Best Datadog Alternatives for Cost-Sensitive Teams

The Datadog Cost Problem

Datadog is an excellent product. But the pricing model creates pain:

• Per-host pricing: $15-34/host/month for infrastructure
• Per-million pricing: Logs, metrics, and traces all charge by volume
• Feature add-ons: APM, RUM, Security—each adds cost
• Custom metrics: $0.05 per custom metric per month

A moderate setup (20 servers, basic APM, some logs) easily hits $1,000+/month.

Best Alternatives by Use Case

For Infrastructure Monitoring

Wakestack

Cost: From free, scales with hosts

Focuses on server monitoring and uptime. No per-metric charges, no surprise bills.

Good for: Teams that need infrastructure basics without enterprise complexity.

Includes:

• Agent-based server monitoring
• Uptime checks
• Status pages
• Alerting

Prometheus + Grafana (Self-Hosted)

Cost: Free (hosting costs only)

The open-source standard. Powerful, flexible, free—but you manage it.

Good for: Teams with ops expertise who want full control.

Trade-off: Operational overhead for setup and maintenance.

Grafana Cloud

Cost: Free tier, then ~$50/month

Managed Prometheus/Grafana without self-hosting hassle.

Good for: Teams that want Prometheus power without ops burden.

For Full Observability

New Relic

Cost: Free tier (100GB/month), then pay-per-use

Generous free tier makes it accessible. Pay-as-you-go model more predictable than per-host.

Good for: Teams wanting full APM without host-based pricing.

Includes: Metrics, logs, traces, browser monitoring.

Better Stack

Cost: From ~$24/month

Modern uptime monitoring plus logging. Clean interface, reasonable pricing.

Good for: Teams wanting uptime + logs without complexity.

Elastic Observability

Cost: Free tier on Elastic Cloud, then usage-based

Full observability stack (APM, logs, metrics) on Elasticsearch.

Good for: Teams already using Elasticsearch.

For Uptime Monitoring Only

UptimeRobot

Cost: Free for 50 monitors

If you just need to know when things go down, UptimeRobot's free tier is hard to beat.

Checkly

Cost: Free tier, then ~$30/month

API-focused monitoring with monitoring-as-code approach.

Cost Comparison

Estimates based on typical usage. Actual costs vary.

Migration Strategy

Phase 1: Identify What You Actually Use

Most teams use a fraction of Datadog features. Audit:

• Which dashboards are viewed?
• Which alerts actually fire?
• Which integrations are active?

Cut what's unused before migrating.

Phase 2: Choose Your Alternative

Based on what you actually need:

Phase 3: Run in Parallel

Don't switch cold turkey. Run both systems for 2-4 weeks:

• Verify metrics match
• Test alerting
• Train team on new tool
• Build confidence

Phase 4: Cut Over

Once confident, disable Datadog to stop charges.

Keep data exports for historical reference if needed.

Hidden Datadog Costs to Escape

When evaluating alternatives, remember these Datadog costs you might forget:

Custom Metrics

Every metric beyond defaults costs extra. Alternatives often include unlimited metrics.

Log Management

Datadog's per-GB log pricing adds up fast. Some alternatives have more generous log tiers.

APM Growth

As traffic increases, APM costs scale linearly. Per-host alternatives don't have this problem.

Retention

Long retention in Datadog costs more. Some alternatives include longer retention in base price.

What You Might Lose

Be honest about trade-offs:

Integrations

Datadog has 500+ integrations. Alternatives have fewer. Check that your critical integrations exist.

Correlation

Datadog's unified view across metrics, logs, and traces is excellent. Alternatives may require more manual correlation.

AI/ML Features

Anomaly detection, forecasting, and watchdog features are advanced. Most alternatives don't match this.

Enterprise Features

SSO, RBAC, audit logs, compliance certifications—verify alternatives have what you need.

Is Switching Worth It?

Switch If:

• Datadog costs are material to your budget
• You use less than 50% of Datadog's features
• You have ops capacity for some setup
• Your scale is stable (not rapidly growing)

Stay If:

• Datadog costs are acceptable for your budget
• You use advanced features heavily
• You have no ops capacity for change
• Rapid growth makes frequent changes painful

Summary

Datadog alternatives exist for every use case:

• Infrastructure: Wakestack, Prometheus, Grafana Cloud
• Full observability: New Relic, Elastic
• Uptime: UptimeRobot, Better Stack

The right choice depends on what you actually need—not what's possible. Most teams can cut monitoring costs 50-80% by:

1. Auditing actual usage
2. Choosing a focused alternative
3. Migrating carefully

You don't need to pay enterprise prices for startup problems.