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Datadog vs Grafana

Reviewed byRoman K
Tagline
Datadog: Cloud monitoring at scale
Grafana: Open source observability
Pricing Model
Datadog: freemium
Grafana: open-source
Starting Price
Datadog: $15/mo
Grafana: $0/mo
Free Plan
Datadog: Yes
Grafana: Yes
GitHub Stars
Datadog:
Grafana: 75.2k
npm Downloads/wk
Datadog:
Grafana:
GitHub Forks
Datadog:
Grafana: 14.2k
Open Issues
Datadog:
Grafana: 3.5k
Tags
Datadog: apm, infrastructure, logs, enterprise
Grafana: dashboards, prometheus, open-source, visualization

Datadog vs Grafana: which to choose

Grafana has the larger community with 75.2k GitHub stars against — for Datadog, which usually means more integrations, examples and third-party help when you get stuck.

Both charge from day one, but Grafana starts lower at $0/mo versus $15/mo for Datadog.

Choose Datadog if you lean toward apm and infrastructure; choose Grafana if dashboards and prometheus matters more for your stack. All figures above are pulled from live GitHub and pricing data, not vendor marketing.

Frequently asked questions

Is Datadog or Grafana better?

It depends on your priorities. Datadog has — GitHub stars and uses a freemium pricing model, while Grafana has 75.2k stars and uses a open-source model. Both offer a free plan so you can try each before committing.

Is Datadog cheaper than Grafana?

Datadog starts at $15/mo while Grafana starts at $0/mo. Datadog has a free plan. Grafana has a free plan.

What are the main differences between Datadog and Grafana?

Datadog is tagged as apm, infrastructure, logs while Grafana is tagged as dashboards, prometheus, open-source. Datadog uses a freemium pricing model. Grafana uses a open-source model with 75.2k GitHub stars.

Does Datadog or Grafana have a free plan?

Yes, both Datadog and Grafana offer a free plan.

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