# Better Stack vs SigNoz

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

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Better Stack | SigNoz |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| 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. | $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 | 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. | 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 | 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. | 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

- Better Stack: Yes ([source](https://betterstack.com/pricing))
- SigNoz: No ([source](https://signoz.io/pricing/))

### 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. ([source](https://betterstack.com/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

- 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. ([source](https://betterstack.com/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

- 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. ([source](https://betterstack.com/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 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 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: 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.

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

- 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.
- Session replay: Better Stack: Supported
- 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: Better Stack or SigNoz?**

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.
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: Better Stack or SigNoz?**

Better Stack: Yes
SigNoz: No

**Should I choose Better Stack or SigNoz?**

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 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.