Datadog vs Grafana is a choice between an all in one hosted platform and an open source stack you can run yourself or buy as a cloud service. Datadog charges per product, for example Infrastructure Pro starts at $15 per host per month billed annually, as of October 2026. Grafana is free to self host, and Grafana Cloud has a free tier plus pay as you go plans with a $19 monthly platform fee. Datadog suits teams that want everything joined up out of the box. Grafana suits teams that want control, open standards and costs they can tune.
This decision usually comes up when a startup outgrows basic uptime checks, or when a growing company's monitoring bill lands on the founder's desk. Both are excellent. They just come from different places, and that shapes how you'll pay and how much work you'll do yourself.
Datadog and Grafana compared
| Datadog | Grafana | |
|---|---|---|
| Type of product | A hosted monitoring and security platform | Open source visualisation, plus Grafana Cloud as a hosted option |
| Self hosting | No, software as a service | Yes, Grafana OSS or the free Enterprise edition |
| Free option | Free infrastructure tier, up to 5 hosts, 1 day metric retention | Self hosted Grafana, or Grafana Cloud's free tier |
| How it charges | Per product, mostly per host per month | Per usage: metrics series, data ingested, active users |
| Integrations | 1,000+ integrations listed on its pricing page | 150+ plugins for data sources |
| User accounts | Unlimited user accounts listed | Cloud free tier limited to 3 active users a month |
How Datadog charges, as of October 2026
Datadog prices each product separately. Its infrastructure monitoring plans, from its own pricing page:
| Datadog plan | Price | Key detail |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Up to 5 hosts, 1 day metric retention |
| Pro | $15 per host per month billed annually, or $18 on demand | 15 month metric retention |
| Enterprise | $23 per host per month billed annually, or $27 on demand | Adds machine learning based alerts and more admin controls |
Other products sit on top. APM, for example, starts at $31 per host per month billed annually when Infrastructure Monitoring is attached, and Datadog says APM can also be bought standalone at $36 per host per month billed annually. Logs are charged separately again, by data ingested and retained.
How Grafana charges, as of October 2026
Grafana's own software is open source, and its download page recommends the Enterprise edition as the default: it includes every feature of the open source edition and can be used for free, with an upgrade path to paid Enterprise features. If you self host, you pay for your own servers and time.
Grafana Cloud's pricing page lists a free tier and a Pro tier with a $19 monthly platform fee that includes allowances, then pay as you go:
| Grafana Cloud | Free tier | Pro tier |
|---|---|---|
| Metrics | 10k active series a month, 14 day retention | 10k series included, then $6.50 per 1k series, 13 month retention |
| Logs | 50 GB ingested a month, 14 day retention | 50 GB included, then pay as you go, 30 day retention |
| Traces | 50 GB ingested a month, 14 day retention | 50 GB included, then pay as you go, 30 day retention |
| Grafana users | 3 active users a month | 3 included, then $8 per active user |
Costs people forget to check
With Datadog, the infrastructure price is only the start. APM, logs and other products each carry their own charges, and container monitoring comes with an allotment per host: Datadog's table lists 5 containers per host on Pro and 10 on Enterprise. Add up every product you'll switch on before comparing.
With Grafana Cloud, the free tier keeps metrics, logs and traces for 14 days, so long term history needs a paid tier. On the plus side, Grafana's pricing page highlights Adaptive Metrics, which removes unused time series through aggregation, and Adaptive Logs, which recommends logs you can stop ingesting. Both are designed to shrink a usage based bill.
Where each one shines
Datadog
- Everything in one place from day one, with 1,000+ integrations and out of the box dashboards
- No servers to run or upgrade
- Unlimited user accounts, so you can give the whole team access
- Strong for teams that want metrics, traces, logs and security in one bill
Grafana
- Open source at its core, so you can self host and keep data in your own systems
- Connects to many data sources, including Prometheus, so it fits a stack you already have
- Grafana Cloud's free tier is generous for small teams and side projects
- Usage based pricing that you can tune, for example by dropping unused metrics
What you get without a subscription is covered in our guide to whether Grafana is free.
How to decide
- List what you need to watch: servers, containers, applications, logs, real user experience.
- Count hosts, users and data volumes, then price both using each vendor's own figures above.
- Decide whether anyone on your team wants to run monitoring infrastructure. If not, compare Datadog with Grafana Cloud rather than self hosted Grafana.
- Check how each handles OpenTelemetry, so you're not locked in later.
For the wider field, I've rounded up the best observability tools, and if Datadog's costs are the worry, here are the leading Datadog alternatives.
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My verdict
If you want one hosted platform that just works and you're happy to pay per host and per product, Datadog is the easier ride. If you want open standards, the option to self host and pricing you can shape around usage, Grafana is the better long term bet, and Grafana Cloud's free tier lets a small team start without spending anything. Try each on the same services before you sign anything annual.
The open-source pairing is explained in our Prometheus versus Grafana guide.
Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana cheaper than Datadog?
It depends on usage. Grafana is free to self host and Grafana Cloud has a free tier, while Datadog charges per product, such as $15 per host per month for Infrastructure Pro billed annually, as of October 2026.
Does Datadog have a free plan?
Yes. Datadog's free infrastructure tier covers up to 5 hosts with 1 day metric retention.
Can Grafana replace Datadog?
Grafana, especially Grafana Cloud with metrics, logs and traces, can cover much of the same ground, but you may need to assemble more pieces yourself.
Is Grafana open source?
Yes. Grafana Labs describes Grafana as an open source data visualisation and monitoring solution.
How much is Grafana Cloud Pro?
Grafana lists a $19 monthly platform fee that includes allowances, then pay as you go pricing, as of October 2026.
