What TrustRadius Research Says
Datadog Pricing 2022
Cloud management can be a life saver for complex cloud computing applications. This is especially true if you have a lot to monitor, track, and report on. One cloud management service with diverse services and pricing is Datadog.
Datadog has infrastructure management, log management, network monitoring, and so much more. You can pick and choose from different services to find what fits your needs, rather than finding a one size fits all cloud service.
What Does Datadog Do?
Datadog is a SaaS platform that offers cloud management solutions for monitoring, security, and analysis of cloud computing applications. They utilize end-to-end traces, metrics, logs to provide insight into your application.
Datadog has industry specific solutions and can integrate with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Kubernetes and more. Their pricing can be surprisingly easy to follow compared to other cloud management platforms. They have over a hundred reviews here on TrustRadius and a trScore of 8.4/10.
Datadog offers their cloud management services as separate subscription plans. They have several different software systems available to manage your applications. Below is a table of their products.
If you are new to cloud management platforms (CMP) or cloud management software or services, you can see our article on cloud management software for an overview. For an overview of Datadog see this video.
How Much Does Datadog Cost?
Datadog is not one product but rather a cloud management platform (CMP) that consists of multiple services to manage your cloud applications. Each service has a separate subscription plan with different pricing formats. The table in the previous section outlines the services offered.
We are going to cover a few of their more popular offerings to show the range of their pricing models. The links in the table above provide pricing information for services not covered here.
For the best view of what Datadog has we’re exploring Network Monitoring, Infrastructure Management, and Real User Monitoring (RUM).
Network Monitoring
Datadog’s network monitoring service is designed to provide in-depth network visibility. They have two plans available each with their own monitoring focus. The Network Performance Monitoring plan is meant to be holistic with features to track your whole network. It can be used on a private or public cloud as well.
Network Device Monitoring is an option if you need to track on premise network devices. Both subscriptions will be useful for development and IT teams, but completely remote teams won’t need to worry about on premise devices unless they have some members that also use a private cloud option.
Network Monitoring Pricing Plans | Network Performance Monitoring | Network Device Monitoring |
Starting at $5 Per host, per month, billed annually or $7.20 on-demand. | Starting at $7 Per device, per month, billed annually or $10.20 on-demand. |
A key feature of the Network Performance Monitoring service is providing visualization to comprehend traffic patterns, which allows you to conduct detailed searches with tags. It includes traffic mapping, traffic aggregation, and targeted traffic for hosts, containers, and more specific areas.
This plan is great for new and/or small teams that want to manage network performance on multiple hosts. It’s a great help for teams that need to see whether overall usage is meeting goals, and is worth the costs.
Datadog’s Network Device Monitoring service has an increased focus on overall health of your network devices along with performance. Metrics are collected from your routers, firewalls, and other integral hardware. For advanced tracking, you can set your own alerts based on preferences and project needs.
This network management system is great for those cloud computing on private clouds who are concerned with security issues associated with personal devices. This can ensure you’re in control and aware of your cloud needs and frequent protection.
Those that have team members that need to store important data on personal computers might consider this plan. In person startups and small businesses that work in-office will also benefit from protecting company equipment.
Infrastructure Management
One awesome part of Datadog’s Infrastructure Management service is that their plan for starting teams is free! These infrastructure plans come stacked with different features for providing insight into your applications. Each plan upgrades the limit of your metric retention (the length of time your metric data is held).
Free | Pro | Enterprise | |
Cost | $0 | $15 Per host, per month annually or $18 on-demand. | $23 Per host, per month annually or $27 on-demand. 100 host minimum. |
The Free subscription starts your team at 1-day data metric retention, 5 hosts, container maps, and over 500 integrations. This is ideal for stricter budgets and small businesses that do not need extended metric retention. The plan also supports advanced security and group discussion for collaboration.
The Pro plan jumps to 15 months of metric retention. You also get unlimited alerts, container monitoring (10 per host), and custom metrics (100 per host). The plan upgrades your support as well with chat and email support. If your projects require longer retention, and you need more access to customer support, this plan would fit your team better than the free option.
When it comes to the Enterprise plan, you are bumped up to customizable metric retention. There’s also a myriad of awesome features like anomaly detection, forecast monitoring, admin tools, and upgraded support. One feature unique to this plan is the addition of another Datadog service,Watchdog, which is an algorithm for automated insights into your infrastructure metrics.
If your team wants all the best of Datadogs features available for infrastructure management and premium user support this is the one you should choose.
Real User Monitoring (RUM)
Real user monitoring means monitoring the end user of your applications. This service allows you to track issues that occur while your mobile or browser application is in use. This is extremely helpful for UI testing and debugging.
Datadog has plans that are for the mobile perspective, browser perspectives. Datadog records sessions from browsers, and from Android and iOS mobile devices. The pricing model is the starting cost, per month based on the number of sessions used.
Real User Monitoring (RUM) | Mobile | Browser | Session Replay |
Cost | Starting at $0.45 Per 1,000 sessions, per month annually, or $0.65 billed on-demand. | Starting at $0.45 Per 1,000 sessions, per month annually, or $0.65 billed on-demand. | Starting at $1.80 Per 1,000 sessions, per month annually, or $2.60 billed on-demand. |
The Mobile subscription has error tracking, crash reporting, performance metrics, and alerts. This service is designed to provide a great autopsy view of errors in any mobile session on Android and iOS devices. The service is not only for error tracking, as you can use it to report on actions in general.
This way you can report on general usage to understand what is and isn’t working to further improve performance. Use cases for this software would be anyone that needs to monitor their mobile application from a user perspective. The service does not track browser sessions. If you need both you should subscribe to the Browser plan.
The Browser plan offers the same features as the Mobile plan, but for browser sessions.You can track health and performance to improve your applications. This plan is great for those that do not need to test an app, or need both browser and mobile session recorded for their reporting and future development.
Session Replay is an upgraded version of the Browser subscription. It is not both the mobile and browser sessions combined. Session Replay offers all tracking features in Browser, but with visual replays of actual user sessions, hence why they call this plan session replay. It does not offer session replay for mobile sessions. This is the right plan for a team that wants the perspective of user sessions on your application.
The replays have a 30 day retention, and you have a 15 day retention for tracking resources. You will be able to see how long it takes for resources to load during each session. This kind of tracking helps a team note fine details that can affect user satisfaction. This could be poor loading time, or hard to find links.
Datadog is a CMP with quite a bit to offer, but there are certainly other great platforms and software out there.
Datadog Alternatives
When it comes to finding a cloud management platform or cloud management software, the hardest part is finding clear pricing. Datadog has upfront pricing, which isn’t the norm. Other platforms have vastly different and complex pricing models that require a calculator.
Splunk offers products for monitoring and analysis services for big data. They have a service called Observability Cloud, for tracking and monitoring cloud applications. Like Datadog, they have more upfront pricing than other vendors in this space.
It’s still encouraged to contact them for more pricing information, and it is required to purchase their service. Most cloud management providers do not offer upfront pricing, so even though you need to talk to sales you at least go in with an understanding of possible estimates.
Starting plan (unnamed) | Standard | Plus | |
Cost | $65 Per host, per month, billed annually. | $95 Per host, per month, billed annually. | $110 Per host, per month, billed annually. |
Splunk’s offering is pricier than Datadog’s individual monitoring plans,but they come with more services within one subscription. Observability Cloud has metrics, logs, and troubleshooting services. Their combination packages Standard and Plus, come with infrastructure monitoring, APM, log observations, and the Plus plan also has RUM.
Splunk would be a better choice if you want more of a bundle rather than an individual service. You can get a volume discount with Datadog, but you need to contact their sales for that information.
More Resources
Those of you that want to see Datadog reviews can go here to see what users are saying. For more alternatives, you can see the comparison section we have for other similar software.
If you have used any of the platforms discussed please leave a review to help other buyers make informed decisions.
