After a security incident, we needed to find and migrate to a different cloud provider, and after evaluating different competitors and the skill set of the team, we decided to move to AWS. AWS also enables the team to have finer control over how our apps are deployed and how security and access are managed. By leveraging AWS's functionality, we have increased our application's security and sped up the deployment process. We've even been able to handle higher workloads due to AWS's auto-scaling functionality.
Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Good elastic container service and IAM with useful flexibility
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature I have found is the elastic container service."
- "ECS could be improved by including more tutorials for beginners to reduce the barriers to entry."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
Elastic container services have improved our organization by allowing us to deploy our application. While this problem was not solved by using the elastic container service since we had a previous solution on a different provider, the ease and flexibility of deploys have greatly benefited the ops team and the overall engineering organization. It is easy to use. However, there are many out-of-the-box features like metrics and seeing task definitions that make life easier.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature I have found is the elastic container service. That is where our apps get deployed. This feature is really important to us since, without it, we would not be able to deploy our apps the way we wanted to and would have to use a different vendor.
This service is also valuable to our team as we have a lot of familiarity with it and adapting to the services from our previous one was fairly seamless.
Another feature that is very valuable for our team is the IAM. It allows us to control security.
What needs improvement?
ECS could be improved by including more tutorials for beginners to reduce the barriers to entry. It would help to ensure understanding and learning in terms of how to use a cloud provider. Besides this, there are not any other areas of improvement needed since the service is very straightforward and there is ample documentation.
Buyer's Guide
Datadog
October 2025
Learn what your peers think about Datadog. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2025.
872,098 professionals have used our research since 2012.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for one year.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
manager at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Great for monitoring logs, helps detect issues faster, and offers automation capabilities
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is useful for monitoring logs."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for logs from all our applications. In Datadog, for monitoring logs, our team creates an automation for implementing massive logging in all our systems. Now, we are deploying it in our core systems.
How has it helped my organization?
We are using it to indicate issues and alert our operations team. With this, we better monitoring of our applications and logs.
However, the main difficulty is implementing the solutions in our Kubernetes cluster, separated just as logs to the specific namespace as the volume of logs is tremendous.
What is most valuable?
The solution is useful for monitoring logs.
We can create an automation for implementing across all our systems. Right now, we are deploying it in our core systems.
The greatest value is integrated monitoring as it is able to quickly detect issues and improve our time to market.
What needs improvement?
Our main challenge is implementing the solutions in our Kubernetes cluster, separated just as logs to the specific namespace since the volume of logs is tremendous.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for one year.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Datadog
October 2025
Learn what your peers think about Datadog. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2025.
872,098 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Software Developer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Great logs, useful APM, and useful visibility of relevant metrics
Pros and Cons
- "The solution has offered increased visibility via logging APM, metrics, RUM, etc."
- "Sometimes it’s difficult to customize certain queries to find specific things, specifically with the logging solution."
What is our primary use case?
We’re currently using logging, monitoring, metrics, APM, etc.
We've started to use קSLOs. However, it takes a bit of time to work through those.
RUM (Real User Monitoring) has been very useful. I have used this in the past to debug problems in production, which has been great.
We also want to start using synthetics and tracing more.
Our application currently runs in many different environments based on our customers' requirements. This allows us to see everything in one place and still filter by the environment as required, which is extremely useful.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution has offered increased visibility via logging APM, metrics, RUM, etc. Going from almost nothing to something that didn’t take a lot of time to set up has been great since we have so little time to spare
As a startup, we have limited resources, and no one has enough time for anything. There are so many easy integrations and things configurable by YAML making everything easy to set up without needing a full-time employee. Just configuring monitoring solutions is very desirable.
What is most valuable?
The APM is very useful for tracking down anything that’s gone wrong. I’ve been using it to make sure everything is working correctly after deployment, to make sure we don’t suffer performance degradation, and to track down anything that’s gone wrong in real-time
The logs are great and necessary for any application. Before this, our solution would have been to SSH into a machine and tail log files. This is untenable for many reasons, and one of the first things I wanted to change.
The RUM is useful for seeing how real users interact with our website.
What needs improvement?
Sometimes it’s difficult to customize certain queries to find specific things, specifically with the logging solution. I’ve used other logging platforms in the past that have extensive and mature query languages, which might not be super friendly to start out with, yet they can be very powerful. I wish there was more of an emphasis on that instead of the UI-based tooling that Datadog provides. Even though it is powerful on its own, UI-based design lacks the elegance, efficiency, and complexity that something like that can provide.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for six months or so.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not previously use a different solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I don’t handle the licensing or pricing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did look into Splunk.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior Software Engineer at Grata
Great charts and visualizations with good debugging
Pros and Cons
- "We really like the charts and visualization."
- "Sometimes, it takes a long time to load the dashboard if we have many charts."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the dashboard/metric with many tags.
How has it helped my organization?
It makes the system easier to debug.
What is most valuable?
We really like the charts and visualization.
What needs improvement?
Sometimes, it takes a long time to load the dashboard if we have many charts.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for five years.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Site Reliability Engineer at a financial services firm with 1-10 employees
Straightforward setup is impressive and SaaS model works well in multi-cloud environments
Pros and Cons
- "The solution's SaaS model is easy to manage and works well in single- or multi-cloud environments."
- "Graph filters for logs need to be set manually which works well for JSON but not for unstructured logs."
What is our primary use case?
Our company is transitioning to using the solution for monitoring and analytic services we provide to customers. Once fully rolled out, there will be 80-100 users companywide.
What is most valuable?
The solution's SaaS model is easy to manage and works well in single- or multi-cloud environments.
The Saas format can handle heterogeneous or multi-language applications much better than using a combination of tools.
What needs improvement?
Graph filters for logs need to be set manually which works well for JSON but not for unstructured logs.
Making structured logs for high-performance applications is over our heads so we had to dump some technical streams for our logs.
For how long have I used the solution?
I recently started using the solution.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable and passed an our internal assessment.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
We received product support through the sales department and they were helpful.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
The solution is better than what we previously used.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward which is impressive.
I rate setup an eight out of ten.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented the solution in-house and are continuing to roll it out.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Licensing is based on the retention period of logs and metrics.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Lead Blockchain and Back-End Developer at Torum Technology
Good real-time user management and session analytics but needs session replays on mobile
Pros and Cons
- "The initial setup is very straightforward."
- "They could have better log reporting."
What is our primary use case?
We are using the solution from a monitoring and management perspective. We use it for alerts.
What is most valuable?
The solution's real-time user management and session analytics as well as the APM, are the solution's most valuable aspects.
We could easily identify the production box, and we could handle alerts.
The initial setup is very straightforward.
It's stable.
They have flag integrations, mail integrations, and other options as well.
What needs improvement?
We didn't do a deep analysis on this at this moment to identify the disadvantages.
We have noticed that Session Replays are unavailable on the mobile app. We'd like mobile app integrations. They could have better log reporting. That said, almost everything that we require is there.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've only used the solution for two months. We just wanted to understand the complexities and the benefits that we might get from this product.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable and reliable. The performance is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It may be scalable. However, we haven't actually tested anything.
We have six or seven people on the solution at any given time. They're there to handle fixes or do an analysis of logs or monitor the infrastructure.
I'm not sure if we plan to increase usage. We are not growing very rapidly. We're just preparing our environment for the upcoming year.
How are customer service and support?
We've dealt with support. They are helpful and responsive.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have used AWS CloudWatch and AWS inbuilt application of the features, however, we thought that it will be good to have a separate application to do all these kinds of monitoring and to have something for handling alerting mechanisms.
We are looking for the best available platforms on the market, which also would give us better flexibility while having everything come from one place. We found that Datadog is good enough for now, and we are still exploring what it can do and our options. We are not completely in with Datadog. We've been exploring it only for four or five months.
How was the initial setup?
It's an easy product to set up. The integration was very smooth and they have multiple options. It was pretty good integration-wise.
The setup itself only took a day or two. It doesn't take long.
What about the implementation team?
We handled the setup ourselves in-house. We did not need any outside assistance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
For some features, it was quite expensive. For example, APM and RAM, and Session Replays. We are using it in a very limited way and are not using it for every microservice. We are using it for a minimal budget. As we are at an exploratory phase and are doing pay-as-you-go. Once we feel confident, we will likely get a yearly license.
What other advice do I have?
We are customers.
We're working on the latest version. I couldn't recall the version number.
I'd rate the solution six out of ten. I need to evaluate the solution further.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Associate Founder at KerBBo Consulting
User friendly interface and integrations make it best in class
Pros and Cons
- "The interface and the integrations make it so easy to connect to the cloud or to the on-premise environment."
- "Datadog does not have the feature where you can monitor external websites or check the SSL secure for websites."
What is most valuable?
I like Datadog because it is so easy use, I can easily connect to public clouds, and I have a view of observability. In my opinion it's the best tool in the market.
I like the interface so much. The interface and the integrations make it so easy to connect to the cloud or to the on-premise environment. It has so many monitors for alerting. I like all the versions and especially the APM model, on which I did a lot more testing with my applications. I have made applications for testing the tool that is in the resource. The APM is the goal for me in the Datadog.
What needs improvement?
In terms of what could be improved, Datadog does not have the feature where you can monitor external websites or check the SSL secure for websites.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Datadog for the last 14 days.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In terms of stability, I don't have any problem with its stability or the website data. They have a solid infrastructure. I don't have any problems with that.
How was the initial setup?
It was simple to configure and to set up this tool.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I have less experience with Zabbix than I have with Datadog, but I don't see Zabbix as a great tool for cloud specific monitoring because I cannot connect so easily to public clouds to gain all the information that I can in Datadog, which I can easily set up.
I have used Zabbix for 20 days for my personal tests and I really don't like it.
There is something that I liked with Zabbix, though. Zabbix is better for monitoring virtual machines. That's a feature that I liked. But everything else is awful. I can't have dashboards. I do not have integrations with some ITSM systems, like Jira or OTRS. It's awful because I need to have those integrations.
I would rate Zabbix a nine from one to ten for on premises environments. For cloud platforms, I rate this tool as a five, because of the complexity required to integrate it in other platforms.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Datadog a nine, just because of the missing feature of checking websites.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Performance Testing Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Has good troubleshooting and instrumentation features
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is sufficiently stable."
- "The setup was a bit complex."
What is our primary use case?
I'm not sure which version we're using, although I believe it to be the latest.
We essentially use the solution in advance of performance testing, performance monitoring, and troubleshooting.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution affords us many uses when it comes to troubleshooting and application. Should we encounter issues while troubleshooting under load, we can take advantage of Datadog usage metrics to see which method or area is having difficulty, in order that we may resolve the issue.
What is most valuable?
The solution has valuable troubleshooting and instrumentation features.
What needs improvement?
The setup was a bit complex.
As Datadog is a bit on the expensive side, I would recommend it for simple, uncomplicated, solutions.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Datadog for nearly four or five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is sufficiently stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
As our company does not have many users who are making use of the solution at present, I have not encountered issues with its scalability.
I do not have plans to increase the usage at the moment.
How are customer service and support?
I cannot comment on tech support, as I have not made use of them, although my team members have. It seems okay.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We mainly work with Datadog, although with Dynatrace, as well.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was a bit complex.
What about the implementation team?
We hired a separate team to handle the implementation.
At present, not much staff is needed for the deployment and maintenance.
What was our ROI?
I am not in much of a position to address the question of return on investment, although I believe it is for the better that my organization employs the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I do not have knowledge of the licensing costs.
As Datadog is a bit on the expensive side, I would recommend it for simple, uncomplicated, solutions.
What other advice do I have?
We are just the users of the solution. There are not many of us in our company.
The solution is good for complex integations which have lots of downstream and involve multiple combined systems. This is where it is useful.
I rate Datadog as a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Datadog Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: October 2025
Product Categories
Cloud Monitoring Software Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Network Monitoring Software IT Infrastructure Monitoring Log Management Container Monitoring AIOps Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)Popular Comparisons
Wazuh
Zabbix
Dynatrace
Splunk Enterprise Security
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks
Darktrace
Snyk
IBM Security QRadar
New Relic
Azure Monitor
Elastic Security
Grafana Loki
Splunk AppDynamics
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Datadog Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Quick Links
Learn More: Questions:
- Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
- Any advice about APM solutions?
- Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?
- What is the biggest difference between Datadog and New Relic APM?
- Which monitoring solution is better - New Relic or Datadog?
- Do you recommend Datadog? Why or why not?
- How is Datadog's pricing? Is it worth the price?
- Anyone switching from SolarWinds NPM? What is a good alternative and why?
- Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
- What cloud monitoring software did you choose and why?














