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Datadog vs Grafana comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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

Datadog
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
188
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (2nd), Log Management (3rd), Container Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st), AIOps (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (7th)
Grafana
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Datadog is 8.8%, down from 11.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana is 6.4%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Kevin Palmer - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful log aggregation and management with helpful metrics aggregation
Datadog provides us value in three major ways: First, Datadog provides best-in-class functionality in many, if not all, of the products to which we subscribe (infrastructure, APM, log management, serverless, synthetics, real user monitoring, DB monitoring). In my experience with other tools that provide similar functionality, Datadog provides the largest feature set with the most flexibility and the best performance. Second, Datadog allows us to access all of those services in one place. Having to learn and manage only one tool for all of those purposes is a major benefit. Third, Datadog provides significant connectivity between those services so that we can view, summarize, organize, translate and correlate our data with maximum effect. Not needing to manually integrate them to draw lines between those pieces of information is a huge time savings for us.
Vikash-Agarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Displays data visually from multiple sources while integrating seamlessly with existing systems
Grafana provides a user-friendly interface for viewing infrastructure metrics through dashboards. It integrates with Prometheus to pull data and offers a straightforward setup process. Users can monitor metrics with greater ease, and the tool aids in quickly identifying issues by providing a visual representation of data. Grafana's integration capability is straightforward, which facilitates building dashboards as needed.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The observability pipelines are the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The full stack of integrations made it easier to monitor the different technologies and platform providers, including Software as a Service providers, that otherwise would need a lot of work and customization to be able to see what is happening."
"It is easy to navigate the menu and create tests."
"The pricing model makes more sense than what we paid for against other competitors."
"The most valuable features are the dashboards and the reporting."
"Datadog helps us detect issues early on and helps in troubleshooting."
"It provides more cloud data. They tend to just get the way a service would be designed on the cloud."
"The fact that everything is under a single pane of glass is really valuable, as developers don't have to spend their time copying correlation IDs across tools to find what they need."
"Great capacity planning and the solution has a great GUI."
"The initial setup is straightforward with just a few clicks on the solution's cloud."
"Grafana provides a user-friendly interface for viewing infrastructure metrics through dashboards."
"The most valuable feature of Grafana is the ease to build dashboards from observability construction. Additionally, the page services and integration are good."
"The best thing about Grafana is the visualization. The colors and the ease of use make it very user-friendly."
"Compatibility with Prometheus databases and the Spring Boot application make it the first choice when moving toward an SRE model."
"The best feature was the creation of graphs and trends."
"It integrates well with other solutions."
 

Cons

"Their security features could be improved. We looked at their Security Monitoring feature but it was early in its development. Datadog are just getting into the security space so I'm sure this will improve in the future."
"The query performance could be improved, particularly when handling large datasets, as slower response times can hinder efficiency."
"Datadog has a lot of features kind of cramped into one dashboard. It's quite hard to get around what feature does exactly what. There was a steep learning curve, trying to navigate through menus."
"The query performance could be improved, particularly when handling large datasets, as slower response times can hinder efficiency."
"They should continue expanding and integrating with more third-party apps."
"Another issue that I have is with the search syntax, it could be simpler and it feels like there are too many ways to do the same things."
"The UI has a lot going on. It should be simpler and have a better way to onboard someone new to using Datadog."
"There should be a clearer view of the expenses."
"The look and feel of the charting and graph capabilities in Grafana could improve. If they provided a storyboard type of feature as they have in other solutions, such as PowerBI. The multi-tenanted and stitch metrics features could improve."
"I have a problem with Grafana in the area of documentation."
"If there was an issue on one node, we couldn't drill down and see all the issues on other nodes."
"They should improve the functioning of its editing tool."
"There are some areas of network drives that are not showing as expected based on server usage."
"I would like the ability to download my results into any format in order to share the information with my clients."
"There is room for improvement when using multiple dashboards because they can become complicated to keep track of and use."
"One area for improvement in Grafana is that depending on your version, you have to pay for the features, making the license expensive. It would be great if the licensing model could be more flexible. In the next release of Grafana, I want cluster creation to be available, which would help in Grafana deployment and scaling. Currently, the scaling process for the solution is a bit complicated."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It costs the same amount it would if we were hosting it ourselves, so we are incredibly happy with the cost."
"Pricing seemed easy until the bill came in and some things were not accounted for."
"At my last company, we did see ROI, specifically around response time. We could get to mission critical things that were down and losing revenue on immediately. So, the product paid itself back."
"It has a module-based pricing model."
"The price is better than some competing products."
"This solution is budget friendly."
"The price of Datadog is reasonable. Other solutions are more expensive, such as AppDynamics."
"Pricing is somewhat affordable compared to other solutions but in order to really lower the costs of other products you need to plan very carefully your resources usage, otherwise, it can get expensive real quick."
"The solution is expensive."
"I use the open source model so it is free."
"I am using an open-source version"
"It's free of cost; it operates as an open-source tool."
"We use the open-source version of Grafana."
"For me, Grafana is a cheap tool because I don't have to spend much time learning the product since it is a simple solution."
"We are using the open-source license."
"My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
32%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Dynatrace. Dynatrace offers network ...
What do you like most about Grafana?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana?
I used the open-source version for my learning, which was free. In an enterprise setting, pricing is reasonable, as many customers use it.
What needs improvement with Grafana?
The interface is not well-liked by my customers. Grafana cannot be easily embedded into certain applications and offers limited customization options for graphs. I think predictive capabilities in ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Adobe, Samsung, facebook, HP Cloud Services, Electronic Arts, salesforce, Stanford University, CiTRIX, Chef, zendesk, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, mercardo libre, Slashdot, Ziff Davis, PBS, MLS, The Motley Fool, Politico, Barneby's
Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog vs. Grafana and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.