# Axiom vs SigNoz

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

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Axiom | SigNoz |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| 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. | $49/month for Teams, and the $49 is usage credit rather than a fee on top — SigNoz bills against it before charging more. |
| 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. | Per GB ingested, with no per-user, per-host or custom-metric pricing — SigNoz states all three exclusions explicitly. Retention is a per-signal choice that changes the rate. |
| Retention window | 30 days on the free Personal plan; configurable on Cloud rather than fixed. | 15 days by default for logs and traces, selectable up to 30, 90, 180 days or 1 year at higher rates. |

## Where they differ

### Free tier

- Axiom: Yes ([source](https://axiom.co/pricing))
- SigNoz: No ([source](https://signoz.io/pricing/))

### 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))
- SigNoz: $49/month for Teams, and the $49 is usage credit rather than a fee on top — SigNoz bills against it before charging more. ([source](https://signoz.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))
- SigNoz: Per GB ingested, with no per-user, per-host or custom-metric pricing — SigNoz states all three exclusions explicitly. Retention is a per-signal choice that changes the rate. ([source](https://signoz.io/pricing/))

### Retention window

- Axiom: 30 days on the free Personal plan; configurable on Cloud rather than fixed. ([source](https://axiom.co/pricing))
- SigNoz: 15 days by default for logs and traces, selectable up to 30, 90, 180 days or 1 year at higher rates. ([source](https://signoz.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 SigNoz if Teams that want per-GB billing without per-host or per-seat charges, and the option to run the same product themselves rather than being locked to the cloud version.

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: SigNoz — $0.30 per GB is six times OpenObserve's rate, so a high-volume log pipeline pays a large premium for the packaging.

## Documented by only one

- 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.
- 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.
- Self-hostable: SigNoz: Supported
- Ingest price per GB: SigNoz: $0.30 per GB ingested for logs, and the same for traces. Retention is chosen per signal and priced with it.

## Questions this comparison answers

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

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.
SigNoz: $49/month for Teams, and the $49 is usage credit rather than a fee on top — SigNoz bills against it before charging more.

**Free tier: Axiom or SigNoz?**

Axiom: Yes
SigNoz: No

**Should I choose Axiom or SigNoz?**

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 SigNoz if Teams that want per-GB billing without per-host or per-seat charges, and the option to run the same product themselves rather than being locked to the cloud version.