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Amazon CloudWatch vs Amazon OpenSearch Service comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon CloudWatch
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
12th
Ranking in Log Management
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)
Amazon OpenSearch Service
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
35th
Ranking in Log Management
39th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Rasanpreet Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable AWS monitoring and logging
The choice of logging solution should always be determined by the specific business requirements. It is crucial to align the logging strategy with what type of logs are needed and how they should be used. There are instances where we require custom solutions to retrieve logs, especially application logs that may not be easily accessible through CloudWatch or similar services. When we heavily rely on AWS native services, CloudWatch is indeed a robust choice. However, in certain scenarios, we might need integration capabilities with other tools, and if they can incorporate such features, it would enhance overall logging capabilities. I would rate it eight out of ten.
VijayKumar27 - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective as a vector store, serverless architecture but there aren't enough security features
The pricing aspect is a concern. The service is way too costly. For the past month, I used only 30 to 40 MB of data, and the cost was $500. AWS could improve pricing. Even being serverless, it incurs charges during idle times. For just holding data, you need to create a list. AWS should add an option to make data idle, so it won't include computing charges. They charge for OCU units based on the time the serverless solution is up, not on indexing or retrieval speed. Once the service starts, it starts getting billed. It would help if there were an option to limit computing. When using it as a database, storing data without frequent fetching would save computing costs.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The monitoring feature is valuable."
"The solution offers very detailed metrics for their services."
"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."
"It is a stable solution...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"It offers direct integrations with various storage providers, making it convenient to push logs from CloudWatch to these external platforms."
"It is a robust analytical tool and it goes beyond mere functionality and extends into the realm of providing comprehensive insights."
"We have found the pricing to be reasonable."
"You can enable alarms and metrics, and it has robust integration with AWS services. You can also trigger events. For example, if the CPU utilization is above 80%, it can launch a new instance for you."
"The business analytics capabilities are the most important feature it provides."
"Amazon OpenSearch Service provides a managed database solution, so we don't need to manage everything ourselves."
"The customer service is excellent, rated nine out of ten."
"This service already sorts data like vectors. They have classified the storage pre-defined."
"Amazon OpenSearch Service has enhanced our organization's ability to store and search large amounts of data efficiently."
"We retrieve historical data with just a click of a button to move it from cold to hot or warm because it's already stored in the backend storage"
 

Cons

"This product lacks some features: real-time data stream monitoring, application performance monitoring, mobile app monitoring, and live dashboards. Its workflows also need improvement."
"It is hard to configure; it is not a straightforward tool."
"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."
"There could be further enhancements through CloudWatch's partnerships."
"The solution should provide human-readable metrics."
"There is room for improvement in terms of stability."
"I found several areas for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch. First is that it's tough to track issues and find out where it's going wrong. The process takes longer. For example, if I get an exception error, I read the logs, search, go to AWS Cloud, then to the groups to find the keyword to determine what's wrong. Another area for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch is that it's slow in terms of log streaming. It requires an entire twenty-four hours for scanning, rather than just one hour. This issue can be solved with Elasticsearch streaming with Kibana, but it requires a lot of development effort and integration with Kibana or Splunk, and this also means I need a separate developer and software technical stack to do the indexing and streaming to Kibana. It's a manual effort that you need to do properly, so log streaming should be improved in Amazon CloudWatch. The AWS support person should also have a better understanding of the logs in Amazon CloudWatch. What I'd like added to the solution is a more advanced search function, particularly one that can tell you more information or special information. Right now, the search function is difficult to use because it only gives you limited data. For example, I got an error message saying that the policy wasn't created. I only know the amount the customer paid for the policy, the mobile number, and the customer name, but if I use those details, the information won't show up on the logs. I need to enter more details, so that's the type of fuzzy matching Amazon CloudWatch won't provide. If this type of search functionality is provided, it will be very helpful for businesses and companies that provide professional services to customers, like ours."
"The product should provide more features."
"One improvement I would like to see is support for auto-scaling."
"The price is fair yet leans towards the expensive side. I'd rate it five out of ten with respect to capabilities vs. cost."
"It would be beneficial to have some level of customization available in the managed service, tailored to the specific use cases of the end users."
"They can enhance data visualization."
"One improvement I would like to see is support for auto-scaling."
"The pricing aspect is a concern. The service is way too costly. For the past month, I used only 30 to 40 MB of data, and the cost was $500. AWS could improve pricing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable. When the rate of data collection is done the price will increase. The price is less than other solutions."
"The price is okay for me."
"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable for detailed basic monitoring."
"The solution is expensive."
"The pricing can be considered reasonable, especially when already operating on a cloud platform."
"The tool is not expensive."
"Amazon CloudWatch has very cheap pricing, and it hardly costs my company $25-$30 a month for fifty systems, so it's pretty affordable."
"It is a free-of-charge service."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudWatch?
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.
What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?
CloudWatch itself is fine. That said, maybe Amazon Web Services can improve by providing a library for CloudWatch with some useful features.
What do you like most about Amazon OpenSearch Service?
We retrieve historical data with just a click of a button to move it from cold to hot or warm because it's already stored in the backend storage
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon OpenSearch Service?
Amazon OpenSearch Service is a bit costly compared to self-hosted Elasticsearch due to the managed service pricing.
What needs improvement with Amazon OpenSearch Service?
One improvement I would like to see is support for auto-scaling. The current configuration does not support automatic scaling based on server load, requiring us to manage the scaling manually. Addi...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus
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Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudWatch vs. Amazon OpenSearch Service and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
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