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Vendor comparison

Datadog vs Grafana Cloud cost

Head-to-head monthly cost estimates at three scales — using the same telemetry inputs so the comparison is apples-to-apples.

Datadog vs Grafana Cloud monthly cost by scenario
ScenarioDatadogGrafana CloudDelta
Small team$1,114$215Datadog +$899
Mid-size SaaS$3,802$938Datadog +$2,864
Enterprise$26,026$6,887Datadog +$19,139

Small team

Early-stage startup: 5 VMs, 3 microservices, medium log verbosity, 14-day retention, 5 dashboard users.

Result: Elastic Serverless from $54/mo to Dynatrace at $1,574/mo — up to 97% ($1,520/mo) between cheapest and most expensive. Self-hosted AWS stacks include $1,200/mo SRE overhead.

Monthly observability cost estimates by vendor for Small team
Vendor / stackTypeMonthlyAnnual
SigNoz CloudManaged$165$1,980
Grafana CloudManaged$215$2,580
New RelicManaged$341$4,092
DatadogManaged$1,114$13,368
LGTM on AWSSelf-hosted$1,488$17,856
SigNoz on AWSSelf-hosted$1,559$18,708

List pricing as of May 2026. Adjust inputs in the calculator →

Mid-size SaaS

Growth-stage SaaS: 10 VMs, 1 Kubernetes cluster (50 pods), 15 services, 30-day retention, 25 users.

Result: Elastic Serverless from $209/mo to AWS CloudWatch at $4,986/mo — up to 96% ($4,777/mo) between cheapest and most expensive. Self-hosted AWS stacks include $2,500/mo SRE overhead.

Monthly observability cost estimates by vendor for Mid-size SaaS
Vendor / stackTypeMonthlyAnnual
SigNoz CloudManaged$701$8,412
Grafana CloudManaged$938$11,256
New RelicManaged$1,703$20,436
SigNoz on AWSSelf-hosted$3,000$36,000
LGTM on AWSSelf-hosted$3,365$40,380
DatadogManaged$3,802$45,624

List pricing as of May 2026. Adjust inputs in the calculator →

Enterprise

Large org: 50 VMs, 3 K8s clusters (200 pods each), 60 microservices, 30-day retention, 100 users.

Result: Elastic Serverless from $1,506/mo to Dynatrace at $29,956/mo — up to 95% ($28,450/mo) between cheapest and most expensive. Self-hosted AWS stacks include $4,000/mo SRE overhead.

Monthly observability cost estimates by vendor for Enterprise
Vendor / stackTypeMonthlyAnnual
SigNoz CloudManaged$4,760$57,120
SigNoz on AWSSelf-hosted$6,556$78,672
Grafana CloudManaged$6,887$82,644
LGTM on AWSSelf-hosted$7,497$89,964
New RelicManaged$8,879$106,548
DatadogManaged$26,026$312,312

List pricing as of May 2026. Adjust inputs in the calculator →

Open the calculator to change hosts, log GB/day, or cloud provider.

Frequently asked questions

Is Grafana Cloud cheaper than Datadog?
Often yes at moderate log and metric volumes — Grafana Cloud meters Mimir (metrics), Loki (logs), and Tempo (traces) separately, which can be cheaper when you optimize retention and sampling. Datadog bundles more SKUs but charges premium rates for indexed logs and APM hosts. At enterprise scale with full APM everywhere, the gap narrows.
When does Datadog cost less than Grafana Cloud?
When teams heavily use Datadog's integrated UX (notebooks, Synthetics, Security) and negotiate enterprise commits. Grafana Cloud requires more assembly (dashboards, alert rules) but lower unit economics for metrics and logs at scale.
Can I migrate from Datadog to Grafana Cloud?
Many teams instrument with OpenTelemetry and dual-ship during migration. SignalCost models Grafana Cloud using published Mimir/Loki/Tempo rates — compare your actual usage profile rather than assuming a fixed discount.
What about self-hosted Grafana vs both?
Self-hosted LGTM on AWS is often the lowest TCO at sustained volume if you accept SRE overhead. Our mid-size scenario includes compute, storage, and optional SRE time in the comparison table.

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