A detailed comparison of Datadog and Grafana to help you choose the right tool for your needs.
Cloud-scale monitoring, analytics, and security for DevOps teams.
Open-source observability and data visualization platform.
| Plan | Datadog | Grafana |
|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | ✓ 5 hosts, 1-day retention | ✓ Grafana Cloud Free (10k metrics) |
| Lowest Paid | $15/host/mo | $29/mo |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom pricing |
| Feature | Datadog | Grafana |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure monitoring | ✓ | — |
| APM | ✓ | — |
| Log management | ✓ | — |
| Security monitoring | ✓ | — |
| Synthetic monitoring | ✓ | — |
| 600+ integrations | ✓ | — |
| Dashboards | — | ✓ |
| Alerting | — | ✓ |
| Data Source Plugins | — | ✓ |
| Explore | — | ✓ |
| Annotations | — | ✓ |
| Templating | — | ✓ |
| Open Source | ✗ | ✓ |
| Rating | ⭐ 4.6 | ⭐ 4.5 |
Choose Datadog if: You need devops and sre teams needing enterprise-grade observability across infrastructure, apps, and security. Datadog excels with its most comprehensive observability and excellent correlation.
Choose Grafana if: You need devops teams needing customizable monitoring dashboards. Grafana stands out with its open source and beautiful dashboards.
Best free option: Both Datadog and Grafana offer free tiers. Datadog offers "5 hosts, 1-day retention" while Grafana offers "Grafana Cloud Free (10k metrics)".
It depends on your needs. Datadog is better for devops and sre teams needing enterprise-grade observability across infrastructure, apps, and security, while Grafana is better for devops teams needing customizable monitoring dashboards. Both are excellent tools rated 4.6 and 4.5 respectively.
Datadog starts at $15/host/mo while Grafana starts at $29/mo. Both offer free tiers.
Most tools offer import/export features to help you migrate. We recommend trying Grafana's free tier before fully committing to a switch.
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