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Better Stack vs Grafana Cloud

SEPT 2026 audit

A comparison of Better Stack and Grafana Cloud built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated 24 criteria comparedSources last checked

The short answer

Choose Better Stack if…

Teams who would otherwise buy uptime monitoring, log management and error tracking separately, and would rather have one bill and one dashboard.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Choose Grafana Cloud if…

Metrics-heavy monitoring where 13 months of retention matters — that window is an order of magnitude beyond what the error trackers and most telemetry platforms keep.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Consider something else if…

  • Better Stack: Web event retention is 3 days on the free plan, which is short enough to miss a Monday-morning investigation of a Friday-night incident.
  • Grafana Cloud: Logs and traces get 30 days rather than 13 months, so the headline retention figure does not describe most of what you send it.

Neither quite fits? Every other option, ranked by iScore: Better Stack alternatives · Grafana Cloud alternatives

18 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.

Visit Better Stack documentationVisit Grafana Cloud documentation

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

01.

At a glance.

CriterionBetter StackGrafana Cloud
Pricing
Free tierYesYes
Kind of free offerFree tierFree tier
What the free plan includes
3 GB of logs a month retained 3 days, 100,000 exceptions, and uptime monitoring with on-call and status pages at $0 per member.
50 GB ingested a month with 14-day retention and community support, described as always free.
Entry paid plan
From $29/month, or $34/month depending on the plan selected; Better Stack advertises both figures as starting prices on the same page.
$19/month platform fee for Pro, which includes 10,000 active series before usage billing starts.
Pricing modelOne plan covering uptime monitoring, log management and error tracking together, with exceptions counted per month and web events metered by volume and retention rather than by count.A $19 platform fee plus metered usage, with volume discounts applied automatically rather than negotiated. The enterprise tier starts at a $25,000 annual spend commitment.
Infrastructure
RegionsEU by default; logs ingestion is priced per region for US, Germany and Singapore, and custom data locations are offered to enterprise accounts.28 region/provider combinations across AWS, GCP and Azure, from US East and EU Germany to UK, India, Singapore, Japan, Brazil and Australia; a stack cannot change region after creation.
Observability
Events included100,000 exceptions and 5,000 session replays a month on the free personal plan, plus 30 GB metrics and 3 GB each of logs, traces and web events. Six meters, priced separately: exceptions at $0.000050 each, replays at $0.00150, metrics at $0.50 per GB per month.Free plan, per month: 10k active metrics series; 50 GB each of logs, traces and profiles; 50k frontend-observability sessions; 500 k6 virtual user hours; 100k API test executions. Grafana meters series, GB, sessions and host hours; no event-count meter is published.
Retention window90 days for errors and session replays. Logs, traces and web events are retained 3 days on the free personal plan, where retention is what the 3 GB allowance buys rather than a fixed window.13 months for metrics and 30 days for logs, traces, profiles and k6 tests on Pro. The free tier is 14 days for everything.
Session replay
Supported
Limited — Public preview add-on to Frontend Observability, disabled by default and enabled per stack on request.
Self-hostable
Not supported — SaaS only; same page lists Better Stack data ownership as "SaaS-hosted (optional S3 bucket)".
Supported
Ingest price per GB$0.10 per GB for logs and traces in the Germany region ($0.15 US, $0.35 Singapore) beyond 3 GB/month included; retention billed separately at $0.05 per GB-month in Germany.From $0.050 per GB processed, falling to $0.046 above 10,000 GB and $0.044 above 25,000 with automatic volume discounts.
Compliance
SOC 2SOC 2 Type 2 compliant; the report is shared under NDA on request.SOC 2 report listed in the Grafana Labs Trust Center, available on request.
ISO 27001
Not claimed for Better Stack itself; data is stored in DIN ISO/IEC 27001-certified data centres.
ISO/IEC 27001 certificate and Statement of Applicability listed in the Trust Center.
GDPR / data residencyGDPR compliant with a Data Processing Agreement; all data stored in EU regions by default.GDPR, EU-US DPF and UK/Swiss extensions listed in the Trust Center with a DPA; residency comes from choosing one of the published regions at stack creation.
PCI DSS
Not certified itself: card data is never stored and payments run through Stripe, a PCI Service Provider Level 1.
PCI DSS v4.0.1 listed among Trust Center compliance documents.
Encryption at restAES-256 at rest and HTTPS/TLS in transit.AES-256 for storage and HTTPS/TLS in transit; Grafana Cloud manages the keys with industry-standard key management systems.
Customer-managed keys
Not offered. Better Stack's own comparison says it has no equivalent to Honeycomb's Secure Tenancy (customer-managed-key encryption).
Keys are managed by Grafana Cloud with industry-standard key management systems. — Read from the Grafana Assistant security page, which describes how Grafana Cloud stores customer data.
Role-based access controlListed as an Enterprise feature alongside team-level isolation, SCIM and SSO enforcement.Grafana Cloud administrative controls and role-based access control (RBAC).
Private networking / VPCCustom VPC deployment on Enterprise; logs ingestion over AWS Direct Connect at $0.04 per GB.AWS PrivateLink, Azure Private Link and GCP Private Service Connect are documented connectivity options for Grafana Cloud.
Dedicated infrastructureCustom cluster deployment offered on the enterprise tier for logs and traces.Bring Your Own Cloud deploys the managed stack into a dedicated cloud account in your AWS or GCP (Azure case-by-case) rather than a Grafana Labs-owned account.

Only criteria both providers publish appear here; a tinted cell marks a real difference. Criteria only one of them documents are listed below, and an absence there means we found no source — not that the feature is missing. How we source this.

The small bar above a value is inetGeek's own lean toward that side — computed from the same facts shown, never a number the provider published. See the picker below "The short answer" to weigh only the criteria you care about.

02.

Where they differ.

What the free plan includes

Better Stack

3 GB of logs a month retained 3 days, 100,000 exceptions, and uptime monitoring with on-call and status pages at $0 per member.

Grafana Cloud

50 GB ingested a month with 14-day retention and community support, described as always free.

Sources (2) →

Entry paid plan

Better Stack
From $29/month, or $34/month depending on the plan selected; Better Stack advertises both figures as starting prices on the same page.
Grafana Cloud
$19/month platform fee for Pro, which includes 10,000 active series before usage billing starts.
Sources (2) →

Pricing model

Better Stack
One plan covering uptime monitoring, log management and error tracking together, with exceptions counted per month and web events metered by volume and retention rather than by count.
Grafana Cloud
A $19 platform fee plus metered usage, with volume discounts applied automatically rather than negotiated. The enterprise tier starts at a $25,000 annual spend commitment.
Sources (2) →
  • Pricing — Better Stack ↗

    “Web events [...] Free for personal projects $0 per month [...] 100,000 exceptions per month [...] 3 GB web events retained for 3 days [...] Free access to Telemetry.”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Pricing — Grafana Cloud ↗

    “From $19 / month + usage with volume discounts [...] Automatic volume discounts [...] Enterprise Full service Starts at $25,000 / year spend commit”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

Regions

Better Stack
EU by default; logs ingestion is priced per region for US, Germany and Singapore, and custom data locations are offered to enterprise accounts.
Grafana Cloud
28 region/provider combinations across AWS, GCP and Azure, from US East and EU Germany to UK, India, Singapore, Japan, Brazil and Australia; a stack cannot change region after creation.
Sources (2) →

Events included

Better Stack
100,000 exceptions and 5,000 session replays a month on the free personal plan, plus 30 GB metrics and 3 GB each of logs, traces and web events. Six meters, priced separately: exceptions at $0.000050 each, replays at $0.00150, metrics at $0.50 per GB per month.
Grafana Cloud
Free plan, per month: 10k active metrics series; 50 GB each of logs, traces and profiles; 50k frontend-observability sessions; 500 k6 virtual user hours; 100k API test executions. Grafana meters series, GB, sessions and host hours; no event-count meter is published.
Sources (2) →
  • Pricing — Better Stack ↗

    “Free for personal projects $0 per month [...] 100,000 exceptions per month 5,000 session replays 3 GB logs retained for 3 days 3 GB traces retained for 3 days 30 GB metrics 3 GB web events retained for 3 days [...] Additional exceptions $0.000050 per exception [...] Additional session replays $0.00150 per session replay”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Pricing | Grafana Labs ↗

    “Limited to 10k active series per month [...] Limited to 50 GB ingested per month [...] Limited to 50k sessions per month”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

Retention window

Better Stack
90 days for errors and session replays. Logs, traces and web events are retained 3 days on the free personal plan, where retention is what the 3 GB allowance buys rather than a fixed window.
Grafana Cloud
13 months for metrics and 30 days for logs, traces, profiles and k6 tests on Pro. The free tier is 14 days for everything.
Sources (2) →
  • Pricing — Better Stack ↗

    “Error tracking [...] Retention 90 days [...] Session replay [...] Retention 90 days [...] Free for personal projects [...] 3 GB logs retained for 3 days 3 GB traces retained for 3 days [...] 3 GB web events retained for 3 days”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Pricing — Grafana Cloud ↗

    “13 months retention for metrics; 30 days retention for logs, traces, profiles, & k6 performance tests [...] Limited to 50 GB ingested per month 14 day retention”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

Session replay

Better Stack
Supported
Grafana Cloud
Limited — Public preview add-on to Frontend Observability, disabled by default and enabled per stack on request.
Sources (2) →
  • Pricing — Better Stack ↗

    “Session replay [...] See how your users interact with your product. Watch at 2x speed, skip pauses, view correlated errors, traces, logs, and events. [...] Included 5,000 session replays [...] Additional session replays $0.00150 per session replay [...] Retention 90 days”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Session Replay | Grafana Cloud documentation ↗

    “Grafana Labs offers limited support, and breaking changes might occur prior to the feature being made generally available. [...] Session Replay is disabled by default and must be enabled per Grafana Cloud stack. [...] Session Replay is an add-on feature for Grafana Cloud Frontend Observability”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

Self-hostable

Better Stack
Not supported — SaaS only; same page lists Better Stack data ownership as "SaaS-hosted (optional S3 bucket)".
Grafana Cloud
Supported
Sources (2) →

Ingest price per GB

Better Stack
$0.10 per GB for logs and traces in the Germany region ($0.15 US, $0.35 Singapore) beyond 3 GB/month included; retention billed separately at $0.05 per GB-month in Germany.
Grafana Cloud
From $0.050 per GB processed, falling to $0.046 above 10,000 GB and $0.044 above 25,000 with automatic volume discounts.
Sources (2) →

SOC 2

Better Stack
SOC 2 Type 2 compliant; the report is shared under NDA on request.
Grafana Cloud
SOC 2 report listed in the Grafana Labs Trust Center, available on request.
Sources (2) →

ISO 27001

Better Stack
Not claimed for Better Stack itself; data is stored in DIN ISO/IEC 27001-certified data centres.
Grafana Cloud
ISO/IEC 27001 certificate and Statement of Applicability listed in the Trust Center.
Sources (2) →

GDPR / data residency

Better Stack
GDPR compliant with a Data Processing Agreement; all data stored in EU regions by default.
Grafana Cloud
GDPR, EU-US DPF and UK/Swiss extensions listed in the Trust Center with a DPA; residency comes from choosing one of the published regions at stack creation.
Sources (2) →

PCI DSS

Better Stack
Not certified itself: card data is never stored and payments run through Stripe, a PCI Service Provider Level 1.
Grafana Cloud
PCI DSS v4.0.1 listed among Trust Center compliance documents.
Sources (2) →

Encryption at rest

Better Stack
AES-256 at rest and HTTPS/TLS in transit.
Grafana Cloud
AES-256 for storage and HTTPS/TLS in transit; Grafana Cloud manages the keys with industry-standard key management systems.
Sources (2) →

Customer-managed keys

Better Stack
Not offered. Better Stack's own comparison says it has no equivalent to Honeycomb's Secure Tenancy (customer-managed-key encryption).
Grafana Cloud
Keys are managed by Grafana Cloud with industry-standard key management systems. — Read from the Grafana Assistant security page, which describes how Grafana Cloud stores customer data.
Sources (2) →

Role-based access control

Better Stack
Listed as an Enterprise feature alongside team-level isolation, SCIM and SSO enforcement.
Grafana Cloud
Grafana Cloud administrative controls and role-based access control (RBAC).
Sources (2) →

Private networking / VPC

Better Stack
Custom VPC deployment on Enterprise; logs ingestion over AWS Direct Connect at $0.04 per GB.
Grafana Cloud
AWS PrivateLink, Azure Private Link and GCP Private Service Connect are documented connectivity options for Grafana Cloud.
Sources (2) →

Dedicated infrastructure

Better Stack
Custom cluster deployment offered on the enterprise tier for logs and traces.
Grafana Cloud
Bring Your Own Cloud deploys the managed stack into a dedicated cloud account in your AWS or GCP (Azure case-by-case) rather than a Grafana Labs-owned account.
Sources (2) →

When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.

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03.

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 — except where we say we read the other provider's own page on a given date and it does not state it. Those rows lean, and the provider can correct them with a link.

Credit card to startGrafana Cloud: No
Query priceBetter Stack: Standard querying included; optional Query boost at $0.001 per GB scanned.
Support on entry paid planGrafana Cloud: Community support on Free; 8x5 email support on Pro, from $19/month plus usage. Enterprise starts at $25,000/year.
HIPAABetter Stack: Not offered; the security page says Better Stack is currently not HIPAA compliant.
04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Entry paid plan: Better Stack or Grafana Cloud?

Better Stack: From $29/month, or $34/month depending on the plan selected; Better Stack advertises both figures as starting prices on the same page.

Grafana Cloud: $19/month platform fee for Pro, which includes 10,000 active series before usage billing starts.

Should I choose Better Stack or Grafana Cloud?

Pick Better Stack if Teams who would otherwise buy uptime monitoring, log management and error tracking separately, and would rather have one bill and one dashboard.

Pick Grafana Cloud if Metrics-heavy monitoring where 13 months of retention matters — that window is an order of magnitude beyond what the error trackers and most telemetry platforms keep.

Provider pages

Better StackUptime monitoring, log management and error tracking on one plan, with exceptions and web events metered separately.Grafana CloudHosted Grafana, Loki, Mimir and Tempo with a small platform fee, usage billing and unusually long metrics retention.

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Comments

Every page here is sourced and dated.