Tracer features comparison matrix

Instana provides several tracing features across its different tracers. Use this reference to understand which capabilities are supported for your technology stack.

For more information about tracing, see Tracing concepts and Tracing in Instana.

The following tables show feature support across Instana tracers. For detailed configuration and usage of each feature, refer to the individual tracer documentation that is linked in the tables.

Table 1. Language-specific tracer features

Feature	Description	Java	Python	Ruby	Go	PHP	NGINX
Announcing to agent	Register with host agent	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Distributed tracing	Capture the complete flow of a request through your application architecture.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ignoring endpoints	Exclude specific endpoints from tracing	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
OpenTelemetry integration	Support for OpenTelemetry instrumentation	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No
Root exit span tracing	Trace exit spans without entry span	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Secrets filtering	Prevent sensitive data leakage	Yes	Yes	Yes (for URL parameters)	Yes (Only for HTTP parameters)	Yes	Yes
Server-Timing	Pass the trace ID to the HTTP client for End User Monitoring (EUM)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Serverless support	Support for serverless technologies	Yes: AWS Lambda AWS Fargate Google Cloud Run (GCP)	Yes: AWS Lambda AWS Fargate (ECS and EKS) GCP	Yes:   AWS Lambda AWS Fargate (only ECS)	Yes: AWS Lambda AWS Fargate GCP	Yes: AWS Fargate	Yes
Service naming (span.data.service orINSTANA_SERVICE_NAME)	Custom service name	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (throughINSTANA_SERVICE_NAME)	Yes(config env vars and JSON file)
Span batching	Send multiple spans in a batch at once	Yes	Yes	Yes (with a fixed size of 3000 spans)	No	Yes	No
Span buffering	Buffer spans when agent unavailable	Yes	Yes	No	Yes (with default values)	Yes	Yes using maxBufferedSpans
Span disabling	Disable specific span categories	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
Span filtering	Allow specific filtering rules to exclude or include from tracing	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
Span stack traces	Include stack traces in spans	Yes	Yes	Yes (not by default)	No	Yes	No
W3C Trace Context	Standard trace context propagation	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
X-INSTANA-SYNTHETIC	Mark calls as synthetic	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
X-INSTANA-T/-S/-L	Instana tracing headers	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

Table 2. Runtime and middleware tracer features

Feature	Description	Node.js	CLR (.NET Framework)	.NET Core	IBM MQ	IBM ACE	HTTPd
Announcing to agent	Register with host agent	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Distributed tracing	Capture the complete flow of a request through your application architecture.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ignoring endpoints	Exclude specific endpoints from tracing	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
OpenTelemetry integration	Support for OpenTelemetry instrumentation	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Root exit span tracing	Trace exit spans without entry span	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Secrets filtering	Prevent sensitive data leakage	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Server-Timing	Pass the trace ID to the HTTP client for End User Monitoring (EUM)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Serverless support	Support for serverless technologies	Yes	No	Yes: AWS Lambda AWS Fargate GCP Azure functions	No	No	No
Service naming (span.data.service orINSTANA_SERVICE_NAME)	Custom service name	Yes	No (only in SDK)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (through INSTANA_SERVICE_NAME)
Span batching	Send multiple spans in a batch at once	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Span buffering	Buffer spans when agent unavailable	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Span disabling	Disable specific span categories	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Span filtering	Allow specific filtering rules to exclude or include from tracing	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Span stack traces	Include stack traces in spans	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
W3C Trace Context	Standard trace context propagation	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
X-INSTANA-SYNTHETIC	Mark calls as synthetic	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
X-INSTANA-T/-S/-L	Instana tracing headers	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes