Amazon CloudWatch Reviews

While we have used CloudWatch, we have not used it extensively. We should start monitoring our applications once it starts performing in production. We are not at that stage yet. However, we have implemented it. In the end, we will use it mainly to monitor our applications.

It's a very simple logging system. It's a very simple monitoring system, however, you have other advanced services as well if you choose to go more advanced. This is a simpler product that we can use right away.

The implementation process is very simple.

It's not an advanced way of monitoring.

I haven’t used the solution for that long.

Until now, we haven't seen any stability issues. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn’t crash or freeze. It is reliable.

I’m not aware of the level of scalability on offer.

Right now, for monitoring, what we do is, we have a login into an SQL server.

It's very easy to implement. It's simple. These are solutions that are very simple to use, and therefore, there isn’t really any complexity involved.

You may not need so much technical knowledge or information to use this product. That said, there are some policies where you would need to know how to write the script. Still, it would be simple for anyone to use quickly.

I'm not aware of the pricing.

Since it is a cloud solution, we are likely on the latest version, although I don’t know the exact version number.

This is a basic version that you can start using right away, and there's nothing too technical to think about or to know. You can implement it right away and then try to scale up or advance on the monitoring.

I would rate the product eight out of ten.

We use Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring infrastructure for EC2 instances. We created CPU, memory, system, status, and disk utilization checks. Based on those checks, we created actions such as disk cleaning by running a command, integrating with Lambda, and sending email notifications. We use the basic functionalities of Amazon CloudWatch.

Amazon CloudWatch helped improve my company through notification and automation. The tool is integrated with actions, so if an alarm gets triggered, you can execute an action through Amazon CloudWatch. Task automation through Amazon CloudWatch has improved the company's overall efficiency in terms of the time to resolve issues, so the tool has been beneficial.

What I found most valuable in Amazon CloudWatch is that it gives you detailed information, which I found helpful because it can even provide you with data for the past one minute, which is quite granular. That was what helped me most in terms of finding the root causes.

Task automation is another valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch.

What would make Amazon CloudWatch better is if it includes more on-site checks, particularly status checks on the CPU, network input/output, etc. It would also be helpful if there's built-in swap space, disk, and memory monitoring in Amazon CloudWatch because, at the moment, my team has to configure it manually through a shell script.

Amazon CloudWatch is a pretty complete tool with many features, so apart from the improvements I mentioned, there isn't anything else I want to change in Amazon CloudWatch.

I've been using Amazon CloudWatch for almost two years.

Amazon CloudWatch is a very stable tool.

Amazon CloudWatch is a scalable tool because it has no limitations in the number of systems and alarms you can create.

I'd rate support for Amazon CloudWatch four out of five, but this is because my company has AWS premium support, so I'm unsure how it is with others with a different level of support with AWS.

We didn't use a different solution before using Amazon CloudWatch.

The initial setup for Amazon CloudWatch was quite okay, particularly for the standard alarms provided by Amazon. Still, for the custom alarms, such as memory and disk alarms, you have to put in some effort because if you make changes to the system, you'd also have to make changes in the scripts as well, so if that could be automated, it would be beneficial.

We implemented Amazon CloudWatch in-house. We're in consulting, so in a way, we're the third party who can implement the tool.

As my company only had to put in a small investment for Amazon CloudWatch, and the tool helped in terms of monitoring, alerting, etc., and is quite a good tool, in my opinion, it gave my company good ROI.

Amazon CloudWatch has very cheap pricing, and it hardly costs my company $25-$30 a month for fifty systems, so it's pretty affordable.

My company didn't evaluate other options because Amazon CloudWatch was pretty native. It was the only tool that was there, so Amazon CloudWatch was the only tool my company used and nothing else.

Amazon CloudWatch is a web-based tool, so there's no version control for it, so you could say it's always the latest version provided by Amazon. It's deployed on the cloud.

Almost everyone from the technical team within my company uses Amazon CloudWatch, so that's five to six people in total.

One to two people is enough to handle the deployment and maintenance of Amazon CloudWatch because it's a one-time process. Once it's done, you don't need to change it in a way, so one to two people would be fine.

As Amazon CloudWatch is an essential tool for my company, usage of it will gradually increase with new projects or instances because of the basic infrastructure monitoring and similar features it provides; however, there's no plan to expand in terms of doing more with Amazon CloudWatch.

My advice to others looking into implementing Amazon CloudWatch is that Amazon has pretty sufficient documentation on installing the tool and configuring the alerts. Still, it would be better to have a script deployed through Lambda to create alarms or use the Amazon SSM Agent to create the alarms instead of manually doing it.

I'd rate Amazon CloudWatch as eight out of ten because it does whatever it promises, and it's a good tool for monitoring and alerting.

I use Amazon CloudWatch to check the log we have sent, ensuring it isn't blocked. That is the primary purpose.

I like its filtering capability and its ability to give the cyber engine insights. It's useful to analyze past data and compare it with recent activities.

CloudWatch itself is fine. That said, maybe Amazon Web Services can improve by providing a library for CloudWatch with some useful features.

We have been using it for about two to three years.

I have never experienced any issues with stability.

I have not contacted their support team.

Positive

From my perspective as a tester, the initial setup is easy. However, for setting up cloud logging and management, developers might have more insights.

It is easy to access all previous historic logs and retrieve phased data as per our filters. That is the best capability it offers.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

I use it for log monitoring and log capture. That's the main purpose. 

Alerts and notifications functions help with the operational response. For example, if you have a critical server and want to set an alert if CPU utilization exceeds 90%, a notification will be raised. You can link an action to that notification, not just notify. 

You can automate actions or use AWS functionalities like auto-scaling, where you can configure the metrics to add more nodes if the threshold is exceeded. AWS has become very rich in functionality over time, and the same piece of functionality can solve different problems.

CloudWatch automation works through notifications linked to Lambda functions, which can then perform any automation you like.

CloudWatch has many things. It gives you metrics and logs. You can set up alerts and notifications for the metrics and do a lot of automation once you have the notifications. 

You can also create dashboards, although it's an additional fee that AWS charges. We can create a different dashboard with Grafana kind of thing. 

The use cases are different for different people, but three things everyone uses are: 

• Metrics monitoring
• Log monitoring, and 
• Alerting and notification.

CloudWatch is extremely helpful for automation and other things for experienced users, but it's not very intuitive. It doesn't have drag-and-drop functionality to trigger actions from notifications. It's very capable, but it requires expert knowledge to leverage that capability.

So, for new or basic users, it's a bit complex to understand how it works. Basic users can see what is happening in the console, but building automation and other things requires expert knowledge.

Improvement in log patterns and metrics: 

There are a lot of things. For example, there are log patterns and metric patterns. But if you have to do anomaly detection, I think the latest version added that, but they didn't have it before. Users can build it; Users can stream the log, build log analytics, and do anomaly detection, but it is not very straightforward. It's a very powerful tool, but you need expert knowledge to do those things.

Region-specific service puts certain limits:

Also, CloudWatch is a very region-specific service. People struggle with that, for example, if you have an application distributed in different geographies like Europe, India, and the USA. There is no way to aggregate CloudWatch logs in one place for workloads in every region. You need a third-party tool to get a holistic view of your application. CloudWatch has the data, but you need advanced skills to aggregate it and create insights.

Suggestions for additional functionality for CloudWatch: 

Cloudwatch needs better built-in analytics capability. CloudWatch has a lot of data, but it's difficult to gain insights unless you stream it to a third-party log analytics tool. If there were built-in capabilities to analyze the data, that would be great.

I have been using Amazon CloudWatch for ten years. We do work on a lot of AWS services, like CloudWatch, SageMaker, and even their generative AI solution like Bedrock.

I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. There are no issues with stability. 

I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. 

There are around 50 end users, and all the ops people use CloudWatch.

AWS provides multiple support levels, including basic, business, and enterprise support. Your experience can differ depending on your support level.

My company uses business support. Quality-wise, it's okay most of the time, but sometimes, you get people with less experience. Response time could be improved because, for production applications, you want immediate support. Sometimes, it can take up to an hour to get someone on chat support.

Neutral

Azure also has something like CloudWatch. All cloud vendors have something similar.

The initial setup is very simple. 

CloudWatch also has an API, so I can send logs to CloudWatch by calling the API. But natively, it only integrates with AWS services.

Integration capabilities: 

AWS has built different frameworks, like the simple notification service (SNS). From AWS SNS, I can fire Lambda or integrate with the event bus, AWS EventBridge. From an integration point of view among the peers, AWS is probably one of the best that offers you the integration capability.

I would rate the pricing in the middle. It is a five out of ten, with one being high price, and ten being low price. 

Everyone needs it. There is no other way to capture central logs, so it's for everyone, irrespective of the size of the company.

I would recommend it. Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

It serves as a diagnostic and profiling tool, particularly useful for dissecting the intricacies of applications, especially in scenarios like Microsoft's best applications. When a user triggers transactions through the GUI, such as purchasing tickets for events like cricket or concerts, the process involves multiple layers—starting from the front-end GUI to the back-end middle tier, microservices, and concluding with database interactions. It allows me to meticulously analyze and monitor these processes by creating and examining various logs. I can delve into the details of each stage, from API calls to network components, and server processing (involving Java Virtual Machine), and even gauge how long specific APIs or queries take to execute. This tool proves invaluable in identifying bottlenecks, such as waiting times or timeouts and understanding the performance of APIs, queries, and even the efficiency of gateways.

When working with AWS services like Lambda functions and AWS Step Functions, it facilitates the creation of insightful dashboards. These dashboards offer a comprehensive view of Lambda function performance, allowing me to gauge capacity utilization and identify areas requiring optimization. In recent experiences, its profiling capabilities have been instrumental in creating detailed dashboards for monitoring.

It is a robust analytical tool and it goes beyond mere functionality and extends into the realm of providing comprehensive insights. It empowers me with analytical skills and capabilities, offering a detailed snapshot of the entire process of requests within an application. Its strength lies in its ability to paint a vivid picture of the application's performance by breaking down the journey of each request, revealing which components are causing delays, and identifying specific pain points.

There is a need for seamless integration with databases, whether they are open-source or proprietary like InfluxDB. Incorporating a straightforward method or a plug-and-play solution for integrating these databases with our systems, facilitating smooth data transfer, and enabling the creation of dashboards for monitoring and analysis would be beneficial.

Over the past six to seven months, I've been actively using it for one of our ongoing projects, but my broader experience extends over two to three years, particularly in migration projects from on-premises to cloud-based solutions.

I find it remarkably stable. Its effectiveness in helping me discern patterns, understand the behavior of components, requests, queries, or even aspects related to application performance is noteworthy.

Approximately forty to fifty individuals within the current organization use it actively.

When issues arise or specific requirements demand assistance, the process of reaching out to support can be somewhat cumbersome. Resolving concerns involve navigating through channels, creating or accessing accounts, and then connecting with support.

While I have some hands-on involvement, the extent of my practical experience has been limited as the detailed implementation is usually managed by specialized teams.

The pricing can be considered reasonable, especially when already operating on a cloud platform. The cost is justifiable given the expertise it offers and its capabilities in addressing challenges associated with cloud environments.

Leveraging CloudWatch is advantageous due to its seamless integration with cloud services, making it a valuable asset for monitoring and gaining insights into the platform's performance. Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

CloudWatch is used to monitor not only for the cloud but also for on-premises services. So, you could think of it as a comprehensive monitoring tool. It's just proprietary monitoring software.

Every time we get an alarm or have an incident, CloudWatch is always there. We use it not only for resources we've spun up in the cloud but also for some of our on-premises resources. There are many advantages you can set up on CloudWatch, so it has improved the overall stability of our environment and financial monitoring. If anything goes out of budget, CloudWatch notifies us.

The most valuable feature is monitoring. 

There is room for improvement in the pricing because they have a premium version, but it's not really a premium version. It's just an enhanced monitoring version, and it can be a bit expensive depending on your usage.

I have used it for five years in a row. I currently use the latest version because it's a SaaS. 

I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. 

I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten.

The initial setup has medium complexity. You have to know what you're looking for.

I have seen an ROI.

I would say to someone who wants to use it, read the recommendations thoroughly before you start using it.

Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten.

We use Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring applications. We use it for Synthetics and also RAM. Amazon CloudWatch has been very helpful for monitoring our applications. We have been able to create a monitoring account where we get metrics, traces, and application monitoring data in one account. One noteworthy feature is that this is free of cost.

Amazon CloudWatch has been very helpful for monitoring our applications. We have been able to create a monitoring account where we get metrics, traces, and application monitoring data in one account. One noteworthy feature is that this is free of cost.

The most valuable part is the metrics part, which is really good. They recently introduced Application Signals, which we like the most. Additionally, the Synthetics feature is something that we love.

There is some delay in logging that they need to improve on. While CloudWatch is good, when compared to Dynatrace, there are several areas for improvement. For instance, Dynatrace has better distributed tracing and a feature like back trace, which CloudWatch lacks. In terms of alerts, we use PagerDuty, but composite alarms and similar features need more work.

I would say I have almost three years of experience with Amazon CloudWatch.

Amazon CloudWatch is stable. However, there is some delay in logging that needs improvement.

It is pretty scalable. We have not had any problems so far.

Amazon's customer service is very good. They are both responsive and knowledgeable. Depending on the ticket, they connect us with the right resource without having us jump through different channels.

Positive

Previously, we used Dynatrace, which is an APM tool. We recently moved to CloudWatch but still use Dynatrace.

The initial setup of Amazon CloudWatch is very simple. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the ease of setup between nine and ten.

Multiple squads and teams, approximately 200 different teams, have been using Amazon CloudWatch.

Return on this investment is still to be discovered. Currently, we are in the middle of migration, paying for both on-prem and CloudWatch, as well as Dynatrace and CloudWatch. Once everything is settled in the cloud, we will have a clearer picture.

In general, Amazon CloudWatch is cheaper compared to Dynatrace. However, there are potential costs to be mindful of, like running a log query that returns trillions of bytes of data.

I have experience with Dynatrace. Comparing CloudWatch against Dynatrace highlights many areas for improvement.

I would definitely recommend CloudWatch if your applications are running in AWS. If your applications are in a different environment or cloud, I am not sure I would recommend it.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten.

Whenever we launch any instances or use any service we receive default metrics from Amazon CloudWatch. It is easy to track what is happening in the services that we are using. Additionally, it provides metrics logs from servers and what is happening from the infrastructure.

The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is its ease of use and logs. You do not have to go to each separate system to see the logs, such as Syslog and they are located in one dashboard GUI.

If someone changes some configurations in other tools, such as Grafana, someone has to deep dive to see what has happened. These issues do not happen in Amazon CloudWatch because it is easy to use. It is managed by Amazon AWS.

The dashboard and the UI could improve in Amazon CloudWatch. Additionally, they should focus on visibility inside the servers with AI and machine learning integrations. This would allow users who are using the solution to see what is happening within the system better.

I have used Amazon CloudWatch within the last 12 months.

The stability of the solution is good.

I rate the stability of Amazon CloudWatch a ten out of ten.

The scalability of Amazon CloudWatch is good. We do not have to do anything to scale the solution it is done by the vendor.

We have more than 10,000 people using the solution.

I rate the scalability of Amazon CloudWatch a nine out of ten.

I rate the support of Amazon CloudWatch a ten out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup of Amazon CloudWatch is simple. The deployment of the solution only took minutes.

I rate the initial setup of Amazon CloudWatch a nine out of ten.

If someone is utilizing a limited set of services on Amazon AWS and their application is hosted on Docker or Kubernetes products, they may choose to use an alternative monitoring tool instead of relying on Amazon CloudWatch. However, the developers of Amazon CloudWatch are continually improving the tool, and adding features to address any issues that are not currently available on the cloud version will eventually be incorporated into Amazon CloudWatch. If the infrastructure and the software services are relatively simple I would recommend this solution. The Amazon CloudWatch agent can provide additional metrics, but for those seeking a more visually appealing and understandable approach, different tools may be more suitable.

I rate Amazon CloudWatch an eight out of ten.

I rated the solution an eight out of ten because of its user-friendly interface and the presence of a helpful single dashboard. This solution also offers unique tools, like application insights, which rely on artificial intelligence. This means that regardless of the traffic or type of users accessing our server, the insights provided are based on AI technology. The role of application insights is expected to grow significantly in the coming years as the solution continues to incorporate AI into its functionality. For example, it can provide information on how much memory was occupied by your machine at a particular time.