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Amazon CloudWatch vs Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) 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
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Google Cloud's operations s...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
24th
Ranking in Log Management
31st
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
23rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 1.4%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) is 1.2%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

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.
Anand_Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers reliable Ops Agent and logging transport feature with easy third-party integrations
As part of our company, we implemented several changes in our log analytics pattern, including the storage and procurement process. Earlier, before implementing the solution, our company was able to procure only one year of data, but later, we came to the three-year mark. Around 15-20% reduction has been witnessed in the total analytic consumption of our company. The aforementioned result was possible because the solution allowed the creation of a dashboard where factors like storage costs, proportion of logs, and logs presence in a storage bucket or BigQuery can all be checked. Earlier all logs were stored in a raw storage, but currently our company is able to move logs in table bucket that contributes towards cost savings.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Amazon CloudWatch's best feature stems from its ability to monitor app performance."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is collecting the logs from Lambda."
"The tool enables live monitoring."
"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."
"It is a robust analytical tool and it goes beyond mere functionality and extends into the realm of providing comprehensive insights."
"It is a stable solution...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"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."
"The solution is easy to use."
"We find the solution to be stable."
"Google's technical support is very good."
"The most valuable feature is the multi-cloud integration, where there is support for both GCP and AWS."
"I like the monitoring feature."
"It's easy to use."
"Provides visibility into the performance uptime."
"Our company has a corporate account for Google Cloud and so our systems and clusters integrate really well."
"The cloud login enables us to get our logs from the different platforms that we currently use."
 

Cons

"It would be beneficial for CloudWatch to provide an API interface and some kind of custom configuration."
"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."
"Better reporting is always something needed. That could be an answer to just about anything. But you always want better reporting, better dashboards, things that are just more dynamic and more accessible."
"We'd like the interface to be as easy as Datadog."
"There could be further enhancements through CloudWatch's partnerships."
"It is hard to configure; it is not a straightforward tool."
"I would like to monitor inbound and outbound transfer. I would also like to control the traffic for load balancing."
"I do not know whether or not CloudWatch can be integrated with on-prem services."
"If I want to track any round-trip or breakdowns of my response times, I'm not able to get it. My request goes through various levels of the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and comes back to my client machine. Suppose that my request has taken 10 seconds overall, so if I want to break it down, to see where the delay is happening within my architecture, I am not able to find that out using Stackdriver."
"It could be even more automated."
"Lacking sufficient operations documentation."
"The product provides minimal metrics that are insufficient."
"The process of logging analytics can be improved"
"The logging functionality could be better."
"It could be more stable."
"While we are satisfied with the overall performance, in certain cases we must add additional metrics and additional tools like Grafana and Dynatrace."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is average."
"Amazon CloudWatch has very cheap pricing, and it hardly costs my company $25-$30 a month for fifty systems, so it's pretty affordable."
"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable for detailed basic monitoring."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product's cost is relatively inexpensive."
"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 price is okay for me."
"It’s an open-source solution."
"The cost could be lower."
"We have a basic standard license without any additional costs."
"The cost of using Stackdriver depends on usage."
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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
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 needs improvement with Google Stackdriver?
If the errors are caught early in the interface, it would be easier for users to manage. The process of logging analytics can be improved.
What is your primary use case for Google Stackdriver?
I use the solution for logging, defining alerts, and monitoring. Our company's Java and Python logging teams mainly use it.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Google Stackdriver, Stackdriver Monitoring, Stackdriver Logging, Google Cloud Monitoring
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus
Uber, Batterii, Q42, Dovetail Games
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudWatch vs. Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.