# Datadog vs Grafana Cloud

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/datadog-vs-grafana-cloud/

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Datadog | Grafana Cloud |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Entry paid plan | $15 per host per month for Infrastructure Pro, the entry paid product. Datadog prices per product rather than per plan, so this is one meter of many rather than a platform fee. | $19/month platform fee for Pro, which includes 10,000 active series before usage billing starts. |
| Pricing model | Per product, not per plan: infrastructure per host, logs split between ingest per GB and indexing per million events, with retention chosen per index and priced accordingly. There is no single Datadog price — this profile follows Log Management, which is the meter comparable to the per-GB platforms in this category. | 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. |
| Retention window | Chosen per index and priced with it: 3, 7, 15 or 30 days, or greater than 30 by arrangement. The $1.70 per million rate is the 15-day tier. Infrastructure metrics retain 1 day on the free plan. | 13 months for metrics and 30 days for logs, traces, profiles and k6 tests on Pro. The free tier is 14 days for everything. |
| Ingest price per GB | $0.10 per ingested or scanned GB per month for Log Management, billed annually — the same rate on demand. Indexing those logs is charged separately. | From $0.050 per GB processed, falling to $0.046 above 10,000 GB and $0.044 above 25,000 with automatic volume discounts. |

## Where they differ

### Entry paid plan

- Datadog: $15 per host per month for Infrastructure Pro, the entry paid product. Datadog prices per product rather than per plan, so this is one meter of many rather than a platform fee. ([source](https://www.datadoghq.com/pricing/))
- Grafana Cloud: $19/month platform fee for Pro, which includes 10,000 active series before usage billing starts. ([source](https://grafana.com/pricing/))

### Pricing model

- Datadog: Per product, not per plan: infrastructure per host, logs split between ingest per GB and indexing per million events, with retention chosen per index and priced accordingly. There is no single Datadog price — this profile follows Log Management, which is the meter comparable to the per-GB platforms in this category. ([source](https://www.datadoghq.com/pricing/))
- 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. ([source](https://grafana.com/pricing/))

### Retention window

- Datadog: Chosen per index and priced with it: 3, 7, 15 or 30 days, or greater than 30 by arrangement. The $1.70 per million rate is the 15-day tier. Infrastructure metrics retain 1 day on the free plan. ([source](https://www.datadoghq.com/pricing/))
- 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. ([source](https://grafana.com/pricing/))

### Ingest price per GB

- Datadog: $0.10 per ingested or scanned GB per month for Log Management, billed annually — the same rate on demand. Indexing those logs is charged separately. ([source](https://www.datadoghq.com/pricing/))
- 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. ([source](https://grafana.com/pricing/))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Datadog if Teams that need one vendor across infrastructure, logs, traces and replay, and can model a bill that has a separate meter for each.

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.

Consider something else: Datadog — Ingest and indexing are billed separately on the same logs, so $0.10 per GB is not the cost of keeping a log — the indexing charge above it is where the bill actually lands.

Consider something else: 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.

## Documented by only one

- Events included: Datadog: None included. Log indexing is $1.70 per million events per month at 15-day retention, and Flex Storage is $0.05 per million events stored — ingest and indexing are separate charges on the same logs.
- Session replay: Datadog: Supported
- Self-hostable: Grafana Cloud: Supported

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Datadog or Grafana Cloud?**

Datadog: $15 per host per month for Infrastructure Pro, the entry paid product. Datadog prices per product rather than per plan, so this is one meter of many rather than a platform fee.
Grafana Cloud: $19/month platform fee for Pro, which includes 10,000 active series before usage billing starts.

**Should I choose Datadog or Grafana Cloud?**

Pick Datadog if Teams that need one vendor across infrastructure, logs, traces and replay, and can model a bill that has a separate meter for each.
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.