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Amazon CloudWatch vs Amazon OpenSearch Service comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 22, 2026

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
21st
Ranking in Log Management
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (15th)
Amazon OpenSearch Service
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
25th
Ranking in Log Management
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Search as a Service (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 1.1%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon OpenSearch Service is 1.2%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon CloudWatch1.1%
Amazon OpenSearch Service1.2%
Other97.7%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Azam S M - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Lead at Danat Fz LLC
Has provided reliable monitoring and alerting through extensive metric tracking and dashboard configuration
Amazon CloudWatch itself provides a lot of data. However, for visualization, we need to use third-party tools. We are in a process of integrating Grafana, Loki, and Prometheus to have better visualization on Amazon CloudWatch. We are also integrating Grafana with the application itself to get the application data and logs. Alternatively, there is AWS Kinesis and Glue where you can scrape the logs and have visualization, but a more easy option is Grafana. If you want to get a proper visual representation to see what is happening, then you need to integrate a third-party tool. Amazon CloudWatch has all the data, but to see what is happening, you need some third-party tool.
Md. Shahariar Hossen - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Cefalo
Event tracking has become smoother and data analytics provide clear insights for user actions
Amazon OpenSearch Service is not providing the processing feature directly. From Amazon OpenSearch Service, we are actually maintaining the AWS SQS, the queue service, which is responsible for providing information about what data has to be modified. So using that SQS, we're actually providing it, but we're not directly using Amazon OpenSearch Service for keeping data to other data pipeline thing. So far we didn't use it for any machine learning purposes, but in future, we have plans to extend or implement this feature. Since AWS itself is secure and Amazon OpenSearch Service is a part of this entire ecosystem, it becomes much easier for security purposes. From the validation point of view, Amazon OpenSearch Service itself provides easy to communicate APIs and up-to-date documents, which is much beneficial. For example, if I'm missing anything, I can directly go and check the documentation. That is actually much easier. I would rate it as really good so far. It's much faster. For our local machine, we can also use a kind of replica of Amazon OpenSearch Service just for development purposes. That is another good feature. I would say for the encryption thing and also the user access control management, it's much faster. For some of these hashing algorithms, it also worked really well so far. To be honest, I didn't find any places where it can be improved. However, I think they could provide more abstraction. For example, still for searching, we have to write down the queries in a specific manner, such as for a specific JSON structure or in a specific way. Otherwise, they don't provide us the actual results. For at least this purpose, I think abstraction could be a bit easier or a bit improved. Other than that, right now there is the age of AI, so some kind of prompting could also work, but I'm not sure how it could be integrated. As a user, lower prices or reasonable pricing is always better. Those can be improved as well. However, it is good that most of the services including Amazon OpenSearch Service actually provide pay as you go pricing. So if there were a bit lower version or a bit less payment methodology, it might be much better.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What my company likes best about Amazon CloudWatch is that it's on AWS. My team also likes it for its log feature. As the solution is on AWS, it also has good pricing and resource availability, plus it's what clients choose. My company also chose AWS for Forge ECS, and at the time, there was a need for the log features provided by Amazon CloudWatch, so it's the solution my team went with."
"The most valuable features of Amazon CloudWatch are metrics, dashboards, alarms, logs, events, logs insight, and application insights."
"The tool's UI is good. One can scroll through the logs very easily."
"The technical support is fantastic; it's the best ever."
"Most of it's around optimizing utilization, their cloud utilization. They're making sure that they're getting the most out of their in-cloud environments and their instances. Making sure that there's no strange behavior in the environment."
"We use Amazon CloudWatch for logging."
"It offers direct integrations with various storage providers, making it convenient to push logs from CloudWatch to these external platforms."
"It is a stable solution...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"The initial set up is very easy...We really appreciate Amazon!"
"This service already sorts data like vectors. They have classified the storage pre-defined."
"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."
"They have the good documentation in the help text and that is the reason the Amazon Elasticsearch is the perfect solution for the current market."
"Our customers have seen tangible benefits from Amazon OpenSearch Service, especially in terms of their applications running smoothly, so they do get a return on investment."
"In case there is a failure, Elastic manages everything well, and there no major downtime."
"It's actually easier to collaborate since it is already deployed in the AWS cloud itself."
 

Cons

"I would like to monitor inbound and outbound transfer. I would also like to control the traffic for load balancing."
"It's not an advanced way of monitoring."
"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 has all the data, but to see what is happening, you need some third-party tool."
"The configuration capabilities could be better."
"The solution's integration could be easier for laypersons."
"The pricing model can get very expensive as the project's scope grows."
"The dashboard of Amazon CloudWatch is not very customizable right now."
"One glaring issue was with our mapping configuration as the system accepted the data we posted, but after a few months, when we attempted complex queries, we realized the date formatting had become problematic."
"Amazon Elasticsearch can improve the bullion in the near search and the ease of integration with Kibana. Additionally, there could be more flexibility in the configuration and documentation."
"I want to see a new feature in Amazon Elasticsearch Service that allows users to create default filters for filtered levels."
"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."
"They can enhance data visualization."
"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."
"In terms of data handling capabilities with Amazon OpenSearch Service, they can be complex and managing data in comparison to other SIM solutions is a major drawback, as it is very hard to handle the data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is average."
"The solution is expensive."
"The price is okay for me."
"Its pricing is reasonable. It is sometimes tricky, but it is reasonable as compared to others."
"What's were using is the free service of Amazon CloudWatch, so they're not charging us. As for hidden fees, we're not aware of them because we're using what our clients provided us."
"The product's cost is relatively inexpensive."
"We have monthly licensing costs. The licenses are probably in the vicinity of about $300 - $350/month."
"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable for detailed basic monitoring."
"There is a community edition available and the price of the commercial offering is reasonable."
"You only pay for what you use."
"Compared to other cloud platforms, it is manageable and not very expensive."
"The solution is not expensive, but priced averagely, I will say."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Transportation Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise24
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch itself provides a lot of data. However, for visualization, we need to use third-party tools. We are in a process of integrating Grafana, Loki, and Prometheus to have better visual...
What is your primary use case for Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch is a very small service that AWS provides. It is a monitoring service for applications within the AWS cloud, and we can integrate external applications using the APIs or SDK. The ...
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?
I would consider the pricing as a six based on how much data we are handling; if we handle minimal data, it's cheap, but for large data, it becomes costly. Our clients usually pay between $1,000 to...
What needs improvement with Amazon OpenSearch Service?
Amazon OpenSearch Service is not providing the processing feature directly. From Amazon OpenSearch Service, we are actually maintaining the AWS SQS, the queue service, which is responsible for prov...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Amazon Elasticsearch Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus
VIDCOIN, Wyng, Yellow New Zealand, zipMoney, Cimri, Siemens, Unbabel
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudWatch vs. Amazon OpenSearch Service and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,664 professionals have used our research since 2012.