# Axiom vs Sentry

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/axiom-vs-sentry/

Every value below is read from Axiom's and Sentry's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Axiom | Sentry |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Entry paid plan | $25/month platform fee for Cloud, plus usage, with no minimum commitment. The plan carries an always-free allowance of 1 TB loaded, 100 GB-hours of query compute and 100 GB stored. | $26/month for Team, the cheapest paid plan |
| Pricing model | A platform fee plus three separate meters — data loaded, query compute in GB-hours, and stored GB — each with an always-free allowance included on every plan and automatic volume discounts above it. | A plan fee plus five independent meters — errors, logs, application metrics, tracing spans and session replays — each with its own included amount and its own overage. Logs and metrics overflow at $0.50/GB; extra uptime alerts at $1.00 each. |
| When you exceed a cap | Billed, then paused per meter. Charges accrue past the Always Free allowance until they reach the spending limit you set, at which point Axiom stops the actions that cost money — and it stops them meter by meter: exhausting query compute halts queries and the monitors that depend on them while ingestion keeps running on an unspent data-loading allowance. Axiom says plainly that this can interrupt service. | Billed, not throttled: each meter charges for additional usage beyond the included amount, at a published per-unit rate. |
| Retention window | 30 days on the free Personal plan; configurable on Cloud rather than fixed. | 30-day lookback on Developer, the free plan. Up to 90 days on Team, and up to 90 days plus additional sampled retention on Business. Enterprise is custom. "Up to" is Sentry's own wording — the 90 days is a ceiling, not a guarantee. |

## Where they differ

### Entry paid plan

- Axiom: $25/month platform fee for Cloud, plus usage, with no minimum commitment. The plan carries an always-free allowance of 1 TB loaded, 100 GB-hours of query compute and 100 GB stored. ([source](https://axiom.co/pricing))
- Sentry: $26/month for Team, the cheapest paid plan ([source](https://sentry.io/pricing/))

### Pricing model

- Axiom: A platform fee plus three separate meters — data loaded, query compute in GB-hours, and stored GB — each with an always-free allowance included on every plan and automatic volume discounts above it. ([source](https://axiom.co/pricing))
- Sentry: A plan fee plus five independent meters — errors, logs, application metrics, tracing spans and session replays — each with its own included amount and its own overage. Logs and metrics overflow at $0.50/GB; extra uptime alerts at $1.00 each. ([source](https://sentry.io/pricing/))

### When you exceed a cap

- Axiom: Billed, then paused per meter. Charges accrue past the Always Free allowance until they reach the spending limit you set, at which point Axiom stops the actions that cost money — and it stops them meter by meter: exhausting query compute halts queries and the monitors that depend on them while ingestion keeps running on an unspent data-loading allowance. Axiom says plainly that this can interrupt service. ([source](https://axiom.co/docs/reference/usage-billing))
- Sentry: Billed, not throttled: each meter charges for additional usage beyond the included amount, at a published per-unit rate. ([source](https://sentry.io/pricing/))

### Retention window

- Axiom: 30 days on the free Personal plan; configurable on Cloud rather than fixed. ([source](https://axiom.co/pricing))
- Sentry: 30-day lookback on Developer, the free plan. Up to 90 days on Team, and up to 90 days plus additional sampled retention on Business. Enterprise is custom. "Up to" is Sentry's own wording — the 90 days is a ceiling, not a guarantee. ([source](https://sentry.io/pricing/))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Axiom if Small projects that want a real telemetry platform for nothing — 500 GB a month loaded with 30-day retention, permanently, is the most generous free allowance in this category.

Pick Sentry if Teams that want tracing, logs, replays and uptime in one place and will pay per meter for it. The tooling is the deepest in the category and the SDK coverage is the widest.

Consider something else: Axiom — Query compute is billed as its own meter in GB-hours, so an expensive dashboard costs money even when ingest is inside the allowance.

Consider something else: Sentry — Five meters bill independently, so 50,000 errors is not 50,000 units of observability. A team watching cost needs to watch spans and logs too, not just the error count.

## Documented by only one

- Regions: Axiom: Two, both on AWS: US East 1 and EU Central 1. Axiom calls them edge deployments — you pick one per organisation and event data is stored at rest there, while the console stays at app.axiom.co. Datasets in one organisation can sit in different deployments. New ones are added on request rather than published as a roadmap.
- Events included: Sentry: 50,000 errors a month on Team and Business; 5,000 on Free. Errors are one meter of several — logs, spans, replays and uptime monitors are counted and billed separately.
- Session replay: Sentry: Supported
- Self-hostable: Sentry: Limited

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Axiom or Sentry?**

Axiom: $25/month platform fee for Cloud, plus usage, with no minimum commitment. The plan carries an always-free allowance of 1 TB loaded, 100 GB-hours of query compute and 100 GB stored.
Sentry: $26/month for Team, the cheapest paid plan

**When you exceed a cap: Axiom or Sentry?**

Axiom: Billed, then paused per meter. Charges accrue past the Always Free allowance until they reach the spending limit you set, at which point Axiom stops the actions that cost money — and it stops them meter by meter: exhausting query compute halts queries and the monitors that depend on them while ingestion keeps running on an unspent data-loading allowance. Axiom says plainly that this can interrupt service.
Sentry: Billed, not throttled: each meter charges for additional usage beyond the included amount, at a published per-unit rate.

**Should I choose Axiom or Sentry?**

Pick Axiom if Small projects that want a real telemetry platform for nothing — 500 GB a month loaded with 30-day retention, permanently, is the most generous free allowance in this category.
Pick Sentry if Teams that want tracing, logs, replays and uptime in one place and will pay per meter for it. The tooling is the deepest in the category and the SDK coverage is the widest.