customers without requiring professional services
- Active product roadmap and go-to-market strategies
- Phone, email and/or web customer support in English
- Native support for all mandatory capabilities and majority of common capabilities
- Delivered via SaaS (self-hosted alternatives optional but out of scope)
- At least 50 paying production customers in two or more geographic regions
- Either $75M+ in annual revenue OR $10M+ with 25%+ growth rate
- Rank among top organizations using Customer Interest Indicator (CII)
Ability to Execute — Relative Weighting
- Product or Service - High
- Overall Viability - Medium
- Sales Execution/Pricing - Medium
- Market Responsiveness/Record - High
- Marketing Execution - Medium
- Customer Experience - High
- Operations - Low
Completeness of Vision — Relative Weighting
- Market Understanding - High
- Marketing Strategy - Medium
- Sales Strategy - Medium
- Offering (Product) Strategy - High
- Business Model - High
- Vertical/Industry Strategy - NotRated
- Innovation - High
- Geographic Strategy - Medium
FAQs
Q: What does this research cover?
A: This research evaluates 17 observability platform vendors across their ability to execute and completeness of vision. It covers products that ingest telemetry from various sources (logs, metrics, events, traces) to understand health, performance and behavior of applications, services and infrastructure. The evaluation includes mandatory features like telemetry ingestion and analysis, change detection, and enrichment through contextualization. Common features assessed include digital experience monitoring, integration capabilities, cloud telemetry collection, interactive exploration, advanced analytics, automated discovery, cost management, business process monitoring, and application security functionality. Vendors are positioned across four quadrants: Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players.
Q: Who should use this research?
A: I&O leaders, site reliability engineers, cloud and platform teams, application developers, and product owners should use this research to evaluate and select observability platform vendors. It helps organizations understand vendor positioning, strengths, and cautions to make informed decisions about observability investments. The research is particularly valuable for organizations looking to improve availability, performance and resilience of critical applications and services, enable faster product development cycles, avoid revenue loss from outages, and support use cases across IT operations, platform engineering, software development, and business analytics. It also assists with understanding the evolution from traditional APM to modern observability platforms and navigating the competitive landscape of SaaS-based solutions.
Q: What are the mandatory features of vendors included in this market?
A: At a minimum, observability platforms must: (1) Ingest, store and analyze operational telemetry feeds including metrics, events, logs and trace data; (2) Identify and analyze changes in application, service or infrastructure behavior to determine availability outages, performance degradation and impact on end-user experience; and (3) Enrich telemetry by providing contextualization through topological dependency mapping and relationships with and between business services. These three capabilities form the foundation that distinguishes observability platforms from traditional monitoring tools.
Q: What are some reasons for not being included in this report?
A:
- Failed to meet Customer Interest Indicator (CII) threshold
- Did not meet minimum revenue requirements ($75M annual or $10M with 25% growth)
- Fewer than 50 paying production customers across required geographic regions
- Product was discontinued or not generally available
- Did not meet inclusion criteria for market participation
- Lacked native support for all mandatory capabilities
- Did not support majority of common capabilities
- SaaS delivery model not available or not primary offering
- Unable to sell directly to customers without professional services requirement
Q: What differentiates Ability to Execute vs. Completeness of Vision?
A: Ability to Execute evaluates vendors on current performance, operational excellence, and market success - focusing on product quality, sales effectiveness, customer experience, viability, and responsiveness. It measures how well vendors are performing today. Completeness of Vision evaluates vendors on their strategic direction and future potential - focusing on market understanding, innovation, product strategy, business model, and geographic expansion plans. It measures how well vendors are positioned for future market leadership and their ability to anticipate and shape market evolution.
Reference
- Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Observability Platforms, 12-Aug-2024, ID G00798774
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