Bills that grow with volume
Datadog prices logs per ingested GB plus per indexed event, and infrastructure per host. Costs scale with traffic and with every new product you turn on.
checked November 2026
Datadog alternatives, compared honestly
Seven real options, who each one fits, where each falls short, and when it is better to stay on Datadog. We make LogTide, so we say plainly where it does not cover what Datadog does.
why teams look elsewhere
Why people look for a Datadog alternative
Many products, many meters
Logs, APM, infrastructure, SIEM and more are separate line items. Forecasting a month ahead gets harder as usage spreads across them.
Data residency and control
Datadog is SaaS only. Teams with strict residency, audit or air-gap requirements need something they can run on their own infrastructure.
Proprietary agents and formats
Moving off a proprietary agent and query language is work. OpenTelemetry-native tools lower the cost of switching again later.
Seven alternatives, one by one
Pick by what you actually use Datadog for. A tool that is great at logs may be the wrong answer if your main use is APM.
Grafana stack (Loki, Tempo, Mimir)
Composable open-source observability, or Grafana Cloud
Best for: Teams that already run Prometheus and Grafana and want logs, metrics and traces as separate, scalable pieces.
- Loki indexes labels only, so storage is cheap but free-text search over large ranges is slower
- Strong dashboards and a large plugin ecosystem
- You assemble and operate several components, or pay for Grafana Cloud
Limits: More moving parts than an all-in-one tool. No built-in SIEM.
LogTide vs Grafana Loki →SigNoz
OpenTelemetry-native APM on ClickHouse
Best for: Teams that want the closest open-source match to Datadog APM: traces, metrics and logs in one UI.
- Built around OpenTelemetry from the start
- Self-host the community edition or use SigNoz Cloud
- Stronger on APM and tracing than log-only tools
Limits: ClickHouse is a real operational commitment at scale. No SIEM or detection rules.
LogTide vs SigNoz →Elastic (Elasticsearch, Kibana, Elastic Cloud)
The incumbent for search-heavy logging and security
Best for: Teams with large full-text search needs, existing Elastic skills, or a security program built on Elastic Security.
- Very strong full-text search and aggregation
- Logs, APM and security under one vendor, hosted or self-managed
- Large ecosystem of integrations and shippers
Limits: Self-managed clusters need JVM sizing, shard and lifecycle management. Some advanced features sit in paid tiers.
LogTide vs ELK Stack →New Relic
Full-stack SaaS with usage-based pricing
Best for: Teams that want to stay on a hosted all-in-one platform but prefer ingest-plus-seat pricing over per-host billing.
- Broad platform: APM, infrastructure, logs, browser and more
- Free tier with a monthly data allowance (see pricing below)
- No servers to run
Limits: Still SaaS only, and full-platform seats are priced separately from data.
LogTide vs New Relic →Better Stack
Hosted logs, uptime and incident management
Best for: Small and mid-size teams that want logging, uptime monitoring and on-call without running anything.
- Simple per-GB ingestion and retention pricing with regional rates
- Uptime checks, status pages and on-call in the same product
- Fast to set up
Limits: Narrower than Datadog on deep APM and infrastructure monitoring. Hosted only.
LogTide vs Better Stack →Graylog
Log management with processing pipelines
Best for: Teams with syslog-heavy or network-device logging who want pipelines and role-based access in a packaged product.
- Mature processing pipelines and extractors
- Open edition available, with paid tiers for enterprise and security features
- Runs on top of OpenSearch or Elasticsearch plus MongoDB
Limits: Log-focused: no APM or metrics platform comparable to Datadog.
LogTide vs Graylog →LogTide
That's usSelf-hosted log management with built-in SIEM
Best for: Teams whose Datadog bill is mostly logs, or who need logs to stay on their own infrastructure, with security detection included.
- One service on TimescaleDB or ClickHouse, deployed with Docker Compose
- Sigma rules, incident management and alerting with email and webhook notifications
- Native OTLP ingestion for logs, traces and metrics, plus trace-to-log correlation
- AGPLv3, no per-seat pricing
Limits: A log management and SIEM product, not a full Datadog replacement. See the gaps below.
LogTide vs Datadog in depth →At a glance
Qualitative summary. Check each vendor's current documentation before deciding.
| Tool | Deployment | Strongest at | Pricing model | Open source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Datadog | SaaS | Full-stack observability | Per GB, per event, per host | No |
| Grafana stack | Self-hosted or cloud | Dashboards, metrics, cheap logs | Free self-hosted, usage-based cloud | Yes |
| SigNoz | Self-hosted or cloud | OpenTelemetry APM | Community edition self-hosted, per GB cloud | Yes (community edition) |
| Elastic | Self-managed or cloud | Full-text search, security | Tiered, usage-based cloud | Partly (see Elastic licensing) |
| New Relic | SaaS | Full-stack observability | Per GB plus seats | No |
| Better Stack | SaaS | Logs, uptime, on-call | Per GB ingest and retention | No |
| Graylog | Self-hosted or cloud | Log pipelines, syslog | Open edition, paid tiers | Open edition |
| LogTide | Self-hosted | Logs with built-in SIEM | Self-hosted, no seat pricing | Yes (AGPLv3) |
checked November 2026
Published list prices
Taken from each vendor's public pricing page. List prices only: volume discounts, contracts and plan minimums change the real number, and the units differ between vendors, so these are not directly comparable. Elastic and Graylog are omitted because we could not verify a simple comparable figure. Self-hosted tools cost infrastructure and engineering time instead of licence fees.
- Datadog Log ingest from $0.10 per GB; 15-day indexing $1.70 per million events per month (annual billing, $2.55 on-demand); Infrastructure Pro $15 per host per month (annual billing). Source
- New Relic 100 GB per month of data ingest free, then $0.40 per GB (original data option). Full-platform user seats are priced separately. Source
- Better Stack Logs and traces ingestion $0.10 per GB in Europe, $0.15 in the US; retention $0.05 and $0.08 per GB per month. Free tier of 3 GB retained for 3 days. Source
- SigNoz Cloud Logs and traces $0.30 per GB on the Teams plan, after the included usage. Source
- Grafana Cloud Free tier includes 50 GB of logs and 50 GB of traces per month with 14-day retention. Paid usage is priced per GB with separate line items. Source
When to stay, and where LogTide falls short
Stay on Datadog if
- You use APM, infrastructure, logs and more together and value one place for all of it.
- You depend on its integration catalog and auto-instrumentation.
- Nobody on the team has time to run and upgrade infrastructure.
- Your bill is acceptable for the engineering hours it saves.
LogTide is not the right fit if
- You need a full APM suite. LogTide ingests OTLP traces and correlates them with logs, but it is a log management product.
- You rely on profiling, real user monitoring or synthetic checks. The docs do not describe these features.
- You want a large drag-and-drop dashboard builder and hundreds of ready-made integrations.
- You want a managed service and do not want to operate anything yourself.
A common pattern is to keep Datadog for APM and move only the log volume somewhere cheaper. If self-hosting is the draw, read about self-hosted log management first. Other side-by-side pages: LogTide vs SigNoz, LogTide vs Grafana Loki, LogTide vs New Relic.
Datadog alternatives FAQ
Datadog alternatives: FAQ
What is the best alternative to Datadog?
It depends on what you use Datadog for. For open-source APM closest to Datadog, SigNoz. For a composable stack around Prometheus, the Grafana stack. For hosted all-in-one, New Relic or Better Stack. For self-hosted log management with built-in SIEM, LogTide.
Is there a free, open-source alternative to Datadog?
Yes. The Grafana stack, SigNoz (community edition) and LogTide are open source and can be self-hosted. They differ in scope: SigNoz and Grafana cover metrics and traces more deeply, while LogTide focuses on logs and security detection.
Can LogTide replace Datadog completely?
Not for every team. LogTide covers log management, alerting, OTLP ingestion and a built-in SIEM. If you rely on Datadog for APM, profiling, RUM, synthetics or its large integration catalog, LogTide will not replace those today.
When should I stay on Datadog?
Stay if you use many Datadog products together, depend on its integrations and auto-instrumentation, have no capacity to run infrastructure, and your bill is justified by the time it saves your team.
How do I migrate from Datadog to LogTide?
Inventory what you use, deploy LogTide, switch SDKs or shippers, rebuild alerts, run both in parallel to validate, then cut over. The Datadog migration guide walks through each step.
Try it on your own logs
Deploy LogTide with Docker Compose, send a copy of your logs, and compare it with your current setup before you commit.