Axiom vs Sentry
A comparison of Axiom and Sentry built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
- 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.
4 sourced criteria separate them:
- 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.
- Sentry: $26/month for Team, the cheapest paid plan
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Sentry: Billed, not throttled: each meter charges for additional usage beyond the included amount, at a published per-unit rate.
- Retention window
- Axiom: 30 days on the free Personal plan; configurable on Cloud rather than fixed.
- 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.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Axiom 0
Sentry 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Axiom | Sentry |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| 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. |
| Observability | ||
| 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.
- Sentry
- $26/month for Team, the cheapest paid plan
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Axiom ↗
“Cloud For teams scaling from first deployment to hyperscale. $25 / month Platform fee + usage. No minimum commitment. → Always Free allowance (1 TB / 100 GB-hrs / 100 GB) included”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Sentry ↗
“$26/mo [...] Additional events (See pricing) [...] $80/mo”
Read 2026-09-06 · official 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Axiom ↗
“Platform fee + usage. No minimum commitment. → Always Free allowance (1 TB / 100 GB-hrs / 100 GB) included → Automatic volume discounts on usage beyond the allowance → Configurable retention”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Sentry ↗
“Error Monitoring 5k errors 50k errors [...] Logs 5GB 5GB +$0.50/GB additional [...] Application Metrics 5GB 5GB +$0.50/GB additional [...] Tracing 5M spans [...] Session Replay 50 replays [...] Uptime Monitoring 1 uptime monitor +$1.00/uptime alert additional”
Read 2026-09-06 · official 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.
- Sentry
- Billed, not throttled: each meter charges for additional usage beyond the included amount, at a published per-unit rate.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Usage and billing — Axiom Docs ↗
“When your accumulated charges reach your spending limit, Axiom automatically pauses actions that generate further costs. This can cause interruptions to your service. [...] if you have used up the query compute allowance included in your pricing plan, you can't run queries and your monitors can't query your data. At the same time, if you haven't yet used up the data loading allowance, you can still ingest data.”
Read 2026-09-08 · official docs
- Pricing — Sentry ↗
“Additional events (See pricing) [...] +$0.50/GB additional [...] +$1.00/uptime alert additional”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Retention window
- Axiom
- 30 days on the free Personal plan; configurable on Cloud rather than fixed.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Axiom ↗
“→ 25 GB storage → 30-day retention → Full APL access [...] → Configurable retention”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Sentry ↗
“Data retention [...] 30-day lookback [...] Up to 90-day lookback [...] Up to 90-day lookback & additional sampled retention [...] Custom”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Which should you choose?
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- 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.
- 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.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
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.