Datadog alternatives
Teams leave Datadog over cost: the bill stacks because infrastructure, apm, and logs are each priced separately, and log indexing is a second charge on top of ingestion. on-demand rates run about 20% over the annual numbers.
At a 25 hosts, 300 GB/mo, 10 users workload, Datadog runs about $405/mo on list rates. Here is how the alternatives compare on the same workload, cheapest first.
Open-source first: pure per-GB cloud with no host or seat charges, or self-host for free.
Best for: Cost-sensitive teams happy on OpenTelemetry who want predictable per-GB billing or a free self-hosted option.
Pay-as-you-go on top of a small platform fee, with a per-active-user charge to view dashboards.
Best for: Teams already on the Grafana/Prometheus/Loki stack who want it hosted without running it.
One usage pool priced by data ingested, plus a per-seat charge for full users.
Best for: Teams with modest data volume and few power users who want everything in one bucket.
Costs use the Growth profile on list rates; change the inputs in the calculator for your own numbers.